History of St Simons Island
St. Simons Island is one of Georgia’s renowned Golden Isles (along with Sea Island, Jekyll Island and Little St Simons Island. It is also the largest of the Golden Isles. The town is also a resort community and has many seasonal residents, as well as a steady base of year-round residents. Consequently, many of the residents are retired individuals from other parts of Georgia or the United States. “St Simons “ the community and the island are commonly considered to be one location, known simply as “St. Simons Island”, or locally as “The Island”. St. Simons is part of the Brunswick, GA.
Spanish History
The first inhabitants of St. Simons made this island their own some two thousand years before the time of Christ. No one knows what they first called themselves. Eventually they became known as the Timucuans – the name that has persisted to our own time. Part of the Mississippian culture that flourished over much of the Southeast, the eastern Timucuans ranged along the coastal plain of southeast Georgia and northern Florida. Their complex society was made up of seven distinct tribal groups that spoke at least five dialects.
St. Simons Island was the northern boundary of the tribal province known as Mocama – its name taken from that of the local dialect – that extended southward to the St. Johns River. The town of Guadalquini was located on the south end of the island at the site of the present day lighthouse, and the town’s name also applied to the island itself. Just above Mocama was the territory of the Guales, occupying the coastal fringe between the Altamaha and Ogeechee Rivers. The Guales spoke quite a different language but were inextricably linked with their Timucuan neighbors and destined to share a common fate. Knowledge of the Timucuan and Guale way of life prior to European contact is limited by the paucity of the archeological record and the subjective observations of the early explorers and missionaries. From all indications, however, they were becoming more settled at the time of European contact. As to the direction that their cultural evolution may have led, we can only speculate. For with the arrival of European civilization, the Timucuan and Guale cultures were doomed to extinction.
During the 17th century, St. Simons Island was one of the most important settlements of the Mocama missionary province of Spanish Florida. After the founding of South Carolina in 1680, conflict between the English and Spanish wreaked havoc on the Sea Islands. James Moore of South Carolina led a combined land and sea invasion of Florida in 1702 which essentially destroyed the Spanish mission system on the islands. Surviving Indians were subjected to slave raids leaving the islands depopulated by the time the colony of Georgia was founded.
The Spanish came first. Ponce de Leon claimed the southern region for Spain in 1513, and Hernando de Soto probed western Georgia in 1540. But it was the French who prompted Spain to settle the area on a permanent basis. Protestants of France, known as the “Huguenots,” were rebelling against the Catholics. The French queen was determined to end the bloodshed and strife and reasoned that a colony in the New World could serve as a haven for the persecuted Huguenots as well as a base for raiding the treasure fleets of Spain. She selected Jean Ribault to head an exploratory expedition that landed at the mouth of the St. Johns River near present-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1562. He called it the “River May,” and as he sailed northward as far as Parris Island, South Carolina, St. Simons Island became the “Ile de Loire.” Rene Laudonniere led a second expedition of three ships and three hundred colonists in 1564. They, too, landed at the St. Johns River, and immediately began work on Fort Caroline.
Philip II of Spain picked the ablest of his naval commanders, Pedro Menéndez de Aviles and gave him full power to destroy the French heretics who had dared to encroach on Spanish territory. With a small fleet, Menéndez landed forty miles south of Fort Caroline in August 1565. From this new base that he named St. Augustine, Menéndez attacked and destroyed the fledgling French colony.
Menéndez realized that further steps must be taken to prevent future incursions. He traveled northward from St. Augustine in 1566 to meet with the most powerful chief in the area, the mico of Guale (St. Catherines Island). During the meeting with the Guales, Menéndez had the good fortune to have a drought-ending rainstorm erupt just after he erected a cross on St. Catherines Island. This awesome display of power by the Spanish leader made the Guales much more receptive to the Jesuit missionaries that followed. This land of the Guales was soon to become a district in the Spanish province of La Florida.
The Jesuits, respected throughout Europe for their piety as well as their scholastic achievement, were selected to convert the Indians of Guale. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish a mission in the province of La Florida, Father Sedaño and Father Báez were assigned to the district of Guale. Father Báez rapidly learned the Guale language and reportedly wrote a grammar, the first book written in the New World.
A few Franciscan priests arrived in 1573. Most of them were killed and the survivors recalled. The next ten years saw sporadic and bloody confrontations between Spanish soldiers and Indians in Mocama and Guale. But the Spanish government had more to contend with than the conversion of the Indians. In 1586, Sir Francis Drake destroyed St. Augustine. The English seadog’s raid was a timely reminder to the Spanish that their grip upon Florida was fragile at best, and more Franciscans were soon on the way to the fledgling province. The first permanent Franciscan mission – establishing the Mocama missionary province – was in place by 1587 under Father Baltasár Lopéz.
The disruptions of the Spanish missions did not abate. In the next few tumultuous years the Guales reestablished Asajo on the northern end of St. Simons Island (Cannons Point site). The “Yamassees” of coastal South Carolina, also fleeing the Chichimecos, established the refugee towns of San Simón (Fort Frederica site) and Octonico, 2-1/2 miles below, on the inland side of the island.
In 1686, the English settled Port Royal, South Carolina – the old Spanish outpost of St. Elena. The Spanish responded by destroying the settlement, burning the English governor’s mansion, and threatening Charles Town itself. It was a final, futile gesture. Most of the remaining Mocama and Guale Indians had already abandoned the missions and retreated southward to the St. Augustine area, to be eventually absorbed by the Yamassees. After almost a century and a quarter under the cross and sword of Spain, the Mocama and Guale Indians were no more – their land soon to be known as Georgia.
Fort Fredrica
Fort Frederica, now Fort Frederica National Monument, was the military headquarters of the Province of Georgia during the early colonial period, and served as a buffer against Spanish incursion from Florida. Nearby is the site of the Battle of Gully Hole Creek and Battle of Bloody Marsh, where on July 7, 1742, the British ambushed Spanish troops marching single file through the marsh and routed them from the island, which marked the end of the Spanish efforts to invade Georgia.
American Revolution
An important naval battle in the American Revolution the Frederica Naval Action was won by the American Colonists near St. Simons on April 19, 1778. Colonel Samuel Elbert was in command of Georgia’s Continental Army and Navy. On April 15, 1778 he learned that four ships from British East Florida were sailing in St. Simons Sound. Elbert commanded about 360 troops from the Georgia Continental Battalions at Fort Howe to march to Darien, GA. There they boarded three Georgia Navy galleys: the Washington, commanded by Captain John Hardy ; the Lee, commanded by Captain John Cutler Braddock; and the Bulloch, commanded by Captain Archibald Hatcher. On April 18 they entered Frederica River and anchored about 1.5 miles from Fort Frederica. On April 19 the colonial ships attacked the British ships. The Colonial ships were armed with heavier cannons than the British ships. The wind died down and the British ships had difficulty maneuvering in the restricted waters of the river and sound. Two of the British ships ran aground and the British escaped to their other ship. The battle showed how effective the galleys could be in restricted waters over ships designed for the open sea. The Frederica Naval Action was a big boost to the morale of the Colonists in Georgia.
Saint Simons’ next military contribution was due to the Naval Act of 1794, when timber harvested from two thousand Southern Live Oak trees from Gascoigne was used to build the USS Constitution and five other frigates. The USS Constitution is known as “Old Ironsides” for the way the cannonballs bounced off the hard live oak planking.
Christ Church
In 1808 the State of Georgia gave one hundred acres of land on St. Simons to be used for a church. The church was called Christ Church, Frederica, and was finished in 1820. During the Civil War, invading Union troops commandeered the small building to stable horses and nearly destroyed it. The church was rebuilt in 1889, and this historic building is still in use.
Cotton Production and Slaves
During the plantation era, Saint Simons became a center of cotton production known for its long fiber Sea Island Cotton. Nearly the entire island was cleared of trees to make way for several cotton plantations. One of the last slave ships to bring slaves from Africa docked at St. Simons Island, but the slaves marched off the boat into the water, dragged down by their chains, and drowned themselves rather than becoming slaves. An original slave cabin still stands at the intersection of Demere Rd. and Frederica Rd.
St. Simons Island Lighthouse
St. Simons Island Light is a lighthouse near the entrance to St Simons Island. It is 104 feet tall and uses a third order Fresnel lens. The original octagonal lighthouse was established in 1811, but destroyed in 1861 during the Civil War. A replacement was completed in 1872, electrified in 1934, automated in 1954, and is still operational. The current structure is an active lighthouse for navigational purposes and a museum. It is on lease from the United States Coast Guard to the Coastal Georgia Historical Society and is open to the public.
Coast Guard Station
The historic Coast Guard station is one of some 45 such stations of the same design started in 1935 under the WPA program. The station was commissioned in 1937 and was decommissioned in 1995. The building is one of only three remaining stations built at the time and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It houses the Maritime Center, a small museum run by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society.
