Millionaire's Playground

Jekyll Island

 Jekyll Island, playground of the millionaires was originally inhabited by the Guale (Wally) Indians.  A life of playing on the beach, arguing with their neighbors, and frolicking in the waves was soon brought to an end by the Spanish explorers and then the English settlers.  The Spanish brought new diseases and the tribe was soon all but extinct.  Many of the survivors moved to mission heavy south Florida, a few stayed and joined with other tribe survivors to form the Yamasee.

Major William Horton was the first Englishman to inhabit the island.  The island was granted to him in 1738 he built this house in 1743 from tabby and cleared the land for crops.  Those crops he sold to the residents of nearby Frederica Island who would have suffered otherwise.

 Major Horton was a trusted aide to General Oglethorpe and when Oglethorpe returned to England, Major Horton became the  Commander of the Georgia Colonies.

He built the first brewery and the ruins can still be seen.  Billy Beer anyone?

The home was destroyed by the Spanish and by 1800 the island was owned by a French privateer by the name of Christophe (Anne Poulain) du Bignon, a native of Lamballe, Brittany.  He was a much decorated naval captain and loyal to Louis XVI causing him to flee after the French Revolution.  He sailed to the Georgia coast with his family and with four other Frenchmen bought both Sapelo Island and Jekyll Island.  Five generations of the du Bignon family lived here until the island was sold to a group of millionaire capitalists who formed the Jekyll Island Club.

Christophe was buried on the island with a large oak tree as his only marker.  The burial spot of five du Bignon's is rumored not to be in the cemetery!  Apparently they are buried close but not in the cemetery.  This is an exert from The Glyngen.com site

An interesting side note, no one is buried in this cemetery!  According to historian John Hunter on Jekyll Island, when preservationists became interested in this little burial ground, all they found were a bunch of stones lying about.  So what to do?  We will just make a cemetery.  A surveyor was later hired to plot out how many graves are located within in the wall, and imagine everyone's surprise when they said, no one is buried there.  Apparently the cemetery is in that area, but from time and the elements the stones toppled over and got shifted about.  The actual graves are outside of the cemetery

 This is when my lens started acting up so no picture of the cemetery to be had.  Picture walls made of tabby surrounding five graves slabs for markers and headstones that were crowned with flowers.  I'm not sure who does this but love that they do!

The cemetery is on the banks of the du Bignon Creek.  

In 1885, the island sold to the newly formed Jekyll Island Club.  Some names you might recognize were members - Vanderbilt, Goodyear, Marshall Fields, Rockefeller, Pulitzer and J.P. Morgan.  Someone (that famous person that lives in my mind when I don't take notes) said that when the members were present on the island submarines were stationed off shore.  The members represented a huge hunk of both the national and the world's wealth. 

The members built cottages...hahahahahaha...wait til you see these cottages, but were expected to eat at the club.  Faith chapel was built for the members and their families.  One interesting thing about the services....the members were required to attend Sunday morning services, and if they were "sick" they were then required to send a servant.  Bet those servants were the most religious people EVER and those club members made many remarkable recoveries from their Saturday night illnesses!

  

Faith Chapel has one of Louis Comfort Tiffany's stained glass windows.  It is dedicated to Frederick Gilbert Bourne, who was the club's fourth president.  To make it even more special the window bears the signature of Mr. Tiffany.  There are only four of these windows in the United States.  If you don't recognize the name, Frederick Bourne was the president of the Singer Manufacturing Company from 1889 - 1905.  You may have seen another of his vacation homes on HGTV or the Travel Channel, an Dark Island on the St. Lawrence River.

  Now for the fun part, the cottages....LOL...yeah right.

We met our tour guide at the stable, but alas we took a trolley and not the horse drawn wagon.  And off we went....

The Condominiums

I can't remember why they have condominiums, maybe they had these before the cottages or had them for their families.  Note to self:  do blog before you forget what you learned - one reason for this blog.  But, remember the members were expected to eat at the club house.

CRANE COTTAGE

This home was the largest and most elegant of all the cottages.  Built on lots next to the clubhouse, the cottage has 20 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms.  Richard Teller Crane, Jr. was the heir to the Chicago based Crane Company.  Today it is a bed and breakfast and has a restaurant in the courtyard.  

GOODYEAR COTTAGE

The home was built for Buffalo lumber and railroad magnate Frank Goodyear.   Today it is home to the Jekyll Island Arts League.

Indian Mound Cottage

Indian Mound Cottage is so named because...wait for it, wait for it....an indian mound in the yard.  It began as a small home and was sold to William Rockefeller, younger brother of John D. Rockefeller.  It soon grew to a 25 room cottage.  After the island was sold to the state of Georgia it was used as a museum and the beginning of the renovation of the island's historic district.  

Mistletoe Cottage

Built in 1900 for Henry Kirke Porter.  Mr. Porter was a manufacturer of locomotives and a member of the House of Representatives for Pennsylvania.  He was a theology student but was given a gift of $20,000 by his father which he invested with a partner and opened a small shop which became H. K. Porter, Inc.  

MOSS COTTAGE

Moss Cottage was built in 1896 using all local materials including the cedar shingles.  The original owner was a Philadelphia marble works owner who then sold it to George Macy, a New York tobacconist who later became president of the A&P stores.  He used it for a winter home.

VILLA OSPO COTTAGE

Vila Ospo cottage was finished n 1928 for Walter Jennings of New York.  Mr. Jennings was president of the Jekyll Island Club from 1927 until 1933.  It now houses the offices of the Jekyll Island Authority.  What makes it special is that it is the only cottage on the island with a garage.

This is by no means all the cottages but it gives you an idea of these small little vacation homes.

These aren't cottages, they are dormitories used by the single workers on the island.  I'm not sure if they are on Pier Road or not.  Pier Road was the "behind the scenes" entity of the Jekyll Island Club.  Here the workers lived and worked with up to 120 buildings conducting the business of making the club work seamlessly for the club members.

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Since the road also was home to both the commissary and the dining hall, the residents referred to it as "Feeding Row".  At noon each day the foreman would ring the bell and the workers would come to eat. 

Lunch was served at the Jekyll Island Club who treated us just like we were millionaires on vacation.  The room we occupied was actually the room where the modern day Federal Reserve was roughed out.  Briefly, in 1907 several banks collapsed as depositors withdrew funds worried their money wasn't being invested wisely.  Everyone scampered and did studies and formed the Monetary Commission to study world financial institutes and come up with an answer to American banks.  In 1910 Senator Aldrich invited leaders in the banking world to join him in a "duck hunt" on Jekyll Island.  In reality it was a working session that through some long and boring history finally became the Federal Reserve Act.  

Anyway we had the Jekyll Club Sandwich - which could have fed the entire bunch of duck hunters, pasta salad, and followed by key lime pie.

After lunch we had free time on the island to indulge in some retail therapy or visit the turtle hospital.  Pat and I did both. Nothing exciting about the retail therapy, but the turtle rehab was interesting.

GUADALQUINI

 Guadalquini is a sub adult loggerhead weighing 71 pounds when she entered the rehab center June 9, 2014.  She was found on East Beach on St. Simons Island and brought to the rehab center.  She was severely anemic, had low blood protein, low glucose and low calcium.  In addition she had a gastrointestinal blockage - if you must know, even though it is quite personal, it was due to soft shell bits.  She was treated with fluids, antibiotics, love, and some medicine for her non-mentionable ailment and was due to be released on October 17 with her new curvey figure at 85 pounds.  

TURTLE ART

That ended our day on Jekyll Island, a place that is beautiful but too rich for my blood...or it was in its hay day.  So we drove off into the sunset on our  original golf cart.