Into the Thicket of Cumberland Island

INTO THE THICKET OF CUMBERLAND ISLAND is a digital photograph of one of the island's wild horses by Carla Parris.... more

by Carla Parris

Title

Into the Thicket of Cumberland Island

Artist

Carla Parris

Medium

Photograph - Digital Photograph

Description

INTO THE THICKET OF CUMBERLAND ISLAND is a digital photograph of one of the island's wild horses by Carla Parris.

Cumberland Island is the southernmost of Georgia's barrier islands on its Atlantic coast.

This largely undeveloped wilderness island, with live oak trees, Spanish moss, and palmettos, has a population of feral horses.

While myth holds that the horses were brought to this natural sanctuary in the 1500s by Spanish conquistadors, it is thought unlikely that those horses have survived. Instead, the current population is understood to have descended from domestic horses brought to the island in the 1900s.

Cumberland Island was the vacation home of the Carnegie family during the era when other wealthy northern families, like the Rockefellers, Pulitzers, and Morgans, vacationed during the winter months at Jekyll Island. The Carnegies were reportedly denied admission to the exclusive Jekyll Island Club because of the Carnegies' superior wealth. They built Dungeness Mansion, whose ruins can still be seen on the island.

The wild horses of Cumberland are similar to those living on other East Coast islands of Chincoteague and Assateague.

Uploaded

May 11th, 2016