(2007) Chasing Fireflies - A Novel of Discovery by Charles Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

marsh ran ankle-deep with Spanish blood, England's claim to Georgia had been settled. Today the place bears the name Bloody Marsh.
    In 1782, hampered by the same taxes and tariffs they sought to escape, the Georgians declared themselves a state and kicked out any sign of English authority. For God and our new country.
    With Georgia on the map, a few key things occurred to cement her place in history. Because South Carolina farmers didn't understand crop rotation, and because they were almost single-handedly meeting the world's voracious cotton need, they soon depleted their soil. Finding the lands west of the Golden Isles fertile and nutrientrich due to rivers such as the Satilla, Frederica, and Altamaha, South Carolina plantation owners acquired land, dug complicated drainage systems-which remain to this day-and began planting cotton. And not just any cotton. They developed a special, fine, long-staple cotton whose seed came from the West Indies island of Anguilla. It was an instant success. But with more yield came a greater need to separate the boll from the cotton, and human fingers could only do so much so fast. In 1786, the Georgia widow of Nathaniel Greene of Mulberry Plantation hired Eli Whitney to tutor her children. Seeing that Eli possessed mechanical skill, she asked him to invent some better way to extract the seeds from the cotton. And he did-inventing what was arguably, along with the printing press, one of the most transforming machines in human history. This came on the heels of the development of the spinning jenny in England. Eli's cotton gin now allowed the plantations of Georgia and South Carolina to satisfy England's appetite for cotton-en masse.

    The former prisoners' colony soon became the talk of the States. Chasing white gold with black hands, expansive plantations arose under names like Hampton, Cannon's Point, and Retreat. So attractive were their amenities that Vice President Aaron Burr fled here after he killed Alexander Hamilton in 1804.
    It wouldn't be the last time that a murderer would seek refuge in this place.
    Along with cotton production, the area became a worldwide supplier of lumber. Given the intersection of so many large rivers whose mouths emptied in or near the Golden Isles, entrepreneurs mowed down entire forests and floated them to the coast, where the logs were planed at the mills and loaded onto ships bound for the Orient and the motherland. Much of the oak used in "Old Ironsides" was cut from Cannon Point. But like that of South Carolina, the soil gave out, as did people's appetite for slavery. Amidst their own opulence and the scarred backs on which it was built, somebody finally looked around and figured out that not only does slavery kill those you enslave, but it kills you, too.
    For a while resourceful men tried to cultivate rice, but found that too complicated and not too profitable when the storm tide of 1898 flooded the marshes under nine feet of water. Living in the shadow of crumbling tumbleweed plantations, lumber production soared. Following the Civil War, lumber mills dotted the coastline. Toward the latter half of the nineteenth century, mills in and around Brunswick and St. Simons became a clearinghouse for lumber-laden steamers. Much of the Brooklyn Bridge was built from wood shipped out of Brunswick.

    While her natural resources had been tapped into and would one day be tapped out, the Golden Isles still had more to offer. In 1886, fifty-three members of what became known as the First Name Club bought Jekyll Island from John Eugene DuBignon. And while the members might have been on a first-name basis with each other, everyone else just called them "sir." The membership fee was set at one million dollars each, and that was just to set foot on the island. Members included men like J. P. Morgan, William Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and my favorite, Joseph Pulitzer. At the turn of the century, when the fifty-three members met on the island, it is believed they