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978-0-89587-305-7
0-89587-305-2
$16.95 paperback
6" x 9"
300 pages
60 black-and-white photographs
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In September 1996,
Cumberland Island blasted onto the national news scene when it was
revealed that John Kennedy, Jr., and Carolyn Bassett were married on the
island in the First African Baptist Church--a simple one-room frame
structure with eight handmade pews. When the flotilla of writers and
photographers arrived on the island a few days later only to find
themselves itching, sweating, and swatting at pestiferous gnats and
bloodthirsty mosquitoes, they wondered why such a worldly and
sophisticated couple had chosen such a tick-infested spot.
In Cumberland
Island, Charles Seabrook uses his talent as an award-winning
environmental writer to describe the island's natural bounty and to tell
its long and intriguing history.
You'll meet
Catherine "Caty" Greene Miller, the widow of Revolutionary War
hero Nathanael Greene and the woman who inspired Eli Whitney to invent
the cotton gin. You'll meet Robert Stafford, who sent his six children
born to a slave named Zabette to live in an imposing home in New
England, where they became part of the white high society. All of his
daughters married well, including one who wed a Russian count in Notre
Dame. There's Thomas and Lucy Carnegie, who used their Pittsburgh steel
fortune to purchase acreage on the island. In 1885, they completed their
mansion and a year later Thomas died at age 43. Lucy remained on the
island to raise her 9 children. Her granddaughter, Miss Lucy Ferguson,
was considered by many to be the toughest and orneriest of all the
strong women who inhabited the island reigning over it during the 1960's
and '70's. The present-day generation is represented by Janet "GoGo"
Ferguson, Miss Lucy's granddaughter, who made the arrangements for the
Kennedy and Bassett wedding and crafted their wedding rings as well.
about the
author
Charles Seabrook has been
the environmental writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
since 1986. Since 1994, he has also written a weekly column for the
newspaper called "Wild Georgia." He has won awards from the
National Wildlife Federation, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and
various press organizations. In 2001, the state of Georgia gave him the
R. L. "Rock" Howard Award, its highest conservation award. He
lives in Decatur, Georgia.
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