Cumberland Island Boneyard Beach
by Carla Parris
Title
Cumberland Island Boneyard Beach
Artist
Carla Parris
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photograph
Description
Cumberland Island, located off the Atlantic coast of Georgia, is the southernmost, and largest, of the state’s Sea islands. This barrier island, which is not connected to the mainland by any bridge, is generally accessed by the ferry running from St. Mary’s.
This wild, largely undeveloped island is home to Cumberland Island National Seashore. There are large uninhabited stretches of beach, some of which have large pieces of driftwood such as that pictured here on this boneyard beach. The inland areas are thick with palmettos and underbrush, and overhung with oak trees dripping with Spanish moss.
The island was inhabited early on by aboriginal people. A Spanish mission was established in the 16th century, and in the 1730’s, James Oglethorpe laid out two forts on opposite ends of the eighteen mile long island. Planters arrived shortly thereafter, and following the American Revolution, families such as that of Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene acquired property and built early homes, such as Greene’s original Dungeness Manor. The island was devastated by the Civil War, and speculators and freed slaves were involved in the early rebuilding efforts.
In the early 1880s, Thomas Morrison Carnegie, brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and his wife, Lucy Coleman Carnegie, bought land, and at one time, owned 90% of the island’s real estate. This was during the same era that other wealthy families from the north, such as those of J.P. Morgan, William Rockefeller, Vincent Astor, Joseph Pulitzer, and William K. Vanderbilt, built their “cottages” on nearby Jekyll Island, and established the prestigious Jekyll Island Club. The Carnegies had been declined access to Jekyll Island, and membership in its elite Club, presumably because of their superior wealth, and so they made Cumberland Island the site of their winter retreat. In 1884, they began construction of a 59-room Scottish castle-inspired mansion on the site of the original Dungeness Mansion. They also built 40 smaller structures for their 200 servants. The stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression brought the end of Cumberland’s, and Jekyll’s, aristocratic hey day, although members of the Carnegie family still own, operate, and inhabit various properties on Cumberland Island.
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October 29th, 2016
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