Horses Of Courses 04/12/21

Crooked River State Park, St. Marys, Georgia

Abraham gave the name Isaac (means ‘he laughs’) to the son Sarah bore him.  When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him…Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me… Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?  Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” ~ Genesis 21:3-7       And so, the long promised and long-awaited Isaac has arrived!  And everyone is ecstatic, and all’s right with the world.  End of story.  Not. . . .  There’s trouble brewing in paradise, and I’m not referring to the sacrifice of Isaac. Tune in tomorrow for more dramatic events in the lives of Abraham and Sarah. 

I hardly know where to begin today.  You may or may not remember, but we visited this island three years ago, in January 2018.  It was quite a bit cooler that day.  😊 

Let’s begin with some history that I gathered up from so many places, I can’t begin to remember them.  At 17 miles long, Cumberland Island National Seashore is the largest and southernmost barrier island in Georgia, and it sits only a few hundred yards from the Georgia mainland.  It’s southern end nearly touches the Georgia/Florida state line.

In the 1730s, James Edward Oglethorpe (you’ll recognize his name from Revolutionary War stuff) built two forts here – one on each end of the island.  He also built a hunting lodge and named it Dungeness.

In the 1750s, once slavery was allowed, planters came to the island. I don’t know what they planted.

In 1785, Revolutionary War hero/general, Nathanael Greene and his wife, Catherine received land as a repayment for his personal financial war contributions. He eventually bought half the island and cut and sold live oak trees, mostly selling them to the US Navy.  He died suddenly in Savannah in 1786 of sunstroke (probably due to all those clothes they wore!). 

In 1800, his widow Catherine Littlefield Greene and her second husband, Phineas Miller, returned to the island and had a four story, 68-foot-tall tabby behemoth built and named it Dungeness, after Oglethorpe’s former hunting lodge.

Sorry. I could find no pictures of Phineas! Weird!

They farmed Sea Island cotton, rice, indigo, olives and oranges on the large plantation they had there.

Now here’s some really interesting connections! Eli Whitney (yes, the cotton gin inventor!)

met widowed Catherine on a boat right after he graduated from Yale in 1792, and she hired him to work as a tutor at their home plantation, Mulberry Grove, in Savannah.  She provided a secret workshop, finances and moral support so he could work on his invention.  Wanna guess who his business partner was?  None other than Phineas Miller!  Mr. Miller was originally hired by Nathanael as a tutor for his children, and later, sometime after Greene’s untimely death, Phineas became manager of Catherine’s plantation.  The first automated gin was invented in 1793.  Catherine and Miller were married in 1796, and guess who one of the witnesses was?  You’ll never guess!  President George Washington himself (and Martha, too, of course)!  He was still president!  Until March, 1797.

Nathanael and Catherine’s first two children were named – – George Washington Greene, and Martha Greene.

Now tell me, isn’t that something???  That’s kind of a “Believe it or Not!” bit of history!

Phineas Miller also died young.  On a trip to procure tropical garden plants, he pricked his finger on a thorn and died of blood poisoning on December 7, 1802.  He was 39.

Ten years later, the War of 1812 broke out.  It officially ended in December of 1814 with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, but it took a few months for word to make it across the Atlantic. And Catherine had died of a fever in September, 1814.  As a result of the slow correspondence, the war continued to be fought in North America. In fact, in January 1815, Cumberland Island was occupied by the British Rear Admiral George Cockburn and his troops.  Cockburn offered freedom and passage to the British Caribbean to any enslaved persons in the area who made it to Cumberland Island. Around 1,500 slaves took him up on his offer and fled their American masters.  During his stay on the island, Cockburn occupied the first two floors of Dungeness Mansion, forcing the remaining Greene-Millers upstairs.  By March, Cockburn received word that the war was over and left the island.

Oh.  By the way.  Whitney lived until 1825 and died penniless because his cotton gin had yet to be patented.

When Catherine died, the four-story home and plantation passed to her daughter, Louisa Shaw, who continued running the plantation until her death in 1831.  The home remained in use until it burned in 1866.

The Dungeness ruins stood for fifteen years, serving as a tourist attraction for those who stopped on the island while on their way to Florida for the winter.  Ha!  Even back then, there were snowbirds! 😊

Then, in 1881, Thomas Carnegie (brother to the infamous, ultra-wealthy, philanthropic, steel magnate, Andrew) and his wife, Lucy, bought the Dungeness ruins and property, tore down the remains of the four-story tabby and built their own 37,000 square foot “getaway-from-Pittsburg’s-pollution” home – also bearing the name Dungeness.  It is estimated to have cost $200,000 to build – an estimated $5million+ today.  There were 50 rooms and required more than 150 full-time staff.  And at least 40 out buildings. They hosted all kinds of soirees for the rich and famous. 

The house was still under construction when Thomas died suddenly in 1886 of pneumonia.  He was forty-three.  And I’m thinking, it’s not healthy to be a man on Cumberland Island.  What do you think?

Lucy, now widowed at 40,and her nine children continued to winter on the island until 1915, when her failing health forced her to remain at their permanent residence.  During these years (1886-1915), she had mansions built for several of her kids.  There are only two remaining.

Lucy now owned 90% of Cumberland Island, and according to her will, none of the land could be divided or sold until all her children had passed away. Once Lucy was no longer present, her kids struggled to maintain the house, but by 1924, it was abandoned.

Then in 1959, poachers, still angry that the Carnegies refused to let them hunt wild boar on their property, set the house ablaze. 

Family members sold a large chunk of property (8,300 acres) to the National Park Service in 1972 – $5 million of which came from the group of kids who didn’t want to sell for development.  The NPS has continued buying land and today, only about 900 of its 17,000 acres remain privately owned.

Nathanael and Lucy’s last child died in 1962, and the property was split into ten tracts and given to the remaining heirs, Lucy’s grandchildren.  Some sold their land to developers, some did not want to sell, and fought to keep the island from being developed.

I could go on with tons more history, but that’s enough for today, because today, it’s supposed to be about the feral horses that live on the island!  And of course, how we spent our day.  😊

Be aware – – there are lots of horse pictures today. And pictures of the ruins. Enjoy!

There are very few ways to get to Cumberland Island.  You can kayak (it’s a looong way from our campground, via the Crooked River), you can take your own private boat and park offshore, you can board a private ferry (But only if you have a reservation at the Inn.  By the way, as I mentioned, it’s only an $800/night minimum two night stay, but hey!  The ferry ride and all your meals and bikes are included!), or you can take the 45-minute ferry sponsored by the NPS.

Since the NPS limits the number of people in the actual Park (which covers 900 acres, remember), you have to make a reservation.  When Blaine made ours, the only opening left was for today.  And what a perfect day it turned out to be!!  We felt bad for all those who had to go yesterday in the all-day pouring rain.

Before we even arrived, we were seeing horses from the boat. 

Then, when the boat docked, there were several right there to greet us.  People didn’t seem quite as enamored as we’d expected, but we sort of gathered knowledge throughout the day that many have been here before – several times.

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We, however, were enamored.  Especially since one of them was a brand new colt!

So we let the others gradually walk away, as we hung out around the horses and did some nearby exploring of our own.  The horses eventually wandered into the woods, but they really could care less that people were around.  We were just part of their landscape.

As we began walking up the gorgeous,  live oak tree-lined road, we saw one of the horses trot by in front of us, seemingly on a mission.  Soon, he began a canter, and disappeared out of sight.  Shortly thereafter, we heard this thumping sound, and turned around.

Two horses were galloping full-tilt behind us in the direction of the woods!  One of them was the horse we’d just seen.  Did he come back for a missing member of his family?  It sure seemed like it to us.  But what a privilege to see them run free like that!

We walked the ruins, we walked the trails, we explored anywhere we could – 8 miles worth – and everywhere we went we saw horses.  Several different groups of them.  Including on the beach.

Speaking of the beach.  The Park has a marked trail that includes walking on the beach as part of the trail.  When we came out to the beach, we saw two horses standing to our left.  As we approached, one of them suddenly lay down on its side and never moved.  The other, still standing, looked painfully thin.  We don’t know if the horse on the ground was dying, or just resting. 

As we walked further along, horses started coming out to the beach through the sand dunes and headed straight for the water.  It was the same group from the boat dock with the new colt!  It seemed to us like the family brought the new little one to check out the beach.  😊

We spent a lot of time observing (and taking pictures of 😊) these horses. 

These are pictures of the NPS brochure about them.

Several groups have tried to have the horses removed from the island, because they’re non-native, but they’ve been shot down pretty rapidly.  People come to the island expecting to see them.  They’re part of the island’s history, and they’re doing pretty well on their own, without help of any kind from humans.  The current count stands at an estimated 150-200 horses.  And the several young ones we saw today, probably aren’t part of that count.  If they’re having babies, they must be doing alright.  😊

Once we left the beach, we did a lot more walking around, observing and exploring. There’s actually more here to see than ruins and horses (believe it or not! lol), although there were still more of those too.

Before long, it was time to leave.  Just before the ferry showed up, a Park Ranger came out and talked to us about horseshoe crabs.  Did you know they have blue blood?  And did you know that the females are a lot bigger than the males?  And that the females come to shore dragging the males along with them, lay their eggs, and then the males sort of compete to see who will fertilize them?  I think she talked about more stuff, but this is all I remember. 

Since it was such a long day, we had decided to pick up some Little Caesar’s on the way home.  There were a few minor issues with that, that I’ll not bore you with.  I think you’ve had enough.

We made it home, we ate.