From Wealth of Money to Wealth of Life

Time is the coin of your life.

It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.

--Carl Sandburg

Today was my second day on Jekyll Island on the coast of Georgia.   I came here yesterday after my hang gliding flight and spent most of the afternoon in my van in a drenched campground since it was pouring rain.  Today, however, the weather has decided to make amends and it was a gorgeous day out.  I decided to go for a bike ride around the island since I haven’t had much physical activity for the past week or so. 

Horton's house has been standing for 285 years!

Florida’s 95-degree temperatures with humidity to match just didn’t encourage much more than beach activity.  Today, however, it was a much more comfortable mid-80s day with air that didn’t contain so much water.  It was much closer to a summer afternoon in California so I took the opportunity to go out and explore.

Jekyll Island has an interesting history.  One of the early European residents of the island was Major William Horton.  Horton was a military aid to General James Oglethorpe, who founded Georgia as a colony.  He built a house and occupied the island in about 1730 when he came to setup a military outpost nearby.  In addition, he brewed beer at the first brewery in Georgia, which was also located on the island.  I rode my bike past the remains of his original house, the walls of which are still standing, and the remains of the brewery as well.  In the several years after Horton’s presence, the island served as a refuge for escapees from the French Revolution and it also was a landing point for a slave ship in 1858. 

This was listed as one of the "cottages" from
the Jekyll Club era.  That's a nice sized cottage!

After the years of colonization, refugees, and slave imports, though, the island took on a rich history, literally.  In 1886, the Jekyll Island Club was formed on the island.  The Jekyll Island Club was an escape for some of America’s most wealthy families at the time (and even into today):  some of the original members included Marshall Field (founder of the department store Marshall Fields & Co.), John Pierpont Morgan (more recognizable as J.P. Morgan), Joseph Pulitzer (who started funding for the Pulitzer Prize), and William Vanderbilt (of the railroad family).  Later families of the club included the Rockefellers and the Morgans.    Not only was the island the play place of these wealthy families, but in 1910 it also served as a meeting place where members of several banks and the US Treasury Department drew up draft legislation for the US Federal Reserve.   The great depression had a severe impact on the island and on the club.  As financial woes spread even to the wealthy families, memberships in exclusive clubs like the Jekyll Island Club were seen as extravagances and people gradually stopped providing financial support.  The numbers declined through the 30s, and World War II in 1942 eventually all but eliminated any funding for the club. 

I think there's more moss than leaves on these trees.

Today, several of the mansions that existed on the island, as well as the original Jekyll Island Club building still remain.  Several have been preserved as tourist attractions, and some have been converted into hotels and shops.  I rode my bike on a path that circumvented the entire island and I passed several of the old mansions and buildings that had long been vacated by the wealthy people.  The path went through groves of trees that were covered with so much Spanish moss that in some instances I think there was more moss than tree.  I wanted to ride about 30 miles, but the entire circumference of the island was only about 15 miles so I took several small offshoot paths and went around the island a second time.  There was one area that was full of tall grass that had small muddy streams tangled throughout it.  As I crossed a bridge over one of the small streams, I noticed what looked like brown bunches of lettuce growing in the murky water so I stopped to take a closer look.  As I peered down at the strange clumps, I saw them spitting:  every few seconds little jets of water and mud would shoot up into the air.  It was then that I realized that the clumps were not some kind of plant, but they were oysters. I briefly considered climbing down and plucking a few to see if I could find pearls. But then I thought of myself covered in mud and muck, unable to pry them from the rocks or even to get them open if I managed to find a couple.  On top of that I don’t even like to eat oysters so I changed my mind about going pearl hunting. 

Those dark clumps are oysters!

By the end of a few hours I had made my 30-mile bike ride and saw the complete diversity of Jekyll Island.  The island that was once available only to the extremely rich and the elite now has a much different characteristic.  There are several houses that “regular” people own, a small soccer stadium, a water park, a few tourist hotels, a campground, sandy beaches, and lots of marshy wildlife areas.  People do come to spend money, I’m sure, but not in the amounts that were spent in the island’s heyday.  Instead, people come to spend their time having fun enjoying the beautiful area it offers and to look at the remains of the wealth that once existed here as curiosities and oddities.