I had a plan for the day. My first stop was going to be Cumberland Island, and then I was going to drive up the coast of Georgia to hit the other National Parks. However, when I was looking up where Cumberland Island was I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen. The only way to get to Cumberland Island is by ferry, and today there was only 1 ferry going to the island and 1 coming back. If you miss the ferry you are stuck on the island. So I quickly changed my plans to spend the whole day on the island. I didn’t reserve a ferry ticket ahead of time, so I was on the standby list. I waited until the boat was going to head to the island and I guess some people didn’t show up so I was able to go. While I was waiting in line, I looked up what I could do since I was going to spend all day there and I decided to sign up for the tour of the island. Before the boat left, I ran back to my car for my umbrella since the day was overcast. On my way back I saw a sign right where I was parked saying that there was a 2 hour limit or my car would be towed. I panicked, but there was nothing I could do. The ferry was minutes from leaving and if I missed it I couldn’t catch another one. I literally had no time to move my car. I hope no one notices…
When we got to the island I went and joined my group for the tour. They had a van, so we all loaded up in there for our tour of the island. I quickly found out that apparently this was a famous island, and there were several books written about it. The guide would ask a question and everyone knew the answer except me. The island was originally settled by the Spanish, but was eventually abandoned due to pirate attacks. English general James Oglethorpe arrived in 1733 and established a hunting lodge on the island. A fort was built to defend the English settlements north of Spanish Florida. After the English defeated the Spanish in 1742 the forts were no longer needed and were abandoned. Later it was divided into parcels with different owners. Nathanael Greene, a Revolutionary War hero, ended up founding most of southern Cumberland Island. After he died, his widow Catharine Greene, inherited it. She remarried Phineas Miller 10 years later and they built a huge mansion on the island that they called Dungeness and was the site of many social galas. The Millers were the first major planters on the island and they owned over 200 slaves. They employed a man named Eli Whitney, who invented the cotton gin with their financial help in 1793. Catharine Green was also friends with General “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, who was the father of Robert E. Lee, and she took him in when he was ill. He ended up dying on the island and was buried here until he was reinterred at Lexington, Virginia in 1913.
On our way, our guide told us about how the island became a National Park. In the late 1950s, some members of the Carnegie family invited the National Park Service to the island to assess its suitability as a National Seashore. Plans were underway to declare it as a National Seashore. This was complicated in 1968 when several Carnegie descendants sold 3,000 acres to real estate developer Charles Fraser, who wanted to develop it as park of Hilton Head Island. The remaining Carnegie and Candler descendants didn’t want their island to become developed, so they banded together with politicians, activities, and non-profit organizations to stop it. They helped push a bill through Congress to establish Cumberland Island as a National Seashore and all of the owners of the island sold to the federal government. However, several of the owner still wanted access to the islands and their private retreats, so they created property rights. Each of the owners have separate agreements with the NPS. Basically, they own their houses and the land for a set number of years and after the term is up the NPS will own it. It is complicated because each family had different lawyers and they all negotiated for different terms.
The other famous owners on this island where the Carnegies. In the late 1880s, Thomas Carnegie, brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and his wife Lucy bought land on Cumberland for a winter retreat. In 1884, they started building a mansion on the site of Dungeness. Thomas ended up dying before the mansion was finished, but Lucy and their 9 children continued living on the island. Before it became a national park, the Carnegies owned 90% of the island. According to our guide, Lucy was a helicopter mom and wanted to remain in control of her children. To do this, she promised she would build them their own homes as long as they lived on the island. Several of her children took her up on the offer and there are 3 other mansions on the island now. One of them was Greyfield, which was built for Margaret Carnegie Ricketson and her husband Oliver Ricketson. It is now known as Greyfield Inn, and is an inn for the wealthy. It costs about $400 a night for a room and you have to stay for a minimum of 3 nights. I didn’t get a picture of it, but we passed by it on our way to the northern part of the island. The Stafford Planation is still privately owned by members of the Carnegie family. The one that we were able to visit was Plum Orchard, which was built for Thomas M. Carnegie and his wife Margaret Copley Thaw. This is the only mansion built on the northern part of the island by the Carnegies, and it was because Margaret and Lucy did not get along. Margaret wanted to be as far as possible from her. Margaret also wanted everything she had to be better than Lucy’s. So she had an extra wing built at Plum Orchard so it would be bigger than Lucy’s house. And when Lucy got an ice maker, Margaret also had to have one but it had to be bigger. After Thomas died, Margaret ended up remarrying and moving to Kenya.
After the ranger session, the ferry arrive and I returned back to the mainland. The ferry was a lot more crowded, so there were several people inside the cabin. Apparently the mask mandate is flexible, because I saw several people not wearing them inside. We got back after 6pm and I went straight to my car to make sure it was still there. And it was! I even walked around it to make sure I didn’t get a boot, and luckily it didn’t so I was able to continue on my way to my hotel for the night.
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June 2022
AuthorThese are details from my adventures around the world. |