Cumberland Island National Seashore is the largest and southernmost barrier island off the Georgia coast. Visitors find maritime forests, natural beaches and wide salt marshes as well as a variety of birds and other wildlife, native horses, and plants to enjoy as well as hiking, camping, and biking.
Visitors can check out the Dungeness ruins, The First African Baptist Church, the wildlife, the ecosystems as well as the feral horses.
Cumberland Island
This is the largest of Georgia's Sea Islands in terms of continuously exposed land area of Georgia's barrier islands. It is 17.5 miles long with an area of 16,850 acres of marsh, mudflats, and tidal creeks. The island is completely isolated from the shore with no bridge; and the only way to reach the island is by the Cumberland Ferry which departs daily from downtown St. Marys, Georgia.
Along the western edge of the island grow ancient live oak trees draped in Spanish moss among the salt marshes. Native animals include white-tailed deer, squirrels, raccoons, nine-banded armadillos, alligators, wild boars and the famous wild horses roaming freely on the island.
Endangered Species
Endangered species living on the island include wood storks, piping plovers, least terns, gopher tortoises, manatees and sea turtles.
Sharks
The area around Cumberland Island is home to the largest shark population on the eastern Atlantic shore. Some of the largest of the sharks reside in a deep depression just off the northern tip of Cumberland Island called the “Eighty Foot Hole.” Interestingly however, shark attacks are rare with only one shark attack on record. This attack took place in June, 2010 when a shark attacked a woman relaxing in water less than 18 inches deep on the shore. Her wrist and hand suffered cuts and required stitches but there were no life-threatening wounds.
First Settlers
The Island's first residents were the Native Americans who settled there 4000 years ago.
When the English General James Oglethorpe arrived in 1733, he named the island after the Duke of Cumberland. Soon he established a hunting lodge named Dungeness, named after a headland in Kent, England. At the southern tip of the island, Oglethorpe built Fort William and at the northern end, Fort St. Andrews with the nearby village of Berrimacke.
After the Battle of Bloody Marsh in 1742, where the British defeated the Spanish, they abandoned the forts and no trace remains of them or the village on the island today.
The War of 1812
During the War of 1812, the British once again occupied the island for a short time and used Dungeness as their headquarters. In 1846, there were 36 whites and 400 slaves on the island, but after the Civil War, they abandoned the plantation and Dungeness burned down in 1866.
The Carnegie Mansions
In the 1880’s Thomas Carnegie, the brother of Andrew Carnegie, bought land on Cumberland Island for a retreat and built a mansion on the old Dungeness site. His wife also built Greyfield, Plum Orchard and Stafford Plantation for the children. After the Depression, the Carnegies abandoned the island, and now Greyfield is a private inn, and they donated Plum Orchard in 1972 to the National Park Service, which still maintains it. Stafford Plantation is presently in ruins.
Items of Interest:
The First African Baptist Church is a quaint, one-room structure with 11 handmade pews and three windows on each side. It was built in 1937 to replace the older 1893 structure. This is where John F. Kennedy, Jr. married Carolyn Jeanne Bessette in September, 1996.
The book, “Endangered Species” by the novelist, Nevada Barr, was sited on Cumberland Island. It is part of her Anna Pigeon series.
Information:
101 Wheeler Street
St. Marys, Georgia 31558
Visitor Information: (912) 882-4336 ext. 254
Fax: (912) 882-6284
Diane Evans - I am a retired civil engineer as well as a member of Sisters in Crime and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
