Georgia Part II: longleaf and more
Historic Effingham Living History Site, GA
Muir described walking 40 miles without food before reaching the city of Augusta (where he splurged by renting a hotel room), but you will have no need to duplicate his hunger. You may reach Augusta from Thomson by taking either Interstate 20 or the secondary routes of US Hwy 278/78/10 along the northern boundary of U.S. Army Fort Gordon. Once in Augusta, Georgia’s second oldest city, admire the Savannah River (pictured in the header photo on our first Georgia page here) from the city’s River Watch Parkway, the Savannah River Park, and downtown Riverwalk pedestrian greenway. And learn more about the 19th-century industrial and commercial uses of the river by visiting the Augusta Canal Park. After exploring its visitor center, take an interpreted tour on a restored canal boat. Here, you are in the first Congressionally designated National Heritage Area in Georgia. Immediately south of the city off GA Hwy 56 and next to the public airport, visit the Phinizy Swamp State Wildlife Management Area (also see www.exploregeorgia.org/listing/55305 ).
From there, take GA Hwy 56 (which follows the Old Savannah Road route south along the Savannah River). At the village of McBean you will need to decide whether to attempt to follow surviving fragments of the Old River Road that Muir would have walked, or to take a more efficient combination of modern upland roads on GA Hwys 23 and 24. These roads follows the south side of the Savannah River for well over 100 miles, the uplands hugging the river bottomlands, which retain much of what Muir described as “rich, dense, vine-clad forests” and “impenetrable cypress swamps,” One now can occasionally divert on a tertiary side road to access the river at one of the Georgia public boat landings, or into the state’s 7,800-acre Yuchi and 15,000-acre Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Areas encompassing river bottomland swamp forests and upland longleaf-loblolly-slash pine forests. Like Muir, be wary of alligators here. Also like Muir, admire the other wildlife and Spanish moss–draped trees. On South Carolina’s north side of the river (not on Muir’s route) is the U.S. Department of Energy’s massive 200,000-acre Savannah River national energy laboratory.
Farther downriver Muir again entered expanses of low, level tracts of what he called “pine barrens” with beautiful, abundant grasses. These again were the longleaf pine dominated savannas with grassy understories and occasional dwarf palmetto palms, which had evolved with very frequent wildfire. This is a tremendous story of loss and modern efforts of protection and restoration. Again read more at www.americaslongleaf.org . Few fragments of longleaf pine natural habitat still exist in this part of Georgia, outside of U.S. Army Fort Stewart, where a massive longleaf pine ecosystem recovery program is in progress. However, I detoured off Muir’s route by a side excursion into South Carolina by crossing the Savannah River on Hwy 119 north of Clyco, GA (stopping first at a picturesque Savannah River state-managed boat access ramp, fishing pier, and park), and then continuing eastward along Sand Hills Road on the northern side of the Savannah River into South Carolina. There I visited the Tillman Sand Ridge State Nature Preserve and wildlife management area, which includes a nice ridgetop longleaf pine forested community and extensive bottomland swamp forests.
Back on the Georgia route, I attempted to locate remnants of the Old Augusta-Savannah Road. To my pleasant surprise in Springfield, on GA Hwy 21 (paralleling the old historic river road but several miles south of it), I stumbled upon the Historic Effingham Museum and Living History Site (next to the county courthouse). Here is an impressive collection of late 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century farm homesteads and farm buildings–-many of which recreate the farmsteads and agricultural practices that Muir would have witnessed or even taken guest quarters in during his trek.
On advice from curators at the Effingham Historic Site, I proceeded east from Springfield on GA Hwy 21, and turned north on GA Route 275 (Ebenezer Road) back to the banks of the Savannah River at the 18th-century Ebenezer village and riverfront site. That village was settled in 1734 by Lutheran refugees from Salzburg, Austrian. Another surprising coincidence found here are several state historic markers identifying the old Augusta-Savannah road, Ebenezer, and the Savannah River crossing as the pathways for Colonial-era naturalist/botanist explorers John and William Bartram, and later for British general Cornwall pursuing American revolutionary forces, and for General William Sherman’s Union forces in the Civil War. (No mention here of John Muir, nor did he mention Ebenezer in his trek memoirs even though it is likely that he walked by the village.)
Muir would have walked on to the city of Savannah on the same old Augusta-Savannah road, now paralleled by GA Hwy 21. He recounted walking several more days by the margins of immense cypress swamp forests. Some of those riparian bottomlands are now protected in state wildlife management areas and the 29,000-acre Savannah National Wildlife Refuge , which contains a 4-mile-long wildlife drive for passenger vehicles and many more miles of hiking and biking trails.
From there, take GA Hwy 56 (which follows the Old Savannah Road route south along the Savannah River). At the village of McBean you will need to decide whether to attempt to follow surviving fragments of the Old River Road that Muir would have walked, or to take a more efficient combination of modern upland roads on GA Hwys 23 and 24. These roads follows the south side of the Savannah River for well over 100 miles, the uplands hugging the river bottomlands, which retain much of what Muir described as “rich, dense, vine-clad forests” and “impenetrable cypress swamps,” One now can occasionally divert on a tertiary side road to access the river at one of the Georgia public boat landings, or into the state’s 7,800-acre Yuchi and 15,000-acre Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Areas encompassing river bottomland swamp forests and upland longleaf-loblolly-slash pine forests. Like Muir, be wary of alligators here. Also like Muir, admire the other wildlife and Spanish moss–draped trees. On South Carolina’s north side of the river (not on Muir’s route) is the U.S. Department of Energy’s massive 200,000-acre Savannah River national energy laboratory.
Farther downriver Muir again entered expanses of low, level tracts of what he called “pine barrens” with beautiful, abundant grasses. These again were the longleaf pine dominated savannas with grassy understories and occasional dwarf palmetto palms, which had evolved with very frequent wildfire. This is a tremendous story of loss and modern efforts of protection and restoration. Again read more at www.americaslongleaf.org . Few fragments of longleaf pine natural habitat still exist in this part of Georgia, outside of U.S. Army Fort Stewart, where a massive longleaf pine ecosystem recovery program is in progress. However, I detoured off Muir’s route by a side excursion into South Carolina by crossing the Savannah River on Hwy 119 north of Clyco, GA (stopping first at a picturesque Savannah River state-managed boat access ramp, fishing pier, and park), and then continuing eastward along Sand Hills Road on the northern side of the Savannah River into South Carolina. There I visited the Tillman Sand Ridge State Nature Preserve and wildlife management area, which includes a nice ridgetop longleaf pine forested community and extensive bottomland swamp forests.
Back on the Georgia route, I attempted to locate remnants of the Old Augusta-Savannah Road. To my pleasant surprise in Springfield, on GA Hwy 21 (paralleling the old historic river road but several miles south of it), I stumbled upon the Historic Effingham Museum and Living History Site (next to the county courthouse). Here is an impressive collection of late 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century farm homesteads and farm buildings–-many of which recreate the farmsteads and agricultural practices that Muir would have witnessed or even taken guest quarters in during his trek.
On advice from curators at the Effingham Historic Site, I proceeded east from Springfield on GA Hwy 21, and turned north on GA Route 275 (Ebenezer Road) back to the banks of the Savannah River at the 18th-century Ebenezer village and riverfront site. That village was settled in 1734 by Lutheran refugees from Salzburg, Austrian. Another surprising coincidence found here are several state historic markers identifying the old Augusta-Savannah road, Ebenezer, and the Savannah River crossing as the pathways for Colonial-era naturalist/botanist explorers John and William Bartram, and later for British general Cornwall pursuing American revolutionary forces, and for General William Sherman’s Union forces in the Civil War. (No mention here of John Muir, nor did he mention Ebenezer in his trek memoirs even though it is likely that he walked by the village.)
Muir would have walked on to the city of Savannah on the same old Augusta-Savannah road, now paralleled by GA Hwy 21. He recounted walking several more days by the margins of immense cypress swamp forests. Some of those riparian bottomlands are now protected in state wildlife management areas and the 29,000-acre Savannah National Wildlife Refuge , which contains a 4-mile-long wildlife drive for passenger vehicles and many more miles of hiking and biking trails.
Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah, GA
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Muir reached the port city of Savannah on October 8, 1867, only 36 days after starting his long hike. To his disappointment the money his brother was to have sent to him in Savannah had not yet arrived by means of Western Union telegraph. Starving and destitute, Muir chose not to stay in the city, but instead walked eastward another 5 miles to camp out a whole week to “dwell among the tombs” under a live oaks canopy in the Bonaventure Cemetery. Each day he walked all the way back into the city hoping for arrival of his brother’s money transfer.
I have no idea why Muir did not camp nearer to town. Savannah is famed for its European city-style system of parks, and the lovely Colonial Cemetery is located within the historic city center. Maybe Muir thought that central city cemetery was too dangerous, or he might have been harassed or arrested for vagrancy or more subject to robbery. |
Historic Savannah, the oldest city in Georgia, is a lovely and unique riverfront city, and I encourage you to devote several days to exploring its parks, historic sites, museums, riverfront and restaurants.
Muir’s camping experience in the cemetery on the far outskirts from Savannah stimulated him to wax especially poetic:
Muir’s camping experience in the cemetery on the far outskirts from Savannah stimulated him to wax especially poetic:
Bonaventure to me is one of the most impressive assemblages of animal and plant creatures I ever met….never…have I found so impressive a company of trees as the tillandsia [Spanish moss]-draped oaks of Bonaventure. I gazed awe-stricken as one new-arrived from another world. Bonaventure is called a graveyard, a town of the dead, but the few graves are powerless in such a depth of life. The rippling of living waters, the song of birds, the joyous confidence of flowers, the calm undisturbable grandeur of the oaks, marks this place of graves as one of the Lord’s most favored abodes of life and light…. [and on likewise for several more pages of pure poetry and homage to nature] … But let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine. Most of the few [at that time] graves of Bonaventure are planted with flowers. There is generally a magnolia at the head, near the strictly erect marble, a rose bush or two at the foot, and some violets and showy exotics along the sides or on the tops. All is enclosed by a black iron railing …[but] It is interesting to observe how assiduously Nature seeks to remedy these labored art blunders. She corrodes the iron and marble, and gradually levels the hill which is always heaped up … seeds come flying on downy wings, silent as fate, to give life’s dearest beauty for the ashes of art; and strong evergreen arms laden with ferns and tillandsia drapery are spread over all—Life at work everywhere, obliterating all memory of the confusion of man.
Marsh near Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah, GA
Bonaventure Cemetery on my visit was a bit of a disappointment, largely because the city had locked the gates for a massive cleanup of many fallen trees and limbs brought down by severe hurricane winds that struck only three weeks earlier. It was tragic to see how many live oaks and other monumental trees in the cemetery had been felled or decapitated by the hurricane winds. And the city management of the cemetery has not nurtured the kind of lush natural understory flora that mesmerized Muir. Nature has been largely subdued by the harsh treatment of city cemetery maintenance practices. I had no intention to camp out in the cemetery, but hoped to enjoy a meditative nap under a live oak there. That was not to be, as I was not allowed to linger either by cemetery management or by pestering mosquitoes. At least I gained a glimpse of the cemetery from its periphery and a short walking trespass. Visitors under normal circumstances may stroll the cemetery during hours of public access or pay a sizeable fee to tour the cemetery with a guide.
I wonder if perhaps Muir actually contracted malaria in Bonaventure Cemetery, which is situated on a sandy ridge above the river and its marshlands. But the mosquito-borne disease did not blossom to strike down Muir until he had completed his transect across the Florida peninsula. I certainly was bedeviled and pricked by plenty of mosquitoes in my brief visit, which was a month later in the year than the week of Muir’s sojourn there. All in all, Muir appreciated Georgia and Georgians, noting “I best like the Georgians of the people of the states that I have now passed.”
After a week of sleeping in the open in the cemetery under the branches of monumental live oak trees, Muir’s money finally arrived on October 14, 1867. He could now pay for ship passage and immediately embarked for a voyage on the Atlantic ocean taking him down the Georgia coast to disembark at the port of Fernandina, north of Jacksonville, Florida. Sadly, Muir’s marine route cost him opportunity to explore Georgia’s sea islands. He was dismissively appreciative that his passage by ship “carried me past a very sickly, entangled, overflowed, and unwalkable piece of forest” as the steamer mostly threaded among the lagoons and sea islands of Georgia. Muir missed much by his marine route.
Today’s visitor should devote time to exploring the landscape and environmental attributes of the Georgia coast-–which presents a tremendous story of successful land conservation. Since Muir chose not to walk down the Georgia coast, I do not provide below links to the many opportunities to visit protected natural and historic sites along the Georgia coast. But for those who do not choose to take to the sea to reach a Florida port, you may want instead to visit any of the following wonderful places: the Wormsloe Plantation State Historic Site on the south side of Savannah, immediately east of Savannah the Little Tybee/Cabbage Islands State Natural Area or the Wassaw Island National Wildlife Refuge, and farther south along the Georgia coast the Ossabaw Island State Wildlife Management Area, Wahoo Island Natural Area, Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, Sapelo Island State Wildlife Management Area, Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge, on St. Simons Island the Fort Frederica National Historic Monument and several nature preserves owned and managed by the St. Simons Island Land Trust, the Jekyll Island nature preserve and trails, and the Cumberland Island National Seashore offshore from St. Marys, Georgia. That assemblage of protected places collectively is a monumental testimonial to the progress of public and private efforts in land, water, and wildlife conservation on the Georgia coast.
To approximate Muir’s route to Florida, one can, like Muir, skip over the many lovely and beautiful natural features and special ecological treasures of the Georgia coast, but perhaps instead of taking a ship from Savannah, instead “sail down” Interstate 95 into northernmost Florida. If you are in the mood for diversion, be tempted before leaving Georgia to detour off the interstate highway either eastward to St. Marys and take the passenger ferry over the Cumberland Sound to the largest of Georgia’s “Golden Isles,” now protected as Cumberland Island National Seashore, or go west for an excursion into some of the 438,000-acre Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge .
For those wanting to learn more about land conservation efforts in the parts of Georgia where Muir once walked, in addition to all the good conservation work done by federal and state governmental agencies, major accomplishments in environmental resource protection have been achieved by the private Georgia-Alabama Land Trust and Georgia Conservancy, as well as by the state field office of The Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and Trust for Public Land.
>>>CONTINUE ON to Florida . . .
I wonder if perhaps Muir actually contracted malaria in Bonaventure Cemetery, which is situated on a sandy ridge above the river and its marshlands. But the mosquito-borne disease did not blossom to strike down Muir until he had completed his transect across the Florida peninsula. I certainly was bedeviled and pricked by plenty of mosquitoes in my brief visit, which was a month later in the year than the week of Muir’s sojourn there. All in all, Muir appreciated Georgia and Georgians, noting “I best like the Georgians of the people of the states that I have now passed.”
After a week of sleeping in the open in the cemetery under the branches of monumental live oak trees, Muir’s money finally arrived on October 14, 1867. He could now pay for ship passage and immediately embarked for a voyage on the Atlantic ocean taking him down the Georgia coast to disembark at the port of Fernandina, north of Jacksonville, Florida. Sadly, Muir’s marine route cost him opportunity to explore Georgia’s sea islands. He was dismissively appreciative that his passage by ship “carried me past a very sickly, entangled, overflowed, and unwalkable piece of forest” as the steamer mostly threaded among the lagoons and sea islands of Georgia. Muir missed much by his marine route.
Today’s visitor should devote time to exploring the landscape and environmental attributes of the Georgia coast-–which presents a tremendous story of successful land conservation. Since Muir chose not to walk down the Georgia coast, I do not provide below links to the many opportunities to visit protected natural and historic sites along the Georgia coast. But for those who do not choose to take to the sea to reach a Florida port, you may want instead to visit any of the following wonderful places: the Wormsloe Plantation State Historic Site on the south side of Savannah, immediately east of Savannah the Little Tybee/Cabbage Islands State Natural Area or the Wassaw Island National Wildlife Refuge, and farther south along the Georgia coast the Ossabaw Island State Wildlife Management Area, Wahoo Island Natural Area, Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, Sapelo Island State Wildlife Management Area, Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge, on St. Simons Island the Fort Frederica National Historic Monument and several nature preserves owned and managed by the St. Simons Island Land Trust, the Jekyll Island nature preserve and trails, and the Cumberland Island National Seashore offshore from St. Marys, Georgia. That assemblage of protected places collectively is a monumental testimonial to the progress of public and private efforts in land, water, and wildlife conservation on the Georgia coast.
To approximate Muir’s route to Florida, one can, like Muir, skip over the many lovely and beautiful natural features and special ecological treasures of the Georgia coast, but perhaps instead of taking a ship from Savannah, instead “sail down” Interstate 95 into northernmost Florida. If you are in the mood for diversion, be tempted before leaving Georgia to detour off the interstate highway either eastward to St. Marys and take the passenger ferry over the Cumberland Sound to the largest of Georgia’s “Golden Isles,” now protected as Cumberland Island National Seashore, or go west for an excursion into some of the 438,000-acre Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge .
For those wanting to learn more about land conservation efforts in the parts of Georgia where Muir once walked, in addition to all the good conservation work done by federal and state governmental agencies, major accomplishments in environmental resource protection have been achieved by the private Georgia-Alabama Land Trust and Georgia Conservancy, as well as by the state field office of The Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, and Trust for Public Land.
>>>CONTINUE ON to Florida . . .
