Sea Islands
The Sea Islands are a chain of tidal and barrier islands on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the Southeastern United States. Numbering over 100, they are located between the mouths of the Santee and St. Johns Rivers along the coast of South Carolina, ...
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
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...
. One of the largest of Georgia's barrier islands, Ossabaw contains of wooded uplands with freshwater ponds and of marshlands interlaced with tidal creeks. Located between
Wassaw Island
Wassaw Island is one of the Sea Islands. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia and is within the borders of Chatham County. The island and its surrounding marshlands are part of the Wassaw National Wildl ...
and the
Ogeechee River
The Ogeechee River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 26, 2011 blackwater river in the U.S. state of Georgia. It heads at the confluence of its North and South ...
on the north and St. Catherines Island on the south, the island is not linked to the mainland by bridge or causeway. At , it is the third-largest barrier island off the coast of Georgia.
History
Evidence of human presence extends for at least 4,000 years based on pottery shards unearthed from the island's numerous oyster shell middens. It was inhabited by the
Guale
Guale was a historic Native American chiefdom of Mississippian culture peoples located along the coast of present-day Georgia and the Sea Islands. Spanish Florida established its Roman Catholic missionary system in the chiefdom in the late 16th ...
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
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern WoodlandsJohn Morell. Morell used enslaved people to farm and timber the island. At his death, the island was divided into four plantations. Morell's will includes 155 enslaved people, whom his three living sons inherited. After the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
the island was farmed on a small scale by several owners and tenant farmers until the early 20th century. In 1907 Savannah native, Henry D. Weed, purchased over 9000 acres of the island, and by 1916 Weed was the island's sole owner. After 1916 it was used as a hunting retreat while owned by a group of wealthy businessmen until it was purchased in 1924 by Dr. Henry Norton Torrey and his wife Nell Ford Torrey, of Detroit, Michigan.
In 1961 The Ossabaw Foundation created by Eleanor Torrey West and Clifford B. West launched the Ossabaw Island Project as an artistic and scholarly retreat. Over the years the island's solitude and natural beauty served as the setting for notable visitors including composers
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...
,
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Proba ...
; writers
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel ''Invisible Man'', which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote ''Shadow and Act'' (1964), a collecti ...
,
Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945) is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 19 ...
,
Olive Ann Burns
Olive Ann Burns (July 17, 1924 – July 4, 1990) was an American writer from Georgia best known for her single completed novel, '' Cold Sassy Tree'', published in 1984.
Background
Olive Ann Burns was born in Banks County, Georgia. Her father wa ...
, and
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...
; sculptor
Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia (March 10, 1915 – November 1978) was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture furniture designer, designer.
Bertoia was born in Arzene, San Lorenzo, Province of Pordenone, Pordenone, Italy. A ...
; and scientist
Eugene Odum
Eugene Pleasants Odum (September 17, 1913 – August 10, 2002) was an American biologist at the University of Georgia known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology. He and his brother Howard T. Odum wrote the popular ecology textbook, ''Funda ...
. The Ossabaw Foundation was also host to The Genesis Project, scientific research and public use and education programs on the island.
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."
Ossabaw today
Currently Ossabaw is managed by the
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is an administrative agency of the U.S. state of Georgia. The agency has statewide responsibilities for managing and conserving Georgia’s natural, cultural, and historical resources, and has five ...
(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.
The Ossabaw Island Foundation, a public charity established in 1994, defines its mission this way: " he 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 turtle
The loggerhead sea turtle (''Caretta caretta'') is a species of oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around in carapace length when fully ...
s, monitoring migratory bird patterns, investigating tooth wear of deer fawns and genetic studies on feral Sicilian donkeys.
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."