 Legends abound of pirates using the island to hide their booty, and generations of children have gone digging for this treasure.Legend also states that French Huguenots used the island as a place of refuge for fleeing persecution.In 1733, when General James Oglethorpe founded the Georgia colony, a surveyor named Noble Jones was granted a tract on the island that was eventually named Wormsloe, possibly after an English estate but more probably due to the mulberry trees that were grown there, the worms of which, it was hoped, would form the basis for a silk industry.