4-11-17 Jekyll Island

We anchored carefully due to extreme tides and the full moon adding to its effect. We took our bikes on the dinghy and this time had a dock to tie up to at a boat launch.  There is a nice bike trail system on Jekyll Island.  When we arrive in the historic district, we took a carriage ride.  Miguel was our guide and Don was our horse.  We were the only two on the tour and it was only $15 each.  Miguel was wonderful! He was so knowledgeable and could recall every name and date for everything on the island.  Now Don he wasn’t so great.  He was having a bit of a bad day.  When Miguel asked him to “step up” which means go, he kept all four feet planted and turned his head all the way around so he could give us a look. He then took off and was fine most of the time.  However, he HATES nail guns and they were working on a few houses. He got all antsy and nervous but didn’t do anything terrible.  Miguel apologized, but we told him we have lots of experience with horses and he wasn’t bothering us with his little “things” he was doing.

There is a long history going back to the Native American Indian tribes, then many others came along like the Spanish, English, etc.  It was primarily a Plantation in the 1792 when Frenchman Christophe du Bigon and his family arrived. It is known that the son of Christophe had the last ship of 465 slaves brought into the country to Jekyll Island. After the Civil war ended the du Bignon family was able to come back to the Island. The island was divided among his four children. Through inheritance John gained ownership of a third of the property in 1875.  He then purchased the rest of the island and made plans to make it into a winter retreat for the wealthy. He built the clubhouse and only sold share to 100 people to keep it exclusive. Members and their families vacationed there and enjoyed biking, hunting horseback riding and tennis. Some of the wealthiest members built their own cottages, which were mansion.

One of the most interesting things about the islands was the wealth that was there at one time. In 1910 a senator and  Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Department and five of the country’s leading financiers in the US met at Jekyll Island C

lub.  They created the Federal Reserve which lead to the creation of the U.S Central Bank.

These wealthy people were a bit snobbish. They had Tiffany come in to do the stained glass windows of the church. By this time Tiffany was quite wealthy, but they denied his request to build a home there because his money was too new.  If you read my last blog about Cumberland Island where the Carnegies built Dungeness and many other homes for their family, I said I would tell you why they went to Cumberland.  Well The Carnegies also wanted to build on Jekyll but their wealth was also too new and were denied.  So he showed them and bought the entire Cumberland Island and built Dungeness, which was by far more magnificent than anything on Jekyll Island.

The depression caused the “Club House” to suffer financially.  Our guide told us that the US government wasn’t aware of the amount of wealth  on the island, until a German submarine was seen at the inlet between Jekyll and Cumberland. The government evacuated the Island because they couldn’t afford to have this group of the wealthiest men in the US be killed by the enemy.  We were also told by the guide they hadn’t been paying taxes because the tax collectors didn’t realize the large homes were being built there.  After the war, the island was purchased in 1947 for the sum of $650,000. This was a one time offer or the state would just take it.

 

The other neat thing on the island was the Turtle Hospital. It is meant primarily for sea turtles but they had others there as well. They had turtles that were shipped down from up the coast when they suffered something similar to hypothermia.  Some had broken shells they were treating the wounds so the shell would grow back, others had so many barnacle on their backs that they were weighted down and couldn’t swim well and were starving.  Back in the Bahamas we had a Loggerhead Turtle encounter. The thing was enormous. We learned that this turtle was between 80-100 years old.  Our encounter just became much more meaningful, knowing the age of this giant and we were blessed to see him.

Oh and by the way, our dinghy was still floating when we got back but it was so shallow even on the dock, that we had to walk it around to the front of the dock before we put the motor down.  No strandings today.

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Karen and Scott

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