Georgia Natural Wonder #61 – Little St. Simons Island. 836

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #61 – Little St. Simons Island

Little St. Simons Island has been virtually untouched for centuries. It is a barrier island located on the coast of Georgia (U.S. state), and is one of the least developed of Georgia's Golden Isles. The island covers an area of 10,000 acres and boasts 7 miles of beaches.



Little St. Simons Island lies in Glynn County across the north end of great St. Simons Island, separated from it by the Hampton River. The north side of Little St. Simons is separated from the marshes of the mainland by Buttermilk Sound. The mouth of the Altamaha River opens directly north of the island to the Atlantic Ocean. The 8,840-acre island, consisting mostly of low tidal salt marsh with forested upland tracts on its eastern (ocean) side, is privately owned and is accessible only by water. The island's continuous growth can be attributed to sediment deposited by the undammed Altamaha River.



Little St. Simons was awarded and purchased from King George II as a crown grant in 1760 to Samuel Ougspourger, a Swiss colonist from South Carolina who had migrated to Savannah. That same year the island was surveyed by William G. DeBrahm. Eight years later Ougspourger sold it to his grandson Gabriel Maniqualt. Several years later Little St. Simons was purchased by two brothers, John and James Graham, who had plans to develop small-scale agriculture on the tract. The Grahams, who were British Loyalists, departed the colony for England during the American Revolution (1775-83).

 

Little St. Simons was acquired in 1774 by Major Pierce Butler of Charleston, South Carolina, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Butler also purchased Hampton Point, across the Hampton River on the north end of great St. Simons, and Butler's Island, a nearby rice tract in the Altamaha delta. Butler, one of the largest slave owners in Georgia by the time of his death in 1822, developed extensive agricultural operations on his Altamaha lands. Butler planted Sea Island cotton at Hampton Point and Little St. Simons, known as Experiment Plantation, and rice and sugar cane at Butler's Island. At the western end of Little St. Simons was an isolated marsh settlement known as Five Pound, where Butler's disobedient slaves were banished as punishment. Rice was grown at Five Pound on a small scale.


This tugboat wreck seems to draw a lot of interest on google search Little St. Simons Island.


Either that or slave punishment images.

We already covered this story twice with Islands of McIntosh County and St. Simons, but Little St. Simons was the scene of a visit in the spring of 1839 by the well-known English Shakespearean actress, Fanny Kemble, who accompanied her husband, Pierce Mease Butler, Major Butler's grandson, on a visit to the family's Altamaha plantations. "The atmosphere was thick with sand flies," Kemble wrote in her journal on April 14, 1839, "which drove me in at last from standing listening to the roar of the Atlantic on Little St. Simons Island, the wooded belt that fends off the ocean surges from the north side of Great St. Simons. It is a wild little sand heap, covered with thick forest growth, and belongs to Mr. [Butler]. I have long had a great desire to visit it." Several days later, Kemble visited the island and recorded her impressions: "Our navigation was a very intricate one, all through sea swamps and marshes, mud banks and sandbanks, with great white shells and bleaching bones stuck upon sticks to mark the channel. We landed on this forest in the sea by Quash's house, the only human residence on the island. It was larger and better, and more substantial than the Negro huts in general, and he seemed proud and pleased to do the honors to us."


Tugboat Fannie - Hey she is a yes for 1800's gal.

During her four-month stay in tidewater Georgia, Fanny Kemble Butler compiled the series of letters that made up her Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839, published in London in 1863. The Journal not only was a severe indictment against slavery but also provides one of the best firsthand accounts of plantation life on the Georgia coast during the middle antebellum period.


Tugboat -Book.

In early 1908 Little St. Simons passed from more than a century of Butler family ownership when it was sold by its absentee owner, Frances Butler Leigh, to O. F. Chichester of the Eagle Pencil Company for $12,500. Chichester was interested in the great number of red cedar trees on the island. Many of the cedars were cut in the following months, and the logs were sent to the nearby St. Simons sawmill to be sawed into small planks and used in the manufacture of pencils. Chichester built a small residence on the south end of Little St. Simons near the beach for use as a winter retreat.


Little St. Simons Pencil Forest.

In late 1908 Chichester sold the island to Philip Berolzheimer of New York City. There is also evidently a portion owned by the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, and his wife Wendy.


Phillip - Henry - Wendy

The Berolzheimer family began taking advantage of Little St. Simons as a vacation destination and in 1917 built a hunting lodge in the interior of the island. This residence was used as a retreat by the family throughout the 1920s and 1930s, when a number of their northern guests came to the island to enjoy hunting and other recreational activities.


View from Lodge deck.

During World War II (1941-45) the island served as a patrol station, where the U.S. Coast Guard could observe of German submarine activity off the coast. In the 1970s the Berolzheimer family converted their island private retreat into an expanded Lodge on Little St. Simons to accommodate paid guests to Little St. Simons, an activity that still continues.



Today, the island remains accessible only by boat, and anyone wishing to visit the island must make arrangements through the Lodge Office.



The Lodge on Little St. Simons provides all-inclusive, overnight accommodations for up to 32 guests.



Naturalists offer guided fishing, kayaking, hiking, biking, birding, history and ecological tours. Day Trips may also be arranged.



Luxury camp Out.



The majority of the island's acreage is composed of salt marsh. The island's maritime forest features cabbage palm, Southern Live Oak, Red Cedar, Red Bay, Southern Magnolia and pines; often draped in Spanish Moss.



Little St. Simons is host to more than 334 species of birds; some are temporary residents who include the island in their migrations, while others are permanent residents. Species of note include: Bald Eagles, Red Knots, Painted Buntings, Roseate Spoonbills, Black-necked Stilts, and Wood Storks.



Backing the island's beaches are pristine dunes which provide nesting habitat for various shorebirds such as: Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers.



From May to September, Little St. Simons Island's beaches are patrolled daily and signs of Loggerhead Sea Turtle nesting are documented.



Several freshwater ponds provide habitat for tree frogs, alligators; and supply drinking water for other animals including the European Fallow Deer. Fallow deer were introduced for sport in the early 20th century, and may be seen in three colors: solid white, dark chocolate, and tan with white spots.



Sport fishing in the tidal creeks and surf can be very productive for those in search of redfish, black drum, flounder and speckled trout.



Off the shores otters, dolphins, and right whales swim in the inlets and open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.


Right Whale Wrong State.

The best thing about this Georgia Natural Wonder is that it was short and sweet compared to recent additions trying to cover the second and third largest cities in Georgia and its most populated barrier island. I will mop up the Golden Isles on Monday, and move back to a few more Fall Line rapids and towns next week. I continue to welcome suggestions on where to go next. Today's GNW Gals all watching wildlife on remote Little St. Simons Island Georgia.