The memory of the Duke of Cumberland, son of King George II., the
victor of the battle of Culloden, in Scotland, where he defeated the
Pretender in 1746, is preserved in America in the name of Cumberland
Sound, the finest harbor on the Southern Atlantic Coast. St. Mary's
River, coming out of Okifenokee swamp to make the northern boundary of
Florida, flows an erratic course, boxing the compass in every
direction until it finally heads eastward and debouches in Cumberland
Sound, among a group of islands forming a large landlocked harbor.
This river and sound, the boundary between Georgia and Florida, were,
prior to the Revolution, a disputed frontier between the English and
the Spaniards. To the northward of the entrance from the sea is
Cumberland Island in Georgia, then comes Jekyll Island, with its
magnificent club-house and elaborate cottages, and then St. Simon's
Bay, having as its chief port the busy lumber-shipping town of
Brunswick. To the southward of the Cumberland entrance is Amelia
Island in Florida. The sound behind Amelia and Cumberland Islands is a
magnificent roadstead, capable of floating at safe anchorage an
enormous fleet. Amelia Island is a long, narrow sand bank with much
foliage upon it, stretching about fourteen miles down the Florida
coast to Nassau Sound. On the sea front of this island is one of the
finest sand beaches on the Atlantic. Behind it is the arm of the sea
known as Amelia River, and the port of Fernandina, thirty-six miles
northeast of Jacksonville, having at the point of the island, guarding
the entrance to its harbor, old Fort Clinch, a superannuated
brick-work battery, formerly of great importance, but now of little
use, though it was somewhat strengthened to meet the exigencies of the
recent Spanish War.
The French Huguenots first came along here and settled, as they did at
the St. John's River entrance, and they called the island Garde. They
found here a powerful Indian tribe, whose chief, the "Cacique of
Garde," their historian described as "handsome and noble," and his
queen as "beautiful and modest," and the same authority says they had
"five handsome daughters." The French were engaged in desultory
quarrels with the Spaniards south of them at St. Augustine, and the
young gallants of the colony, in the intervals of the warfare,
alternately courted and jilted the Indian maidens, the result being a
savage attack and massacre; and finally, between Indian and Spanish
enmity, the settlement disappeared. But the English, made of sterner
stuff, ultimately came along, settling Georgia, and giving British
names to the islands, the rivers and the Sound, which they still
retain. For a long time this was disputed territory between the
English and the Spaniards, the latter claiming everything northward to
Carolina. General Oglethorpe marched through here to attack St.
Augustine, and in 1763 the British held Amelia Island, extending the
little fort to almost its present proportions, and laying out a town
behind it, while to the southward the Countess of Egmont established
an indigo plantation, which flourished for a brief period. Spain
ultimately got the island, and it came into American possession with
Florida in 1821. A little town with sandy streets, a pretty park, much
foliage, delicious air bringing the balsam of the pines and the tonic
of the sea, and hotels accommodating the influx of winter visitors,
make up the Fernandina of to-day. Its beach on the ocean front, more
than a mile away, is one of the finest in existence, hard as a floor,
level and broad, stretching as far as eye can see, and having a grand
surf booming upon it.
On Cumberland Island is the estate of Dungeness. General Nathaniel
Greene of Rhode Island, one of Washington's most trusted officers, was
the commander of the Revolutionary armies in the South in 1780-81
which drove the British out of that section, gained the victory of
Cowpens in South Carolina, and compelled the withdrawal of Cornwallis
to Yorktown, which ended in his surrender. After the close of the war,
in gratitude for his great services, the people of Georgia presented
him with this estate of about ten thousand acres. He made it his home
for a time, but it afterwards passed away from his family, and being
neglected, the old coquina stone mansion was burnt. The house has
since been reconstructed, and a picturesque avenue of moss-hung live
oaks a mile long stretches over the island near it to the sea. In a
little cemetery on the estate are the graves of General Greene's widow
and daughter. Here is also the grave of "Light Horse Harry" of the
Revolution (the father of General Robert E. Lee), who died abroad in
1818. He had visited and loved Dungeness, and requested to be buried
there. Oaks and palmettos embower these modest graves, which are
carefully preserved.