MY VISIT TO SAPELO ISLAND (Part II)…
I arrived at the Meridian, Georgia, ferry dock fifteen minutes before the 8:00 a.m. departure time. My hurried breakfast had been a bit of last night’s leftover boiled shrimp and a fresh cup of coffee, but it seemed there’d been no need to rush. A trickle of State workers and a group of island residents – coming back from who knows where – were exchanging greetings with a neatly uniformed ferry Captain intent on his clipboard. I tucked my lunch in close to me – the rest of the spiced shrimp from last night’s splurge now wrapped in newspaper - and uttered the magic words: “I’m meeting -” The Captain’s grin stopped me, “…Fran, eh?” We chatted a moment about the dolphins that were putting on a show out in the channel, and he graciously waved me onto the gangway of the Annemarie.
At least fifty feet in length and glistening white in the early morning sunshine, the Annemarie looked more like an ocean-going tug than a ferry. I opted to stay on the fantail of the lower deck next to a State employee who was knitting an article of baby clothing. The area quickly crowded up as more and more people piled aboard. A few took seats in the spacious cabin that looked like it might hold half a hundred. The vessel’s twin Diesels barked to life and we headed into the channel.
At first glance, Sapelo Island had seemed a vague, blue-green line across the eastern horizon. As the vessel picked up speed, turning north, then east – was it north again? – I began to lose any certainty I knew which way we were headed. Sapelo remained a thin, blue-green line. The marshes are said to consist of spartina, needlerush, oxeye, and glasswort: it all looked like grass to me, packed solidly hip-high…or was it head-high? I was losing any sense of proportion in the vastness of this tidewater marsh.
Conversation on the fantail had risen from a few casual comments to a fever pitch of badinage – everyone obviously poking fun – no one shy about retaliating with the tiniest shred of gossip picked up while ashore. I strained my ears trying to catch even a hint of Geechee, but all I heard were thick Georgia drawls, laughter, and localisms that sailed right over my head. The whooping and hollering came to a close four miles across Doboy sound when we bumped the dock at Marsh Landing. We’d left one marsh to dock at the edge of another, arriving at the south end of Sapelo Island. I knew it was the south only because I’d been told so: in the course of our serpentine half hour cruise I’d completely lost my bearings!
We stepped off onto the solid earth of a too-small parking area packed with a chaos of passenger vans, their drivers searching out State workers, relatives, and the handful of tourists. I joined up with another lost soul; before I could speak, a woman’s hand touched my shoulder – Fran Drayton, my tour guide. Fran led me to a well-worn, school-bus type passenger van, in which two tourists from Pittsburgh, PA had already been seated. We were soon bumping down a rutted dirt road. After twisting and turning through a dark forest cover of mammoth live oak trees, we came to an abrupt halt alongside a dim clearing filled with headstones and floral plantings. This was the eerily-named “Behavior Cemetery,” which sounded a little less unsettling once Fran explained its history. Thomas Spalding, the planter who in 1802 began the control of Sapelo Island, had a problem with some of his slaves trying to form individual communities. For the times, his solution was ingenious: as long as the slaves were respectful and stayed working his fields, Spalding was content. He sent his black Muslim overseer, Bu Allah, to inspect each community. Spalding had asked of this community: “Are they behaving?” When the overseer’s answer came back”yes,” he allowed them to continue living as they were and to be buried in the same locale. Hence, the “Behavior” Cemetery.
A portrait of Thomas Spalding discloses a fearsome, sepulchral countenance. In reality he was a remarkable, sympathetic agronomist – a wildly successful planter of sugar cane, sea cotton, and rice; a timber baron; a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and Senate – and later, a U.S. Congressman; and lastly, Spalding was a founding partner of the historic Bank of Darien which financed many another low-country plantation and the construction of several regional rail and canal systems.
Thomas Spalding was born on St. Simons Island in March of 1774. His father, a planter of sea cotton, was a descendant of the Spaldings of Perth, Scotland – a family that held title to the Barony of Ashantilly. Thomas’s mother was the granddaughter of John Mohr McIntosh, leader of the Highland Scots who first settled Darien in 1736. Thomas managed to marry well: his wife being Sarah Leake, the only child of Richard Leake, a prominent cotton planter first of Jekyll Island, then Belleville – the area above Meridian.
Sapelo’s history does not begin with Thomas Spalding. Paleo-indians, as far back as 4500 years ago, used the 16,500 acre island as a hunting preserve; even then it was rife with white-tailed deer and turkey. The Spanish era, from 1573 to 1684, saw the emergence of a mission and garrison named San Joseph De Sapala (from the Guale Indian Capala). When Oglethorpe settled Savannah, the Indian preserve fell into white hands. During the American Revolution British raiders seized island crops and slaves. Following our own Revolution, French Revolutionists, in 1789, purchased the island. Today their mansion, “Chocolate,” lies in ruins along the northeast edge of the Estuarine marsh preserve. Spalding started out with a 5,000 acre purchase in 1802 and ended up owning all 16,500 acres. The island’s measurements are roughly 10 miles north to south, its widest dimension 4 miles, the whole larger than Bermuda.
Fran next drove us to the ruins of Spalding’s tabby sugar mill, which at one time ran on tidal power. “Tabby” is a mixture of sand, lime, oyster shells and water, and Spalding pioneered the use of it as a construction material. The old sugar boiling house, known as the “long tabby” has become the island Post Office at which I had the pleasure of buying several pre-cancelled Sapelo Island Lighthouse postcards.
On our way to Hog Hammock – the 434 acre private community of the 47 Gullah familes descended from the Spalding slaves – we passed the airport built by the slowly dying John J. Reynolds to facilitate the arrivals of his personal physician (much more later about Reynolds). Reynolds had in fact given the residents title to their Hog Hammock land. The deep woods on either side of the airfield gave evidence of overgrown irrigation and drainage trenches dug by Spalding’s slaves. Fran said she had a couple of “pet” alligators in one of them. They were, however, not interested in putting in an appearance for us.
Hog Hammock was a complete suprise. The homes of the Gullah families, involving 70 or so residents, were as neat, well kept, and modern as you might find in any responsible mainland community. Some structures were surprisingly resplendent. Through the years, every home has possessed indoor plumbing; and the island is blessed with an infinite natural supply of fresh water. I had to assume that the modest number of vehicles on the island had been barged over, along with anything else of a bulky nature. The tiny general store we were shown was almost barren of goods; shelf space was clearly insufficient to serve the residents as a stop-gap grocery or pharmacy. I had to assume that the Hog Hammock folks resorted to frequent ferry trips or to some other type of regular requisition arrangement for groceries.
As Fran walked us about the community, something crept uneasily into my thoughts: it struck me that, through the years, only an uneasy peace is likely to have existed between the independent residents of Hog Hammock and the various State authorities who from time to time insist on flexing their muscle over control of the island.
If you are Gullah and live on Sapelo Island, by those two facts alone you are deeply involved in an organization formed in 1993 to preserve and revitalize the community – SICARS, the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society. SICARS has remained active in gaining greater control over the future of Sapelo’s Gullah population resident in the Hog Hammock community.
More on SICARS and the final instalment of “My Visit to Sapelo Island” (Part III) next week.
