Georgia Natural Wonder #63 – Brunswick – Marsh of Glynn – Lover’s Oak. 800

[Top Row Dawg]

Georgia Natural Wonder #63 – Brunswick – Marsh of Glynn – Lover’s Oak

Brunswick is a peaceful port city that has experienced many economic ups and downs since its founding in 1771. Brunswick's fortunes have always been linked to the sea, whether as a port of entry, a shipbuilding center, or a shrimping capital. Perhaps its most successful period was during World War II when Liberty Ships were built in local shipyards that employed 16,000 workers. Since 1960, the town has lost population from 21,000 to 16,500 as the county has grown, with residents relocating to St. Simons Island or unincorporated areas of the county. Today, the city is undergoing a quiet revitalization in its Old Town National Historic District and nearby Victorian residential area. At 14 feet above sea level, Brunswick has the lowest elevation of any city in Georgia, a fact made painfully clear when the hurricane of 1898 put the town under water. Shipping has a tremendous economic impact on Brunswick, which is Georgia's second leading port behind Savannah. The Port Authority plans to deepen the 30-foot harbor to 36 feet to allow for larger cargo ships.



Brunswick is the major urban and economic center in the southeast corner of Georgia. Located on the coast, it is approximately seventy-five miles south of Savannah and sixty-five miles north of Jacksonville, Florida. It is home to one of Georgia's two deep-water ports and is the gateway to the Golden Isles, which lie to the east across the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway: St. Simons Island, Sea Island, Little St. Simons Island, and Jekyll Island. Brunswick, with a population in 2010 of 15,383, remains the only incorporated community in Glynn County. According to the 2010 U.S. census, the population of Glynn County was 79,626.



Early History

Before the formation of St. Simons Island to the east, Brunswick was oceanfront property. Geologically, the city of Brunswick rests on one of the ancient Princess Anne barrier islands, whose shorelines were washed by the Atlantic Ocean 60,000 to 80,000 years ago. During the Pleistocene Age 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, sea levels rose and fell several times, helping to create St. Simons Island. Marshes filled the lagoon between Brunswick and St. Simons Island. The rivers feeding the Brunswick harbor are relatively short, low volume tidal rivers, which influenced the patterns of development.



The first European resident of Brunswick was Mark Carr, a Scottsman in Oglethorpe's regiment who was granted 500 acres in the area in the late 1730s. He established a plantation and built a military outpost 4.5 miles northwest of Brunswick on the north bank of the Turtle River known as Carr's Fort. It was a tabby-built plantation complex, also known as "Hermitage", built in 1739 on the north bank of the Turtle River on Hermitage Island, about 4.5 miles northwest of Brunswick, near Arco. Attacked and burned by the Spanish and Florida Indians in March 1741. Rebuilt in May 1741 and fortified with four blockhouses. A marker is at Union Street and First Ave..



Carr set up a tobacco plantation, named Plug Point, on which he built a number of tabby houses. He agreed to exchange his plantation land for holding elsewhere when, in 1771, the Royal Colonial Provincial Council chose the area as ideal for their planned city of Brunswick. In 1771 the Council of the Royal Colony of Georgia laid out a plan for Brunswick similar to that of Savannah, namely, a grid of streets punctuated by a series of parks and squares on a tract of Carr's property. Unlike the Savannah, Ogeechee, Altamaha, Satilla, and St. Marys delta regions, river plantations never flourished in Brunswick's low country.



The town was named after the duchy of Braunsweig (Germany), the ancestral home of King George III and the British House of Hanover. Many streets and squares were given names honoring the king, such as George Street and Hanover Square, while others honored such notable Englishmen as the earl of Egmont, the duke of Gloucester, the duke of Newcastle, Lord Mansfield, Norwich, and London, which gives the town a slightly English flavor.



After the American Revolution, most colonial towns changed the names of their streets, parks, and landmarks to honor American heroes. These Brunswick names were retained after the American Revolution (1775-83), in spite of their English connections. In 1797 Brunswick replaced Frederica, the first settlement on St. Simons Island, as the seat of Glynn County, one of eight original counties created by the Georgia legislature in 1777.


I leave this map large so you can see detail both edges. Scroll right.

The 422-square-mile county was named for John Glynn, an English lawyer and member of Parliament in recognition for his support for the cause of American independence in Parliament. Sparsely settled before the American Revolution (1775-83), the area saw most of its few inhabitants flee to Florida and inland Georgia during the war. After the war, however, veterans established homesteads in a number of Glynn communities.


Glynn

The Port of Brunswick

Brunswick is on a peninsula bounded by the Brunswick River on the south and by the East River and Turtle River on the west. The natural harbor formed by the convergence of these rivers was a prime factor in the colonial council's decision to place a town there.



During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s, the Port of Brunswick became a major export site for cotton, naval stores, and lumber, timber, and various other wood products. The Great Depression of the 1930s and the decline of cotton and naval stores production in Georgia virtually killed the port.



During both world wars Brunswick was the site of major shipbuilding efforts. The U.S. Maritime Commission designated it as one of sixteen sites for building cargo ships for World War II (1941-45). Brunswick's most impressive wartime effort was the construction of Liberty Ships.



These were important all-purpose cargo vessels, 416 feet long and weighing 10,500 tons, that were needed to haul supplies to Europe in support of the Allied efforts.



J.A. Jones Construction Company established a 435-acre shipyard, which at its peak employed 16,000 workers with a weekly payroll of over $1 million.The goal was to build the ships as fast as they could. The keel to the first ship was laid in early 1943, and by the end of the war in 1945, Brunswick had produced 99 ships.



Early in the war, German U-boats patrolled off the Atlantic coastline with impunity, sinking ships with ease and sending their cargo into the depths of the Atlantic. By 1942, more than 500 million tons of ships and cargo had been lost to the German submarines, including several ships in waters near Brunswick. We talked about that in our post on St. Simons Island, 22 sailors died. Military authorities decided to build a blimp base near Brunswick, which would perform submarine reconnaissance for coastal shipping. The base was known as Glynco Naval Air Station.



Six miles north of Brunswick, engineers built two blimp hangars. Because of the shortage of steel, the enormous structures were built completely out of wood. Each could hold six blimps simultaneously, and stood 1,000 feet long, 297 feet wide, and 150 feet high.



They were damaged by Hurricane Dora in 1964 and demolished in 1971.



After the war the port began a comeback with the assistance of the newly created Georgia Ports Authority, and by 2000 it had become a major rival to its neighbors, Savannah and Jacksonville. The GPA's Brunswick facilities include three deepwater terminals: Mayor's Point Terminal, Colonel's Island Terminal, and East River Terminal. Mayor's Point Terminal is a general cargo site built by the GPA beginning in 1959 on land donated by the city of Brunswick and Glynn County.



The authority bought Colonel's Island near Brunswick in 1962 and developed a terminal to handle dry bulk commodities. Colonel's Island Terminal is especially noted for its export and import shipments of automobiles. The GPA built East River Terminal on property acquired in the area of the old city dock in 1982. Owned by the GPA, this bulk and general cargo facility is operated by a private company.


Brunswick Ports have come a long way.

Today such Georgia forest products as wood pulp, plywood, and paper again constitute a large part of the cargo shipped via the Port of Brunswick. Other exports include agricultural products (oats, barley malt, and corn, for example) and other bulk cargoes, including gypsum, limestone, perlite, salt, sand, and cement. Imported automobiles, including cars made by Hyundai, Mitsubishi, and Volkswagen, and American automobile exports, constitute a large portion of the total cargo.

Other Economic Development

Several major manufacturing or processing companies strengthen the economy of Brunswick. The Georgia-Pacific plant produces wood pulp, the Hercules plant manufactures products extracted from pine stumps, and Rich-SeaPak and King and Prince Seafood process fish and shellfish. Tourism—nourished by the area's climate, beaches, golf resorts, and history—is the single largest industry in Brunswick and Glynn County.

Hercules Die In

Since 1975 Brunswick has been home to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, located on the site of the former Glynco Naval Air Station, which closed in 1974. The center provides training for personnel in seventy federal agencies, as well as various state, local, and international law-enforcement agencies.



Education and Cultural Life

As the Golden Isles became a resort destination during the gilded age, so did Brunswick as the mainland connection.



We come to our our first true Natural Wonder of Brunswick. In 1874 the poet Sidney Lanier came to Brunswick. Inspired by the beauty of the marshlands adjacent to the community, Lanier composed his most notable poem, "The Marshes of Glynn," which was published in 1878.



A short distance south of the old visitors bureau on US 17 on the left is Overlook Park and the Lanier Oak, where Georgia poet Sidney Lanier wrote his most famous poem. Overlook Park provides the breathtaking view of the expansive tidal marshlands that inspired the nineteenth century poet.


View from Sydney Lanier Bridge.

Sidney Lanier contributed significantly to the arts in nineteenth-century America. His accomplishments as a poet, novelist, composer, and critic reflect his eclectic interests, and his melodic celebrations of Georgia's terrain are among his most widely read poems. His works reflect a love of the land, as well as his concern over declining values and commercial culture in the Reconstruction South. Some of his writings extol the rhythmic natural world and the religious vision it evokes.



Lanier County, formed in southwest Georgia in 1920, is named in the poet's honor, and Lake Lanier in Hall County was dedicated to him in 1955, in recognition of his life and accomplishments. In 2000 Lanier was inducted as a charter member into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.



Life

Sidney Lanier was born in Macon on February 3, 1842. He graduated from Oglethorpe University, when it was located near Milledgeville, in 1860 with high honors.



When the Civil War (1861-65) began,he volunteered to serve in the Confederate army. In 1864 he was captured and held as a prisoner of war for four months in Maryland, during which time he contracted the debilitating tuberculosis that plagued him for the rest of his life. After the war, he stayed at his brother-in-law's house in Brunswick attempting to regain his health. It was during this period that he was inspired to write several poems, including Marshes of Glynn, considered a masterpiece of nineteenth-century American poetry.



His marriage to Mary Day in 1867 led to the births of four sons. Rarely fully focused on one occupational pursuit, Lanier had difficulty maintaining steady employment and providing for his family; he worked in Georgia, Alabama, and Texas as a tutor, teacher, and law clerk. He was frequently impoverished and sometimes ill with the ever-present tuberculosis, which was exacerbated by stress and worry. For one school year he was principal of an academy in Prattville, Alabama, but it closed in 1868 in the face of economic depression.



From 1868 to 1873, he studied law and worked in his father's legal office in Macon. Lanier then moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he accepted a position as first flutist for the Peabody Orchestra. During his years in Baltimore, he studied English literature and eventually became a lecturer at the Peabody Institute and then at Johns Hopkins University.



Today Sidney Lanier is most noted for his experimental musical renderings of Georgia's fields, rivers, and shores in such poems as "The Song of the Chattahoochee" (1877), and "The Marshes of Glynn" (1879)



In the alliterative and fast-flowing lines of "The Song of the Chattahoochee," the river speaks of its rush through the northeast Georgia counties of Habersham and Hall. Despite the call to "abide" made by the luxurious native laurels, ferns, grasses, oaks, chestnuts, and pines, as well as the "friendly brawl" of stones and jewels on the river's bottom, the Chattahoochee insists upon its duty. It must water the fields and turn waterwheels on the plains as it makes its way toward the Gulf of Mexico.


Valleys of Hall under Lake Lanier.

Lanier found his purest voice in the religious vision of "The Marshes of Glynn," which was inspired by the poet's visit to Brunswick. Set in southeastern Glynn County, the poem begins with a rhythmic description of the thick marsh as the narrator feels himself growing and connecting with the sinews of the marsh itself. Then as his vision expands seaward, he recognizes in an epiphanal moment that the marshes and sea, in their vastness, are the expression of "the greatness of God" and are filled with power and mystery.



By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn

Lanier's health continued to worsen. He died on September 7, 1881, in Lynn, North Carolina, where he had traveled in the hope that the climate might cure him.



From Overlook Park, take Gloucester Street west to Mary Ross Waterfront Park. This is where Brunswick's shrimp fleet is moored. Here one can photograph the boats as the sun goes down, buy fresh seafood, or relax and soak in the sights and sounds of a working commercial waterfront that has been called "The Shrimp Capital of the World." Harborfest and the Blessing of the Fleet Festival are uniquely coastal traditions that celebrate Brunswick's commercial fishermen. They are held annually on the second weekend in May. The festival lasts three days and features parades, a road race, arts and crafts, and the "blessing" performed by a Catholic priest on roughly 50 vessels on the last day of the event. The blessing ceremony, an old Portuguese tradition, was initiated in Brunswick in 1938, when mariners of Portuguese descent dominated a much larger shrimp industry.



The shrimping industry in Brunswick, like other commercial fishing towns in the U.S., has experienced declines due to tremendous competition from imported foreign shrimp. With more than 70 percent of the domestic market, imported shrimp dominates, as shrimpers from China, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam freeze their shrimp on huge trawlers, store it, and release it when market conditions are favorable. Also, 50 percent or so of foreign shrimp is raised in massive aquaculture operations in countries with low labor costs and few if any environmental regulations, an industry that is not likely to develop in America.


Fake Chinese shrimp.

In 1989, the park was dedicated to Mary Ross, a member of one of Brunswick's shrimping families and a historian who coauthored an influential history of Georgia titled The Debatable Land. This book highlighted Georgia's Spanish history and unfortunately asserted that the tabby ruins were of Spanish origin. When this was proven to be wrong a decade later, Ross was devastated and vowed never to publish another word again. However, she did continue to research Georgia's Spanish heritage for the rest of her life, and many valuable documents were donated to the Georgia archives after she died.


Mary Ross Park and Pavilion.

Backtracking on Gloucester, the traveler enters Brunswick's Old Town National Historic District, which is bound by H Street, Newcastle Street, First Avenue, and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.



Little driving tour of Brunswick is a great rainy day activity.



House after house in Old Town Brunswick.



Fringe of rough neighborhood, good reclamation projects.



Old Town Brunswick.



The other following Brunswick highlights are worth visiting:

Glynn County Courthouse, at Union Street and G Street, is an impressive building constructed in 1907 and surrounded by beautiful live oaks, dahoon or swamp hollies, and exotics including Chinese pistachio and tung trees.



Opposite the courthouse at 1709 Reynolds is the Mahoney-McGarvey House, known as one of the finest examples of Carpenter Gothic architecture in Georgia.



Newcastle Street. This commercial corridor houses many shops and businesses in nineteenth century Victorian buildings.







Visit the Ritz Theater at 1530 Newcastle, which was built in 1898 as the Grand Opera House.





Old City Hall, 1212 Newcastle, was designed by noted architect Albert S. Eichberg and constructed in 1890, and it features an impressive example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture.



During the Hurricane of 1898, floodwaters rose to the bottom of its first floor windows.









The second main Natural Wonder of Brunswick is found in the Lovers' Oak, located at the intersection of Prince and Albany streets. According to local legends, this 900-year-old oak has served as a meeting place for lovers since Indian times.



The tree trunk is 13 feet in diameter, and 3 feet from the ground it branches into 10 limbs measuring 12 to 30 inches in diameter.



Brunswick is home to Glynn Academy, one of the oldest public schools—and the second-oldest high school—in Georgia, chartered by the state in 1788. The College of Coastal Georgia, formerly Coastal Georgia Community College, was established in 1961 as a unit of the University System of Georgia. A four-year institution, it enrolled approximately 3,000 students in 2008.



Noteworthy residents have included blues musician "Bumble Bee Slim" Easton,



Writer Mary Hood,



Boxer Tiger Flowers, Theodore "Tiger" Flowers became the first black boxer to capture the world middleweight championship. He was the first African American after Jack Johnson to challenge for a world title. Flowers helped to reform the image of black prizefighters, prefiguring the great Joe Louis with his ability to garner broad support among both whites and blacks.



Flowers was born in Camilla, in Mitchell County, in 1895 and moved with his family to Brunswick as an infant. After working as a stevedore on the Georgia coast, Flowers temporarily relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he took up boxing. It was only after his move to Atlanta around 1920, however, that he started training seriously, with manager Walk Miller. Over the next six years this lightning-quick lefthander competed all over the country in a grueling ascent to the top of the boxing ranks. Flowers combined showmanship inside the ropes with a public persona characterized by sobriety and religious devotion (he carried a Bible into the ring for each fight). So evident were these qualities, Flowers became known as "the Georgia Deacon." His unthreatening behavior helped to expunge the memory of the more inflammatory Jack Johnson.



Flowers finally earned an official challenge against the world middleweight champion, Harry Greb, in February 1926, winning the title and then defending it in a closely fought rematch.





Yet his glory was brief. In December 1926 he lost to Mickey Walker in Chicago on points. The decision united fans and reporters alike in loud condemnation of the judges and referee, and there were persistent rumors that the bout was fixed by local mobsters.

 

Less than a year later, in November 1927, at thirty-two years of age, Flowers died while undergoing an operation to remove scar tissue from around his eyes. At the time he was negotiating a return match with Walker. Miller died within a year of his former charge.



Flowers had been an important figure in Atlanta's black community—as a deacon at the Butler Street CME Church and as a member of the Masons, Elks, and Knights of Pythias. His house on Simpson Road was one of the most luxurious in the city. Estimates put the number of mourners, of both races, who filed past the coffin in Atlanta at 75,000. Another 7,000 crammed the City Auditorium to witness a lavish memorial service. Atlanta was not to demonstrate its grief again on anything approaching this scale until the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.





One poll has ranked Flowers as the number five all-time middleweight boxer. He ended his career with 115 wins, 14 losses, 21 no-decisions, and 6 draws. Flowers was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1976 and elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993.



Brunswick is also known for members of the DuBignon family.


Horton / DuBignon house Jekyll Island.

Top Row Dawg Addendum

Oak Grove Cemetery has a pretty neat driving tour. Historic Oak Grove Cemetery is located at 1500 Mansfield Street and is perhaps one of the oldest existing public cemeteries in Brunswick, and by existing I mean still visible. There is one older that has been recently excavated known as Wright Square, but it will be hard to prove who was buried within. One known burial in that extinct "City Cemetery" was Benjamin Hart, Revolutionary War Veteran who died in 1802. He was the husband of Nancy Hart.



In Brunswick's Palmetto Cemetery we find the graves of the sailors from the SS Oklahoma that was sunk as detailed back in our St. Simons post.



More historic photos of vanished Brunswick.







Surprised after all this information, no one touched upon the Brunswick Stew controversy. A plaque on an old iron pot in the old welcome Center in Brunswick, Georgia, says the first Brunswick stew was made in it on July 2, 1898, on nearby St. Simons Island. A competing story claims a Virginia state legislator's chef invented the recipe in 1828 on a hunting expedition.



The main differences between the Georgia and Virginia versions have been the types of meat used. Tradition favors squirrel in early versions of both. The Virginia version tends to favor chicken as the primary meat, along with rabbit. The Georgia version tends to favor pork and beef. Possum mentioned as original ingredient in both too.


Squirrel and Rabbit and Possum.

A man made wonder for Brunswick is found in the Sidney Lanier Bridge.






it was tricky getting the big boats through the old draw bridge.


Too tricky.


Replaced the old bridge with a soaring structure.



Casino Boat

Hop aboard the Emerald Princess Casino where 200 sleek feet and four fun-filled decks await!



Our two gaming decks have it all! 250 slots, 12 Blackjack Tables, 1 Emerald Princess Stud Poker table, 1 Triple Time poker table, 4 Texas Hold' Em tables, 2 Roulette wheels, and a Craps table! So whatever your game, the Emerald Princess is sure to provide entertainment for all.



Dining and Bingo is offered on the Bistro Deck. Ocean views and sea breezes fill the ship's open-air Observation Deck. From bow to stern and top to bottom, the Emerald Princess is the Golden Isles' premier Casino experience!



OK we conclude the Georgia Florida weekend with this recount of the Golden Isles territory. Back to our Fall Line exploration tomorrow.

Our GNW Gals today dealing Black Jack on the Casino Boat.