Ossabaw Island is privately owned and is one of the largest of
Georgia's barrier islands with an area of more than three times that of
Bermuda. The mounds of oyster shells found on the island, thought to possibly be kitchen middens from its former
inhabitants, are a tell-tale sign of the Native Americans who
once lived there.
John Morel, the island's first landowner to clear and cultivate the
property, developed the island into one of Georgia's first coastal
empires. Hundreds of slaves had to be settled on the island in order
to process and cultivate the plantation's main crop of indigo.
During the Civil War, the island was evacuated and the
fields were left uncultivated. After the war, the property was sold and
the only inhabitants left were a few former slaves who chose to remain
there.
Around the turn of the century, the island was owned almost entirely by
the Wanamakers of Philadelphia who repaired some of the former
buildings, built a clubhouse at the North End of the island and
converted it back into a hunting island.
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