Island Time


Book Description

Capturing the history and beauty of a key destination in the land of the Golden Isles... Eighty miles south of Savannah lies St. Simons Island, one of the most beloved seaside destinations in Georgia and home to some twenty thousand year-round residents. In Island Time, Jingle Davis and Benjamin Galland offer a fascinating history and stunning visual celebration of this coastal community. Prehistoric people established some of North America's first permanent settlements on St. Simons, leaving three giant shell rings as evidence of their occupation. People from other diverse cultures also left their mark: Mocama and Guale Indians, Spanish friars, pirates and privateers, British soldiers and settlers, German religious refugees, and aristocratic antebellum planters. Enslaved Africans and their descendants forged the unique Gullah Geechee culture that survives today. Davis provides a comprehensive history of St. Simons, connecting its stories to broader historical moments. Timbers for Old Ironsides were hewn from St. Simons's live oaks during the Revolutionary War. Aaron Burr fled to St. Simons after killing Alexander Hamilton. Susie Baker King Taylor became the first black person to teach openly in a freedmen's school during her stay on the island. Rachel Carson spent time on St. Simons, which she wrote about in The Edge of the Sea. The island became a popular tourist destination in the 1800s, with visitors arriving on ferries until a causeway opened in 1924. Davis describes the challenges faced by the community with modern growth and explains how St. Simons has retained the unique charm and strong sense of community that it is known for today. Featuring more than two hundred contemporary photographs, historical images, and maps, Island Time is an essential book for people interested in the Georgia coast. A Friends Fund publication.




The Wild Treasury of Nature


Book Description

"Exhibition Schedule, Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia February 28 to May 22, 2016."




St. Simons Island


Book Description

From the days of early tribes that hunted and fished to the tourists who later relaxed on the beaches, St. Simons Island has been part of the changing landscape of Georgia's coast. When Gen. James E. Oglethorpe established Fort Frederica to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the threat of Spain, it was, for a short time, a vibrant hub of British military operations. During the latter part of the 1700s, a plantation society thrived on the island until the outbreak of the War Between the States. Never returning to an agricultural community, by 1870 St. Simons re-established itself with the development of a booming timber industry. And by the 1870s, the pleasant climate and proximity to the sea drew visitors to St. Simons as a year-round resort. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a sleepy little place with only a few hundred permanent residents until 1941.




Georgia's Land of the Golden Isles


Book Description

Since it first appeared in 1956, Mrs. Vanstory's rich narrative of the barrier islands from Ossabaw to Cumberland--and the mainland towns along the way--has become the standard popular history of Georgia's golden coast. Thoroughly revised and with over forty new illustrations, this edition traces the crucial and colorful role these islands have played from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. Home, at one time or another, to the American Indians, the French, the Spanish, and the English; to buccaneers, friars, and priests; to Puritans and Scottish Highlanders; to slave traders, planters, soldiers, statesmen, and millionaires, these islands are as rich in history as they are in natural beauty. Georgia's Land of the Golden Isles now takes the reader through the years from General James Oglethorpe to President Jimmy Carter, unfolding the stories of the lives that have touched, or been touched by, the golden isles of Georgia.




St. Simons Island


Book Description

South of Savannah, along the picturesque and historic coastline of Georgia, lies a group of barrier islands known as the Golden Isles. This collection of coastal sea islands has attracted people--Native Americans, European settlers and vacationing sun-seekers--throughout history, for the islands' bountiful resources and appealing climate. Perhaps the brightest jewel of these islands is St. Simons Island. The History Press is proud to re-issue St. Simons Island: A Summary of its History, by local resident and historian R. Edwin Green. Mr. Green has compiled an informative volume, which highlights the unique and developing history of one of Georgia's most popular sea islands. Spanning over three hundred years of island history, Mr. Green brings to life the day-to-day toils of the Native Americans and their interaction with Spanish missionaries, the hardships faced by James Oglethorpe during the early colonial period, the rise and fall of the antebellum plantation society and the twentieth century with the start of St. Simons as a vacation and resort destination. With a keen eye for the details, which imparts the reader with a true understanding of the island's people and history, Mr. Green offers both the visitor and resident the historical foundation to enjoy all that St. Simons has to offer.




HYMNS OF THE MARSHES


Book Description




Anna


Book Description

As the wife of a frequently absent slaveholder and public figure, Anna Matilda Page King (1798-1859) was the de facto head of their Sea Island plantation. This volume collects more than 150 letters to her husband, children, parents, and others. Conveying the substance of everyday life as they chronicle King's ongoing struggles to put food on the table, nurse her "family black and white," and keep faith with a disappointing husband, the letters offer an absorbing firsthand account of antebellum coastal Georgia life. Anna Matilda Page was reared with the expectation that she would marry a planter, have children, and tend to her family's domestic affairs. Untypically, she was also schooled by her father in all aspects of plantation management, from seed cultivation to building construction. That grounding would serve her well. By 1842 her husband's properties were seized, owing to debts amassed from crop failures, economic downturns, and extensive investments in land, enslaved workers, and the development of the nearby port town of Brunswick. Anna and her family were sustained, however, by Retreat, the St. Simons Island property left to her in trust by her father. With the labor of fifty bondpeople and "their increase" she was to strive, with little aid from her husband, to keep the plantation solvent. A valuable record of King's many roles, from accountant to mother, from doctor to horticulturist, the letters also reveal much about her relationship with, and attitudes toward, her enslaved workers. Historians have yet to fully understand the lives of plantation mistresses left on their own by husbands pursuing political and other professional careers. Anna Matilda Page King's letters give us insight into one such woman who reluctantly entered, but nonetheless excelled in, the male domains of business and agriculture.




The Golden Isles of Georgia


Book Description

The Golden Isles of Georgia comprise a group of four barrier islands and the mainland port city of Brunswick on the 100-mile-long coast of the U.S. state of Georgia on the Atlantic Ocean. They include St. Simons Island, Sea Island, Jekyll Island, Little St. Simons Island, and Historic Brunswick. Mild winters, together with natural beaches, vast stretches of marshland, maritime forests, historical sites, and abundant wildlife on both land and sea made the Golden Isles popular amongst wealthy southern planters, who built their homes on these islands. Charles Spalding Wylly of Darien, Georgia, spent the last years of his long life in Brunswick. Sharing the fate of the old, he found it almost impossible to get work, though still strong in body and mind. To divert and interest him, his niece, Caroline Couper Lovell, suggested that he write his memoirs; the manuscripts of the first two little books were presented to his niece, with other unpublished data. After Captain Wylly’s death in 1923, as there had been no second edition of these works, it was suggested that Mrs. Lovell should edit them. This she attempted to do, and then decided that it would be better to use the material, add to it, and compile another story. The result is The Golden Isles of Georgia... Beautifully illustrated throughout with portraits of prominent men and beautiful women who lived on these islands, photographs of the old ruins, and pictures of old homes and scenery.




St. Simons Memoir


Book Description

After only a few golden hours on Georgia's St. Simons Island, Eugenia Price longed to make it her home. Even though she loved her old town house in Chicago, and her busy writing and lecturing schedule, the shadow-streaked, light-filled place had cast its spell and would not let her go. The reader, too, will feel the Island's magic as Genie describes her odyssey with her friend Joyce Blackburn from the urban North to Southern small-town community life and peace. With deep affection and humor she shares her many friendships--with "the first six," the elderly folk who gave her their love, their stories, and their memories so that she could write her novels of St. Simons; with her beloved editor, Tay Hohoff, who encouraged and goaded her; and with all the other people who helped with her writing and with the building of her Island home in the midst of the "dear dark woods." Although she had been uncertain at first of her welcome to St. Simons, she later experienced the rare privilege of having the Island name a day in her honor. These intimate pages are also filled with Genie's quiet faith in God and her eternal gratitude for His grace in sending her to St. Simons. She calls her book a memoir, but it is more than that. It is a thanksgiving celebration of life and of its surprising goodness even in the midst of sorrow and loss. So that she can exclaim to Joyce, "How could life be better than it is right now?"




Living with the Unimaginable


Book Description

This is the book that Tawna Righter never wanted to write. But as she recovered after two profound tragedies, she realized that there were men, women, and children who had suffered this same heartbreak-that of a murder-suicide of friends, loved ones, fellow students and co-workers-yet had no printed guide from which they could derive support, information, and resources. Living With the Unimaginable; Life in the Aftermath of Murder-Suicide is Tawna Righter's answer to this need. In 1990, her best friend's husband killed his wife and then himself, leaving behind small children and friends who were confused and distraught. How could this happen? The author could not imagine such an act. And yet, eight years later, her own son killed his girlfriend and then himself. Struggling with profound grief, Righter followed a path toward recovery, a path culminating with this supportive, compassionate, and valuable guide. Each section in this book acts as a support mechanism, addressing the myriad emotions-from anger to loss-that survivors inevitably experience. From the nightmare of the tragic event to the quest to understand why; from learning to live with the grief to providing comfort to the survivors, everything is explained through Righter's own experiences and those of the people she interviews. There is nothing lightweight about her approach-she tackles the hard issues head-on-and yet readers find hope and compassion, and they soon understand that life goes on, albeit in a different and newly defined way.