Georgia Natural Wonder #35 - Ossabaw Island. 1,085

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Georgia Natural Wonder #35 - Ossabaw Island

Ossabaw Island is one of the Sea Islands located on the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia approximately twenty miles by water south from the historic downtown of the city of Savannah. Ossabaw has been a part of Chatham County since 1847. Before that, the island was a part of Bryan County. Ossabaw is the northernmost member of the historically defined Golden Isles and has a fascinating natural and human history to share. One of the largest of Georgia's barrier islands, Ossabaw contains 9,000 acres of wooded uplands with freshwater ponds and 16,000 acres of marshlands interlaced with tidal creeks. Located between Wassaw Island and the Ogeechee River on the north and St. Catherines Island on the south, the island is not linked to the mainland by bridge or causeway. Shaped like a wishbone with marsh filling the middle, the island consists of 25,000 acres, of which 11,800 are upland and almost 10 miles are beach, making it roughly twice the size of Bermuda and counting total acreage the second largest barrier island on the Georgia coast.



The island was the first acquisition of the Heritage Trust Act of 1975, which protects the island from overuse and development, but makes public access difficult and rare. By state law, all of Georgia's barrier island beaches are open to the public, and Ossabaw is no exception. During daylight hours, the public is allowed to use the beach for hiking, picnicking, or shelling. However, the interior of the island is off limits to the public without permission.



Geologically, Ossabaw's two pieces of the wishbone consist of the Pleistocene western part fronting the interior marsh and the Holocene, eastern part facing the sea. The western piece is around 35,000 to 40,000 years old and the eastern piece is roughly 5,000 years old. The older the island, the more time it has had to develop richer soils to support a greater diversity of flora species, and the more likely it is to have developed new species. Atlantic barrier islands tend to migrate westward toward the mainland. Rivers carry sediment to the ocean. When the river currents meet the tides and the south-moving longshore current, the sediment is pushed to the south, growing islands on their northern ends, giving them a turkey-leg shape. Geologists believe the two parts of Ossabaw are fused at the southern end, as opposed to the northern end, because of copious outflows of sediment from the Ogeechee River, which has slowed the northern end's westward migration. This effect from rivers is also seen among the islands north of Ossabaw and the St. Simons Island group.

         

The island fronts the salt marshes of Bryan and Liberty counties, but surprisingly is in Chatham County due to a wayward county line. Its northern, wide end looks over Ossabaw Sound (the largest sound on the Georgia coast, which is created by the Ogeechee River) to Wassaw Island, and Ossabaw's narrow, southern end looks over the St. Catherines Sound (created by the Jerico and Medway rivers) to St. Catherines Island. The island's relationship to the Ogeechee River is obvious in the fact that Ossabaw's first European name was Ogeche. Today's name of Ossabaw is considered one of the oldest place names in Georgia. The island's name is the anglicized spelling of the Guale village of Asapo found on the southern end of the island, believed to mean "yaupon holly bushes place."



Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria) is a common shrublike plant with red berries found on Ossabaw and all the other Georgia barrier islands. For ceremonies, Indians used yaupon berries to make a "black drink" that caused vomiting and visions. (CAUTION: Don't experiment with this plant. The leaves and berries are poisonous to humans and should not be eaten.) The island can't claim to be in the pristine natural condition of its neighbor to the north of Wassaw. Ossabaw's development history is typical of most Georgia coastal islands. Over its history of human occupation and use, virgin forests of live oak, water oak, laurel oak, and pine were cleared for timber and for growing sea island cotton, rice, and indigo and raising free-range livestock such as cattle, horses, hogs, and donkeys.



Ossabaw has a rich human history, with tales of Indian hunting parties, Spanish missionaries, rich plantations, African slaves, millionaire owners, and artist communes. Evidence of human presence extends for at least 4,000 years based on pottery shards unearthed from the island's numerous oyster shell middens. They have been enjoying and putting to use its rich salt marshes, freshwater ponds, ancient maritime forest, wind-swept dunes, and deserted white beaches. It was inhabited by the Guale Indians at the time of the Spanish exploration of the Georgia coast in the early 16th century. Throughout the Spanish mission period the Guale alternately supplied and fought with the Spanish. When English occupation of the area replaced the Spanish in the 1730s, the Guale had moved inland possibly in response to disease and coastal marauding under the Spanish. The earliest English treaties reserved the island as hunting and fishing grounds for the Creek Indians. In 1758 a group of Creek leaders was persuaded to convey the island to King George II of England.


Mary Musgrove.

The first property transfer in the new colony of Georgia involved Ossabaw. Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe made a land deal with Tomochichi, the mico of the Yamacraws, receiving the tidewater region between Savannah and the Altamaha in exchange for granting Ossabaw, St. Catherines, and Sapelo islands to the Indians in perpetuity. The Indians made a subsequent deal, granting the hunting islands to Mary Musgrove, the mixed-race interpreter for James Oglethorpe, who was considered princess of the tribe. Musgrove, and her second husband Thomas Bosomworth, were granted the Indian hunting islands "as long as the sun shall shine or the waters run in the rivers, forever." Not much happened with the islands until Georgia lifted its ban in 1749 on slavery, which was necessary to operate profitable plantations in the south. Musgrove moved to establish plantations on her three islands, but the Royal Trustees protested the legality of her title to the islands. Despite the dispute, the Bosomworths built a home and planted fields on St. Catherines, and raised cattle on Ossabaw. The English courts disputed the Bosomworths' claims and in 1760, after lengthy legal maneuvering, and after 11 years, the case was settled by granting them St. Catherines, and Sapelo and Ossabaw were put up for public auction with the proceeds going to the Bosomworths.


Smokehouse North End.

Ossabaw was then placed on public auction. John Morel, a Savannah merchant, purchased half of Ossabaw in 1760 and the other half in 1763. Morel began agricultural and live oak timber-cutting operations there and also introduced the first slaves to the island. Morel was from a successful family of South Carolina planters. He built a home on the north end and planted an avenue of Live Oaks that remains today and is considered to be the longest, oldest dirt road still in use in America. The Morels planted indigo, cotton, and rice on the island. Indigo production was especially labor intensive, requiring hundreds of slaves to settle on the island. Morel divided the island into three parts for management purposes. When John Morel died, his three sons each received a different part: Bryan Morel inherited North End Place, Peter Henry Morel received Middle Place, and John Morel II was deeded the South End Place. The names of the three parts are still used today and the island was eventually divided into four plantations.


North End Avenue of Live Oaks

After the War of 1812, sea island cotton was the dominant crop and led to great prosperity among plantation owners. During the antebellum period Ossabaw Island was the scene of extensive farming operations, particularly in the staple crop of Sea Island cotton. Four families owned slaves and cultivated crops on Ossabaw.


Tabby ruins slave cabins North End.

The Morel family retained the northern part of the island and farmed the tract. At North End was a plantation residence, as well as several tabby slave dwellings. Three of the slave quarters still stand.



Middle Place was a Morel family property until 1806. It eventually became an active farm tract owned by Alexander McDonald, who in 1843 began cultivating Sea Island cotton. According to the U.S. agricultural census of 1860, McDonald had sixty-nine slaves residing in seventeen dwellings at Middle Place.



George Jones Kollock owned the southern part of Ossabaw Island during the antebellum period. Kollock lived on the mainland at Coffee Bluff, near Savannah, but he was the most active planter on Ossabaw before the Civil War (1861-65), with seventy-two slaves working in fields that produced up to 20,000 pounds of cotton during the years 1850-60. South End is the best documented of Ossabaw's antebellum plantations, because many of the account books and ledgers kept by Kollock's overseers have survived.



The fourth division of Ossabaw was the Buckhead tract, which was planted on a small scale by Nathaniel G. Rutherford.


Goose pond on Buckhead tract.

The island was abandoned by the Morels during the Civil War, and the Union blockaded the sound, built batteries on the north end of the island, and stationed a small number of troops here.



After the Civil War there was a small Freedmen's settlement on Ossabaw. By 1878 this community had established an African Baptist church on the island to serve its approximately 160 black residents. In 1896 the prominent archaeologist C. B. Moore conducted extensive investigations of Ossabaw's Indian burial mounds as part of his research along the Georgia coast. Severe hurricanes in 1896 and 1898 caused Ossabaw's black population to move to the mainland, where they settled in the tidewater community of Pinpoint, south of Savannah.


Dedication Pin Point historical marker at cemetery.

After the American Civil War the island was farmed on a small scale by several owners and tenant farmers until the sale of North End to James M. Waterbury, a leading sportsman of the era and a founder of the New York Yacht Club,


New York Yacht Club.

in 1886. During the postbellum period much of Ossabaw was owned by Waterbury. James Montaudevert Waterbury Sr. (September 5, 1851 – July 11, 1931) was an American businessman and industrialist. He was president of the New York Steel and Wire Company and the American Type Bar and Machine Company. His son Monte, was quite the Polo player.


Monte Waterbury.

Monte Waterbury, together with his brother Lawrence Waterbury, Harry Payne Whitney and Devereaux Milburn were known collectively as the Big Four when they competed and won the 1909 International Polo Cup.



They defeated England, which had held the cup since its inauguration in 1886. He has won the International Polo Cup five times, in 1902, 1909, 1911, 1913, and 1914. He won the first U.S. Open Polo Championship in 1904, & ten senior titles.


Larry Waterbury.

Later the island was acquired by Philadelphians John Wanamaker and his son, Thomas B. Wanamaker, owners of one of the nation's largest department-store chains. His business grew substantially based on Wanamaker's then-revolutionary principle: "One price and goods returnable". His main store in Philadelphia was then designed by famous Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham, and this 12-story granite "Wanamaker Building" was completed in 1910, encompassing an entire block at the corner of Thirteenth and Market Streets across from Philadelphia's City Hall.


Organ and Court.

The store, which still stands today, was dedicated by US President William Howard Taft, and houses a large pipe organ, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, and the 2,500-pound bronze "Wanamaker Eagle" in the store's Grand Court, which became a famous meeting place for Philadelphians. "Meet me at the Eagle" is a Philadelphia byword.


The Wanamaker Building with its Grand Court Eagle became Philadelphia institutions.

The Wanamakers built the clubhouse on the north end of the island, a structure that still stands. They used the island as a hunting club.


Not sure if clubhouse, if anybody ever goes there, take a picture for us.


North End restoration.

In 1907 Henry D. Weed of Savannah acquired 9,416 upland acres on Ossabaw, including North End, Middle Place, and South End. When Weed added Buckhead to his holdings in 1916, all of Ossabaw Island was under ownership of a single individual for the first time since the death of John Morel in 1777.


Mules in the marsh Ossabaw Island.

After 1916 it was used as a hunting retreat while owned by a group of wealthy businessman. The 1920 census counted twenty-three persons living on Ossabaw, most engaged in subsistence farming. Dr. H.N. Torrey of Grosse Point, Michigan, purchased it in 1923 for a winter residence. Dr. Henry Norton Torrey and his wife, Nell Ford Torrey, purchased Ossabaw. She is the daughter of Emery L Ford and Ella Neat of Indiana. In 1926 construction was completed on the large Spanish Mediterranean–style Main House near Torrey Landing on the northern end of the island. It took two years to build the family's vacation home at the North End, which became a massive, two-story stucco residence in a Spanish style, with Bermuda pink walls and a Castilian tile roof, harkening back to the days of the Spanish empire on the Georgia coast. In the two-story, chapel-like wood beam living room is a large, centrally located fireplace built of ballast stone. Near the mansion, several other support buildings were constructed, and beautiful gardens were maintained on the grounds. The Torreys also developed roads, hunting lodges, and a beach house. Formal gardens were laid out at the Main House. Once the Torrey family settled into their home on Ossabaw after acquiring the island in 1924, the hospitality of plantation days was restored. An oversized leather-bound guest book, boasted many a well-known name with the passage of very little time. The island again saw its share of parties and famous visitors. Henry Ford is the first signature in the mansion's guest book.


Torrey Villa.

A number of prominent visitors came to Ossabaw as guests of the Torreys from 1926 to 1945. Some of these included automotive pioneer Henry Ford, who had his winter home on the adjacent mainland at Richmond Hill; Howard Coffin and Richard J. Reynolds Jr., successive owners of nearby Sapelo Island; banker and philanthropist Mills B. Lane of Savannah and Atlanta; and Alvan Macauley, who founded the Packard Motor Company.



Ossabaw is also bridgeless and destined to stay that way. Ownership of the island eventually passed down to Dr. H.N. Torrey's daughter, Eleanor Torrey (Sandy) West and some nieces and nephews. In 1961, Sandy West and her husband, Clifford B. West, created The Ossabaw Foundation, which launched many unique programs on the island, such as the Ossabaw Island Project. This interdisciplinary program supported recommended individuals "of creative thought and purpose in the arts, sciences, industry, education, and religion" to come to the island to share their ideas with other creatives and pursue their work without interruption. The foundation soon gained a reputation as a high-quality, if slightly eccentric organization. It was a successful outreach program conducted over the next twenty years. Qualified individuals chosen from a variety of disciplines, including the arts, humanities, and sciences, were invited to come to the island for study and research. West herself is a creative artist who has produced children's books, exhibited watercolors, and made documentary films. Renowned creatives from architect Robert Venturi to writer Annie Dillard stayed at the mansion during the program's run from 1961–1982.



Torrey Villa today.



One of the most successful ventures was the Genesis Project, begun in 1970, in which persons interested in ecology, botany, and environmental studies came to Ossabaw for research in a shared wilderness-community experience. Participants in the project constructed their own residential buildings at Middle Place. Genesis Project, was a rustic experiment in cooperative living at Middle Place, replete with a tree house with a marsh view and solar-powered sauna, among other buildings. Here around 10 students from colleges around the country shared community tasks such as gardening, milking their cow, and maintaining the buildings while they studied the island's environment and history and pursued personal artistic projects, such as making pottery from the island clay.


Torrey gate.

Lengthy waiting lists for admission to the select group were comprised of artists, craftsmen, scientists, philosophers, photographers, poets, and writers. Each paid a reasonable weekly fee to work in the idyllic setting. Over the years the island's solitude and natural beauty served as the setting for such luminaries as: composers Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber; writers Ralph Ellison, Annie Dillard, Olive Ann Burns, and Margaret Atwood; sculptor Harry Bertoia; and scientist Eugene Odum among many others.


Torrey home.

In 1978, no longer able to subsidize the artistic, educational, and scientific activity on the island, and eschewing lucrative offers of resort development, Mrs. West and her brother's children chose to sell the island to the State of Georgia as a Heritage Preserve with the understanding that Ossabaw would "be used for natural, scientific and cultural study, research and education, and environmentally sound preservation, conservation and management of the Island's ecosystem.


Torrey gardens.

The Nature Conservancy of Georgia purchased an option in 1977, and transferred it to the state in 1978. Valued at $15 million, the island sold for $8 million, with the remaining amount being a charitable gift from West and her family. The State of Georgia provided $4 million, and the remaining half of the purchase price was a donation from The Coca-Cola Company President Robert W. Woodruff, which was the largest private grant for conservation at that time. The island became the first heritage preserve in Georgia that allows the conservation of land for specifically stated purposes, and in this case it is to be used in an ecologically sound way for scientific and cultural purposes. West retains a life estate, including the Torrey mansion and 24 acres.


Sandy West was a GNW Gal in her day..

It came under the management of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Only those who obtain special permission from the agency can visit Ossabaw. The island's natural communities have been allowed to recover from its 1700s–1800s plantation era under management by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Ossabaw Island Foundation. Today, whatever barrier island natural communities you are looking for, they are represented on the island in abundance. Productive salt marshes and tidal creeks dominate the western side of the island, providing nursery grounds for a wide variety of fish and shellfish, such as trout, bass, oysters, crabs, and shrimp. Egrets and herons are frequently seen wading in the marsh, and vultures glide in their familiar circles overhead. Queen Bess Island, a marsh hammock, supports many nesting bird species, including the endangered bald eagle.



Low-lying areas support red bay, American holly, and southern magnolia. The maritime forest consists mainly of live, water, and laurel oaks, and slash and loblolly pines. Eastern red cedar and cabbage palm are found in the upper marsh border and transition zone between marsh and maritime forest. The understory is dominated with abundant saw palmetto and wax myrtle, along with less frequent wild azalea, sparkleberry, beautyberry, sassafras, and yaupon. Catbrier, pepper-vine, and muscadine vines climb on branches of woody vegetation, bearing their fruit that provides important food energy to migrating songbirds.



Interior freshwater marshes, with cattails and bulltongue, are home to alligators, frogs, and small fish. Wading birds are common, and migrating waterfowl are also seen using the habitat. The island has noisy bird rookeries, where herons roost and raise their young. Freshwater ponds provide refuge to migrating waterfowl using the Atlantic flyway.


Spoonbills and Wood Storks.

The sandy, dense interdune communities support a healthy population of lizards and snakes, including the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, which grows to its maximum size due to the protected status of Ossabaw. Wax myrtle is common vegetation. Yucca earns its common name of Spanish bayonet with its succulent leaves with very sharp points. Other prickly plants worth avoiding are the spurge-nettle, and devil-joint, a small pricky pear cactus with barbed spines. Primary dunes support flora communities consisting of beach panic grass, salt meadow cordgrass, beach elder, sandspur, and the dune pioneering sea oats, Russian thistle, and morning glory. Each summer Ossabaw's dunes attract approximately 160 nesting loggerhead turtles, which are drawn by primordial urges to its dark, sandy shoreline. The threatened piping plover winters on the shores of Ossabaw.



If you don't see deer or wild hogs as you travel the island, you aren't on Ossabaw. The island is home to an overpopulation of both, and they are frequently sighted crossing roads. One official estimates that 2,000 hogs and 1,000 deer roam the island. The hogs eat turtle eggs, which is a problem for the threatened loggerhead sea turtle. The first written record of deer hunting on the island was made in 1687, and hunting continues today. So popular is hunting on Ossabaw Island, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is forced to hold a lottery each year, with lucky applicants receiving the right to shoot a prescribed limit of deer or hogs as well as spend the night on the island.



The island has more than 100 miles of dirt roads and trails. At or near the North End of the island is a dock, the Torrey mansion, tabby slave quarters, the island manager's quarters, and one of the first pre-fabricated houses ever built. Brought from Philadelphia where it was exhibited at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1898, the state plans to rehabilitate the historic two-story wooden structure with grants through the Georgia Heritage 2000 program. Feral horses and Sicilian donkeys roam the area. Cotton was grown at the North End.


Cabin and Donkeys.

Tabby ruins of indigo plantations are found at Middle Place, along with several buildings from the Genesis Project period of the island. A huge, ancient live oak, perhaps 600 years old, is found near here.



The South End is home to Department of Natural Resources hunting quarters and a dock for arriving sportsmen. A causeway leads across the interior marshes to the Holocene dune ridges of the eastern half of the island. The beach is wild and deserted, and features some of the best shelling found off the Georgia coast. Like the rest of the island, the beach continues to change and be shaped by natural forces. In the 1970s, island officials could drive the entire length of the beach, but today, a tidal creek has divided the beach at Bradley Slough.


Genesis Project cabins.

The Ossabaw Island Foundation, a public charity established in 1994, defines its mission as "[The Foundation]...in a public-private partnership with the State of Georgia, inspires, promotes, and manages exceptional educational, cultural, and scientific programs that are designed to maximize the experience of Ossabaw Island, while minimizing the impact on its resources." The general public must apply to visit. The Foundation follows the guidelines established by Mrs. West and embodied in the Heritage Preserve of 1978: The island is open to groups engaged in study, research and education. Those groups include young people, adult interest groups, colleges and universities, teachers, artists and researchers. Some examples of the research that occurs on in the island involves nesting of loggerhead sea turtles, monitoring migratory bird patterns, investigating tooth wear of deer fawns and genetic studies on feral Sicilian donkeys.


Singing adventure 2011.

Currently Ossabaw is managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which has entered into a Use Agreement with The Ossabaw Island Foundation, a Savannah-based non-profit organization which regulates access and use of historic areas. The foundation works cooperatively with the State of Georgia's DNR to manage access to Ossabaw for public educational programs. In 2003 a new state policy took effect, giving more of the public a chance to visit and tour the island. Some environmentalists are worried that increased human presence could endanger habitats for such rare species as the American oystercatcher and the federally protected loggerhead turtle.


Gators surf on Ossabaw beach.

Ossabaw Island Comprehensive Management Plan says the hogs and donkeys are to be removed. Presumably, the way the document is written, the feral horses will also be removed. Ossabawisland.org states "all remaining donkeys have been sterilized to prevent future generations."


Last of a breed.

Directions: South End: Kilkenny Fish Camp, a full-service marina, provides closest access to South End Dock by Kilkenny Creek and the Bear River to Newell Creek. South End Dock is used mainly by hunters with permits. If traveling to the North End, many use Fort McAllister, Coffee Bluff, and Isle of Hope marines. Those traveling with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources on cultural visits leave from Vernon View Dock on Shipyard Road on Burnside Island.

Activities: During daylight hours, only the following activities are allowed on the beach: hiking, bird-watching, shelling, fishing, picnicking, nature studies. The island's interior is not open to the public without permission. Hunting is allowed on the island by special permit only. Hunting on Ossabaw Island for deer and feral hogs is probably the state's most popular hunting activity, with thousands of sportsmen applying for the limited number of permits that are issued each year. Those who are chosen are governed by special regulations that apply to the island. Call (912) 262-3173 for details.

Dates: Beach open sunrise to sunset. Interior closed unless permission is granted by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources on cultural mission or by special hunting permit, or the Ossabaw Island Foundation.

For more information: Wildlife Resources Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Brunswick, GA 31520. Phone (912) 262-3173. Ossabaw Island Foundation, Public Use and Education, Ossabaw Island, PO Box 13397, Savannah, GA 31416. Phone (912) 233-5104.



Several times a year, anyone can explore this remote paradise through the nonprofit Ossabaw Island Foundation. Sign up at ossabawisland.org.

May - Take a historical and ecological tour, hit the beach, and roam the island on your own. $75

June - Dig into Ossabaw artifacts with a hands-on archaeology excavation sponsored by UGA and the Department of Natural Resources. $85

October - The Ossabaw Island Pig Roast & Art Auction, an annual fundraiser at the home of Eleanor “Sandy” West.



Our GNW gal today is comfortable with the Ossabaw Island Pig Roast.



Back to the mountains for Friday morning.