We have just returned from almost two weeks in southern GA and northern FL.
Our first stop was Kings Bay, GA, where we enjoyed a nice round of golf at Trident Lakes, an 18 hole course that is located on the US Navy base, a trident submarine base on the St. Mary's River inlet.
After leaving the golf course, we made a brief stop at The Tabby Sugar Works ruin. The ruin was located just a short walk, through a canopy of live oaks and Spanish moss which are both prominent in this part of the country.
The interpretive sign informed us that the Tabby Sugar Works were built in 1825 and it was the first horizontal cane mill worked by cattle power.
The ruins were quite extensive and composed of many large rooms. I imagine that there were areas of the mill used to not only store sugar cane, but possibly to house some of the cattle power.
We were intrigued by the building material which appeared to be a cement that made use of the abundant sand and shells in this area.
On the first full day of our Road Scholar Program based on Amelia Island, FL, we returned to southern GA to take a ferry to Cumberland Island. We spent the day doing a hike which took us to Dungeness, the ruins of an estate owned by the Carnegie family. Like many of the islands off the coast of GA, wealthy families owned huge tracts of land and built their winter homes here in the late 1800's. (This is similar to the tale of Asheville's Biltmore Estate which served as a year-round playground for George Vanderbilt and his family and guests.)
Unfortunately Dungeness burned leaving behind an impressive ruin. One can imagine the massive size of the home which rose four stories and looked over the mouth of the St. Mary's River as it enters the Atlantic.
While viewing the ruins, our guide pointed out that much of the structure was made out of "tabby." The light bulb moment! When we had been at Tabby Sugar House Ruins, it had not occurred to me that that was the material that the structure was made of. She went on to say that the shells used were taken from huge deposits of shells that the native Americans from hundreds of years ago left behind, and indeed it was a type of cement made from sand and crushed shells.
Most of the large island of Cumberland (it's 18 miles long) is part of the National Park Service, though there are about a dozen private residents still on the island. Only a limited number of people are allowed to visit the island each day. There is another Carnegie home on the island that has been turned into an inn, and we were told that a developer recently purchased one of the few remaining privately owned tracts and plans to build some sort of resort property. That has been met with a lot of local opposition from groups and individuals who feel that the island should remain as natural as possible.
One fascinating but sad fact is that when the Dungeness estate was no longer functional the last owner released the polo ponies to fend for themselves. As a result, the island has a huge herd of malnourished feral horses. The horses are a tourist draw, but many environmentalists feel that the horses are damaging the natural landscape and that it is cruel to keep the horses there. It is a controversial issue we discussed as we walked.
Our nearly 6 mile hike took us to the Atlantic beach side which is a great place to hunt for shells. We had only a brief time at the beach and it was late in the day, so we did not find many shells of interest. We didn't see any whole sand dollars, but there were lots of "quarters."
We visited our last set of ruins on the third afternoon of our RS Program when we had some "free" time. We decided to drive about 15 or 20 miles south of our hotel to visit the Kingsley Plantation.
Though the plantation house was modest by plantation standards, it had an interesting story in that the owner of the plantation married a black woman from the West Indies, so the slaves on the plantation actually had a black mistress. It was a rice plantation and was situated on a beautiful piece of property along the river.
The tabby ruins there were the slave houses; tiny tabby structures, perhaps 12 feet square, with two small rooms arranged in a semi circle a distance from the main house.
While we were at the ruins, a peacock joined us to show off and distract us from thinking too much about what kind of life these slaves endured.
I would highly recommend this RS Program #11603. We were kept delightfully busy and entertained, the accommodations were excellent, the food was great, the coordinator knew her stuff. Besides Cumberland, we spent a day at Okefenokee Swamp, had a wonderful narrated river cruise from the Amelia Island marina, we did an entertaining historic Fernandina Beach tour, we had musical entertainment, learned about the local paper and shrimping industries, had a presentation by a naturalist, and of course, enjoyed perfect weather!
