After lunch, we found a local park with a walk through the history of this small city. Since the coastlines of states along the Atlantic Ocean were the first to be settled during the 1700s and 1800s, their history is our history. When locations in this southeast city are mentioned and we took a picture of the places, we’ll show you those pictures. When we’ve covered a topic in previous posts over the years, we’ll include a link to those posts.
Time to take a history walk around the park, a peace garden commemorating the War of 1812, and the shared heritage of the United States and Canada. The Peace Garden Trail celebrates 200 years of peace, prosperity, and brotherhood between two nations that share the world’s longest undefended border.
From crackergothic.com, I learned that “St. Marys is the oldest city in Georgia and the second oldest continuously-inhabited city in the United States, having been established by the British in 1787. St. Augustine, Florida, about 75 miles south of St. Marys, holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the country.”
The first sign we saw had information on the Acadians coming here in the late 1700s, the battles after the treaty ending the War of 1812 was signed but not ratified, and the peace garden. We’ll see more about these events further along in the post.
St. Marys has been occupied since the mid-1500s, but wasn’t founded until 1787. The historic Oak Grove Cemetery next to the park is the final home of the Acadians who were driven from Acadia by the English (more about this from our time on Nova Scotia in Canada’s Maritime Provinces if you want to click on this link). After years of sorrow, fear, and loss, they found refuge here in St. Marys .
After the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814 that ended what we know as the War of 1812, the “Forgotten Battle of the War of 1812” began with the British Admiral George Cockburn (more about him later) anchoring off Cumberland Sound. The next month he arrived in St. Marys with the British HMS Dragon, and by January 11, the British had landed in force to plan their attack.
On January 13, just 5 days after General Jackson’s defeat of the British in the Battle of New Orleans, the British landed at Kings Bay Plantation and made their march north to Fort Point Peter. This was a successful attack in early 1815 by a British force (1500 troops) on a smaller American force (36 men) on the Georgia side of the St. Marys River near where we are. The river was then part of the international border between the United States and British-allied Spanish Florida; it now forms part of the boundary between Georgia and Florida. After this 1-day battle, British forces ended their occupation only after looting downtown St. Marys and burning the fort to the ground.
early history
Before Europeans ever came to this area to settle, a tribe of Timucua Indians, known as Mocama, lived here. Per Wikipedia, “They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people.” The Spanish evacuated those left after infectious diseases and conflict diminished their numbers, moving them to Cuba in 1763.
Living in villages of 30 homes with 200-300 people each, they grew corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. For protein, they hunted game with bow and arrow and gathered shellfish from the St. Marys River.
Europeans
From approximately 1568 through 1684, Spanish Catholics established 12 missions from St. Augustine to what is now coastal South Carolina. On Cumberland Island, just a boat ride away, the Franciscan monks ministered to the Native Americans. Many converted and were then exposed to European culture (and diseases).
The Indians killed all but one of the Franciscans; the Indians were then massacred by the Spanish, and the Spanish abandoned the missions by 1685.
Acadians
In the mid-1700s, the British forced the French-speaking refugees to leave their homes in Nova Scotia during the French & Indian War (1754-1763). Descendants of these Acadians found refuge in St. Marys in the late 1790s after fleeing slave revolts in Santo Domingo and nearby Haiti. Many moved on to Louisiana and other parts of the US, but many made St. Marys their home.
On Prince Edward Island (PEI), the last half of our blog post about the bottle houses will fill you in about the Acacians, some of whom still live and prosper today on PEI. In Fredericton on New Brunswick, check out a museum post about them and other parts of Canada’s history that includes a famous frog.
a natural border
The St. Marys River has been a border line for hundreds of years. Today it’s the border between Georgia and Florida; for much of its history, the city of St. Marys was the southernmost community separating 2 nations: the US and Spain.
Georgians closely watched their neighbors to the south and stationed soldiers at nearby Point Peter where they built a simple fort and watched the river for all nature of threats. Smugglers and pirates used the tidal waterways to move back and forth, engaging in illegal activities that included slave smuggling.
In December 1807, the US Congress passed an Embargo Act because of the international tensions among the US, Britain, and France. From Britannica, this act “closed U.S. ports to all exports and restricted imports from Britain. The act was Pres. Thomas Jefferson’s response to British and French interference with neutral U.S. merchant ships during the Napoleonic Wars.” It was also President Jefferson’s way to stop Britain from “impressment” of our sailors. From PBS.org, “Impressment, or “press gang” as it was more commonly known, was recruitment by force. It was a practice that directly affected the U.S. and was even one of the causes of the War of 1812. The British navy consistently suffered manpower shortages due to the low pay and a lack of qualified seamen.”
The act devastated American shipping and agricultural markets, causing an increase in illegal trade and undermined national unity. The act was repealed in 1809.
birth of a city and Cumberland Island
In 1767, the British set up plans for the city of St. Marys, originally known as Buttermilk Bluff. After the Revolutionary War, the Articles of Agreement were signed on Cumberland Island in 1787 when the first American owner, Jacob Weed, divided and sold land to 19 other men for $38 each. These 20 founding fathers designed a city with 100-foot wide streets and two 16-acre public squares. (Sounds like the design of Savannah.) The streets in the historic district are named after these men.
Just 7 miles away by water is the Cumberland Island National Seashore, home of historic sites and natural beauty.
Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene purchased land on the island in 1783. His widow, Catherine Greene, built a 4-story home she called Dungeness. Thomas and Lucy Carnegie began building another Dungeness on the original foundation in 1884; their house burned in 1959 and is now known as Dungeness Ruins. (I’m not sure why both families used this name, but I looked up the word and found that an area in Kent, England, along the ocean has that name. It is now known for its desolate, end-of-the-world beauty. Sounds like this may be why the name was chosen.)
The historic districts on the island include the High Point-Half Moon Bluff District. It’s associated with the African American experience since the slaves there rose to freedom and then later became property owners. The area was settled by former slaves from Cumberland Island plantations.
Today the island is a wild place teeming with natural beauty and abundant wildlife. The next time we come to this area of Georgia, we’ll take the time to visit this island.
Gullah Geechee Culture
Gullah (name of the islanders of South Carolina) and Geechee (name of islanders of Georgia) is a culture linked to West African ethnic groups enslaved on island plantations to grow rice, indigo, and cotton as early as 1750.
Their settlement at the north end of Cumberland Island was the first privately owned community of former slaves after the Civil War. Visitors today can see the remnants of this link to Africa and the earliest African-American struggles for freedom. We’ve had glimpses of these islanders, but the most we had learned about them was in our 2021 quick trips around Jekyll Island when we went to the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation.
the Washington pump & oak
The fresh drinking water for St. Marys was originally provided by 6 wells that were dug around the city.
When George Washington died in 1799 and was buried at Mt. Vernon, St. Marys’ citizens wanted to honor him and his life. They marched from the dock with a flag-draped symbolic coffin, had a memorial, and buried the coffin in tribute. To commemorate him, the city planted 4 oaks that became known as “Washington Oaks.” The last of the trees (in the next picture) that was next to the site of the last working well was cut down in 1987 and the wood harvested for the USS Constitution restoration project.
The well at this location was driven the year of Washington’s burial and has since been called the “Washington Pump.”
Here’s some more information from the following plaque. The original 6 wells were placed in each of the city’s squares and were the only source of pure water until the tidal wave of 1818.
The War of 1812 from another point of view
We’ve learned about this war on other trips around the US and Canada, but now we know that President Harry S. Truman called it “the silliest damned war we ever fought. It should have been resolved through diplomacy.” But we know that diplomacy takes maturity and each side respecting the other. The British with its large army and navy believed that the new nation could beat them in a second war. The Americans wanted other nations to respect them for what they were becoming. (This is my point of view from what I’ve learned over the years.)
Congress declared war against Great Britain on June 18, 1812. The war was mainly waged in the north and at the Canadian border until May 1814, when Britain extended its blockade of the East Coast to include Georgia when 2 British vessels were seen in the St. Marys River; the Georgia Militia was immediately activated.
(A few years ago when we spent a day in Canada just over the border at Niagara Falls, we visited a British fort and saw the skirmishes there from their point of view; such an interesting perspective!)
(Cockburn–mentioned earlier in this post–is the admiral who burned Washington, D.C. and unsuccessfully attacked Fort McHenry, thus giving us our National Anthem when Francis Scott Key saw the American flag waving in the morning after a night of bombardment.)
He commandeered Dungeness, the home of Mrs. Shaw who was the widow of Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene.
The US should have been ready for the battles here, but weather didn’t cooperate.
In 1810, US Navy gunboats, small row-able riverboats, had been placed in service by President Jefferson to defend the home waters of the new nation and were stationed at the Naval Station at St. Marys/Port Peter.
In September 1813, a category 3 hurricane hit St. Marys, severely damaging 9 of these boats. Every ship in the harbor except one sank or ran aground, wiping out the US Naval defenses in the region.
Two of these gunboats lie at rest in St. Marys River today (bet today’s divers like to dive around them).
In April 1814, British Vice-Admiral Cochrane issued a Proclamation encouraging any person who wished to withdraw from the US to board British ships as “freed men” bound for British colonies.
Many were transported to Nova Scotia or Bermuda, where their descendants still live. Some black males served as Colonial Marines in the British militia and eventually took up residence in Trinidad after service. We read about these Black Loyalists when we were in New Brunswick in 2019.
Even though the Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812 on December 24, 1814, and the British had sustained a stunning defeat at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1816, the war still came to St. Marys. Getting word across the ocean of the treaty being signed took a while, and soldiers/sailors don’t like to give up.
On January 13, 1815, Admiral Cockburn launched an amphibious assault, resulting in the capture of the garrison at Point Peter and the occupation of St. Marys. On February 24, 1815, British sailors were trapped on their barges in the middle of the St. Marys River. They lost 29 men to the American forces who were firing from shore; the Americans only lost 2.
industry around St. Marys
Pre-Colonial St. Marys had visits by European maritime powers in carracks (lightly armored cargo ship), galleys (row-able vessels used for war and piracy), galleons (large sailing vessel used as a warship or trader from 15th to 18th centuries) and galeota (naval warship used for shelling coastal towns).
In the 1800s to mid-1900s, boatyards dotted the shore, building shrimp boats, yachts, barges, and gunboats. Later cotton and tobacco warehouses lined the waterfront.
shipbuilding
Live Oak trees, used widely in early American shipbuilding, made St. Marys a natural site for shipyard enterprise. This lumber was used to make curved, and especially strong, structural members of the hull.
In the 1790s, Col. John Patterson, a master ship-builder from Philadelphia, built a shipyard here in St. Marys. In 1798, the galley USS St. Marys was launched from his shipyard, followed by The General Oglethorpe in 1801.
A naturally deep river, the St. Marys was used by Native Americans long before European explorers documented its existence. Later, slavers, smugglers, and pirates sailed the river in their tall ships and river craft. In 1785, the importance of St. Marys as a shipping point was recognized by the appointment of Henry Osborne as US Customs Agent for Sunbury (I assume this is Sunbury, Ga., but it could be Sunbury, Pa.) and all ports south as far as St. Marys.
Circular saws squared the logs into 92′-long timbers for shipment to the Panama Canal construction site. Few ships could carry these long timbers, but the 3-mast schooner could and so was in great demand. Often stacks of timber lined the shore, waiting for the arrival of a 3-mast schooner.
lumber
Before the 1860s, commercial logging occurred for the most part along navigable streams where logs could be floated to downstream ports. “Johnstone’s Mills” was clearly marked on a 1790 map of the local area, and in 1802 Archibald Clark built his mill on the St. Marys River.
Progress came with water power and upright saws and then with steam power and circular saws. Logs, pilings, and finished lumber were all loaded onto ships from St. Marys’ docks. The last downtown St. Marys sawmill burned in the mid-1930s.
more industry
The 1870s saw a country-wide boom in producing turpentine, a resin distilled from the gum of pine trees. Gum harvesting was labor-intensive, back-braking, and was done during the hottest, most humid time of the year.
After collection, the gum was melted, and its vapor condensed into turpentine, a product suitable for such uses as early ship building, solvents, lubricants, and medicines. We first learned about producing turpentine in our 2020 Coffee State Park visit.
The greatest impact to his county’s economy came when Gilman Paper Company built the St. Marys Kraft Corporation plant in 1940.
In 1912, St. Marys had 3 canning plants in operation:
- David and Brandon had a plant near Oak Grove Cemetery specializing in the preservation of local shrimp, strong beans, and sweet potatoes.
- The Hardee Brothers canned shrimp at their plant on the waterfront.
- Georgia Canners, Inc. canned prawns, shrimp, and vegetables on the North River.
Now I’m hungry for prawns, shrimp, and veggies.
Pogy, you ask? It’s an Atlantic fish that was cooked, pressed, and the oil shipped in tank cars to Proctor and Gamble for manufacturing soap. Fish scrap went to Savannah to be made into fertilizer. Today it’s used in other ways, even food. You may want to look it up.
the railroad
As the nation grew, railroads began to connect cities. In 1856, the state of Georgia issued a charter for a St. Marys “Rail-Road” company. Shortly after Lemuel Johnson moved to St. Marys in the early 1900s, “the city of St. Marys granted land to his railroad . . . In 1908 the tracks connected St. Marys with the rest of the world and the St. Marys and Kingsland Railroad came into being.” (Camden’s Challenge) Kingsland is northwest of St. Marys and west of Kings Bay Naval Base.
In the late 1920s, a rail car, called the Toonerville Trolley, was the main form of transportation between St. Marys and Kingsland. The well known quip, “See you in the funny papers!” originated from Roy Crane in his 1935 nationally-syndicated Wash Tubbs & Easy comic strip, which featured many local personalities who once rode this rail car.
Civil War and St. Marys
In January 1861, at Milledgeville, Ga., St. Marys representatives voted for secession from the Union and formed the “Saint Marys Volunteers,” later called the Camden Chasseurs” (per Wikipedia, “a French term for hunters and the designation given to certain regiments of French and Belgian light infantry or light cavalry to denote troops trained for rapid action.” All able-bodied men were sent to join the fight, which left the city vulnerable to Union raiding from Amelia Island.
In November 1862, a Federal steamer and a gunboat, along with the 9th Maine Regiment, invaded St. Marys. Their troops were immediately fired upon by local forces, and the Union soldiers fired back. Folklore says firing continued until the Seal sisters came toward the waterfront offering surrender. A Captain Hughes had decided to leave in favor of returning to Fernandina, but when shots were fired, Union forces descended upon St. Marys and left much of the city in ashes.
“They ‘gutted every house abandoned by its owner, carried off everything moveable, and destroyed the remainder.'” How sad.
The diary of Julia Johnson Fisher with an entry dated April 21, 1864, described their conditions. She sums it up with “There is money enough and nothing to buy.”
On June 3, 1864, Moses piloted over 120 men in 7 boats safely through the sound near Savannah to ambush a prized Federal side-wheel gunboat, the USS Water Witch. While brave, he didn’t make it through the fight. Without a qualified pilot for the captured gunboat, the Water Witch was run aground and eventually burned to prevent its recapture by the Union.
Unlike some towns/cities in Georgia, many of St. Marys local landmarks weren’t completely destroyed. If I have pictures of any of these buildings, their descriptions from the following picture are included with what I’ve inserted.
Christ Episcopal Church is believed to be the first “pretty little church” built in 1845. Tradition says the chapel was destroyed by the Federals during the Civil War and rebuilt around 1885.
Chapel of Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church – Catholic worshipers finally had a home when Lewis & Marie Ponce Dufour donated the former bank building to the church in 1847. Many parishioners were descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia seeking religious freedom. The church was damaged when the 9th Maine Regiment assaulted St. Marys during the Civil War.
First Presbyterian Church was built in 1808 as an interdenominational church, meeting hall, and St. Marys’ first school. Union troops piled brush soaked with tar around the church and set it on fire. Church records say citizens prayed for divine intervention and rain followed. (One recorded prayer was: “O Lord, send the rain, for the Yankees are here for to burn down the town, O send the rain.”)
The St. Marys United Methodist Church has a chapel from around 1856 that was used as a butcher house by Union troops. Church records state, “The town was in possession of the enemy–the church closed–the flock scattered.
Two of the city’s historic buildings are Orange Hall and the Archibald Clark House that was occupied by British forces during the War of 1812.
Orange Hall was built around 1830 and was seized as the headquarters of the officers of the 9th Maine Regiment during the Civil War. The home had been abandoned by its owner who fled inland.
a military town for 200+ years
By 1740, English General James Oglethorpe had established 2 forts (Fort St. Andrew and Fort William) on Cumberland Island to monitor the Spanish to the south. When the St. Marys River separated nations, America’s military had an important strategic presence. Fort Tammary, built in the early 1790s near the corner of St. Marys and Wheeler Streets, was staffed with Federal Dragoons and was in service for around 20 years.
During the Cold War, the US Army established Kings Bay Army Terminal, allowing for rapid movement of forces and supplies in a national emergency. In 1978 it became Kings bay Naval Submarine Base, home to America’s Ballistic Missile Submarines for the Atlantic Fleet, part of the nation’s strategic defenses.
We saw the Coast Guard at work while we were by the coastline.
Capt. Samuel Flood found pecan nuts floating at sea, and his wife planted them nearby on Block 47. Later on nuts were planted by others in the north half of another block. These first plantings produced large and heavy-bearing trees, as did their nuts and shoots. Taken to distant points throughout southeastern states, they became famous before the Texas pecan was generally known.
Now it’s time to start home, slowly.
