Josiah Tattnall Sr.

The first house on the plantation, made of English brick, was destroyed by a fire on 7 January 1771.[8] John Berendt wrote in his 1994 book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil that a formal dinner party, held by either Mullryne or Tattnall,[4] was in progress when one of the servants informed the host that the roof was ablaze and that nothing could be done to stop it. The host "rose calmly, clinked his glass, and invited guests to pick up their dinner plates and follow him into the garden", where they ate the remainder of their meals in the glow of the flames.[9] The house was replaced by a mansion, also made of brick. This also burned down, in 1804.[3]

During the Revolutionary War, when Savannahians ousted and arrested royal Governor James Wright in February 1776, Mullryne and Tattnall aided his escape through Bonaventure to HMS Scarborough, a British naval vessel nearby.[10]

After their actions in support of the Crown (then King George III), an order was made from the Revolutionary government for their arrest and deportation from Georgia. Both Mullryne (to Nassau in the Bahamas) and Tattnall (to London, England) subsequently fled the country.[7][8] The Bonaventure estate was confiscated by the government in 1782 and sold at public auction to John Habersham, a friend of the Tattnalls, who sold the property in 1788 to Josiah Tattnall, Jr., who had married two years earlier.[4] Tattnall was provided with three grandchildren between 1788 and 1795. All three came to live with him in London, England, after the deaths of their mother and father in 1802 and 1803, respectively.[4] One of them, the third Josiah Tattnall, became a Commodore in the United States Navy.