054: The Low Country Part 1

On March 6th we left the free dock at Jim King Park in Jacksonville, FL and took a short ride over to Fort George Island site of the historic Kingsley Plantation (open Wed-Sun).   Despite staying in the channel, we touched bottom for a bit, but found deeper water hugging the Island.   There is a nice free dock at the Plantation for day usage with a two- hour limit (not that we saw anyone timing us).  The dock:

Touring the Kingsley Plantation made for a nice day stop.   The plantation house dates to 1798 (making it the oldest still standing plantation house in the State of Florida), but unfortunately is closed to visitors.   Several outbuildings (kitchen, stable) are open and contain exhibits documenting the history of the area, the plantation, Mr. Kingsley, and the slaves who worked there. Mr. Kingsley owned over 32,000 acres of land and lived an interesting life full of contradictory values to say the least*. Of special significance is the ruins of many of the slave quarters which were made with Tabby Concrete construction, thus the longevity.  There is a great audio tour available as well.    

Plantation House:

Slave Quarters:

Later that day we arrived at Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island at the Fernandina Harbor Marina planning to stay for two nights, but we liked it so much we stayed for three.  Fernandina Beach has a lovely downtown area with lots of shops, restaurants, historic homes, and Florida’s oldest tavern.   

On the 7th I had a late breakfast with an old work colleague who lives on the Island while Nancy “mooched around” town.   We then walked around the historic district to see the older homes that are still inhabited and maintained and dipped into a large resale shop but left empty-handed.   A miniature golf course in the downtown area provided a nice bit of entertainment.    

The next day we broke out the folding bikes and cycled over to Fort Clinch State Park for some nature walks and a tour of Fort Clinch and a walk on the beach to look for sharks’ teeth.  The fort was garrisoned on an off through the years but gradually fell into disrepair until the Great Depression, where workers of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began a restoration of the Fort.

After coming empty on sharks’ teeth, we then road over to the main beach and caught a Lyft ride over to the American Beach area to see the A.L. Lewis museum which celebrates Mr. Lewis, his great-grand daughter, Marvyne Elizabeth Betsch and the American Beach community.  Abraham Lincoln Lewis (A.L.) was the President of the Afro-American Life Insurance Company and a self-made millionaire, who used the Afro's Pension Bureau to purchase about 216 acres in two parcels starting in 1935 on the south end of Amelia Island in order to create an oceanfront resort where African Americans could enjoy "recreation and relaxation without humiliation" during the Jim Crow era (when they were banned from most beaches). 

As land was cleared, oceanfront homes were constructed. Over the next thirty years, the American Beach resort became a very popular and sought after destination, drawing visitors from all across the Southeast.  Hurricane Dora of 1964 unfortunately devastated American Beach, and then the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 struck a further blow as African-Americans now had access to other public beaches. As people moved on, American Beach lost much of its land and establishments to encroaching development but still retains its proud history.  Marvyne was instrumental in keeping the legacy of her great-grandfather and the area’s historical roots alive.

We planned to do a walking tour of the area but the roads were torn up.  A chance-roadside discussion with the director of the museum indicated that after eighty years of asking the area is finally getting water and sewer lines put in.   

After getting a ride back to the main beach and having lunch “beach-side” we rode our bikes over to the second historic district on the north-side of the Island known as Old Town Fernandina and some interesting houses.  

On Saturday the 9th, we went to the Farmers’ Market in downtown in the morning and I spent the rest of the day on boat maintenance chores having decided to stay an extra day to further enjoy the area and wait out some sketchy weather.    

On Sunday, we left Fernandina Beach after one last stop at the local coffee shop and headed to Cumberland Island and crossed into Georgia leaving Florida for the first time since just after Thanksgiving Day.  We anchored off the northern of the two docks available for day use (no boats over 25’ allowed) and took the dinghy in.

We were greeted in front of the Ranger Station there by a woman from Georgia who was there volunteering with her husband for three months. They were checking in passengers coming off the ferry, day trippers as well as families of campers arriving with all their gear.  She recommended the River Trail down to the Dungeness Ruins, former winter home (59 rooms) of Thomas Carnegie, brother and business partner of Andrew Carnegie.   We then took a boardwalk thru the marshes over to the beach for a long beach-walk back up to a hiking trail through the hammock, spotting the Island’s famous feral horses going about their business.

River Trail:

Ruins:

Feral horse:

Beach walk:

Hammock trail:

A personal highlight for me was talking to some of the young children of the camping families and seeing the excitement of their Island Adventure through their eyes.   Like the families camping for the week, we could have easily spent a few more days exploring the Island, but we were anxious to get to our next stop.

Dave

Odometer: 2,842

* Zephaniah Kingsley: Slave trader, slave owner: progressive?.  He fathered eleven mix-raced children. He often allowed slave families to stay together, did let them keep some of their own customs and names, and to hire themselves out when their work was completed to earn money to purchase their freedom for 50% of their “market value.”  believed in inter-racial marriage and had four African "wives" at the same time, although only one, Anna, who was his favorite, did he actually marry.  In 1837, subsequent to becoming part of the United Statues, Florida passed laws outlawing interracial marriage.  Knowing his marriage to Anna would no longer be recognized, and that his mixed raced children migh might be confiscated and sold as slaves, he bought over 30,000 acres and moved everyone to to Haiti (in an area that is now The Dominican Republic). He believed in and operated under a system based on Spanish law as had been implemented in Florida where there were three social tiers: whites, free people of color, and slaves and that recognized interracial marriages.  The U.S. southern system was more of a binary "caste system" with whites having rights, and everyone else, not-so-much.