Cumberland Island National Seashore

Beyond the Ice House Museum on Cumberland Island National Seashore, the path opens up to a wide road leading to the Dungeness Mansion Ruins, formerly a 59-room mansion, originally constructed in 1802 by Englishman, Phineas Miller. This mansion was named “after a place he had inherited in the old country” and was the only four-story tabby house known in the U.S. This mansion was admired for its height and architecture and served as a coastal beacon for sailors along the coast. After a fire in 1866 burned almost all of Dungeness to the ground, many wealthy suitors tried unsuccessfully to take reign of the ruins until the Carnegie family purchased the property in 1881 and reconstructed a new 44-room mansion in 1884.

In its heyday, tourists flocked to the mansion’s grandeur, and the Carnegies visited regularly via a private railroad car from Pittsburgh. Lucy Carnegie inherited the mansion when her husband, Tom, died suddenly of pneumonia in 1886. The mansion was where she would raise her nine children, continuing to expand the size of the mansion and build new island mansions, including The Cottage, Greyfield, Stafford House, and Plum Orchard, amidst the booming tourism industry on Cumberland Island.

Discovering Dungeness Mansion Ruins

The ruins of the Dungeness Mansion are all that remain today after what was believed to be a deliberate fire set in 1959, and this landmark is the central focus of the Dungeness historic district on Cumberland Island.

We decide to eat lunch here on a picnic bench as horses graze around us, wild and free, their hair blowing in the summer breeze. The origin of these wild horses is unknown, but theories propose that they remain from the time of the Spanish missionaries in the 1500s or the English settlers in the 1700s.

Also, on the property stands a Ranger Station, a small Tabby House, and a long pergola that stretches beyond, leading the eye to natural landscapes in the distance. We continue along this trail behind the mansion ruins to find four horses standing in a pack – one white, two brown, and one black. They allow me to participate in their soiree, and never have I been more exhilarated!

Caught in a Sand Storm along the Cumberland Sound

A long wooden boardwalk over the salt marsh takes us to another brief footpath to the vast sands. We hike over large collections of dunes to reach the 17-mile beach. Cattails sway in increasing winds. Railroad vine and morning glory strewn delicately across the sand. As soon as our boots touch the shoreline, the clouds grow darker overhead, casting ominous shadows over Cumberland Sound. We find the beach vacant except the two of us. Waves roar, crashing furiously around us. Rain hangs heavily in the clouds above us, looming warning, but we march on, determined to continue our trek around the island. As I look up to meet his gaze and smile, a rain drop pellets my forehead.

Suddenly, the collection of clouds bursts above us, slow rain at first, then with a torrential downpour in store. The wind becomes a thick blanket holding back each one of my footsteps. We laugh, take each other’s hand, and guide each other into the darkness. The wind barrels the sand around us, creating a desert storm by sea, swirling grains of sand into a tornado fashion. We have no choice but to cast our fears into the unknown enticement of Cumberland Island and finish our hike back toward the river’s edge.

Planning Your Visit:

Learn more history unveiled at the Ice House Museum on Cumberland Island:

References:

Bullard, Mary R. Cumberland Island: A History. The University of Georgia Press. 2003.