Jekyll Island's early years

by June Hall McCash

"From the foremost authority on the famed Georgia barrier island, here is the first in-depth look at Jekyll Island's early history. Much of what defines our view of the place dates from the Jekyll Island Club era. Founded in 1886, the club was the private resort of America's moneyed elite, including the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Pulitzers. In this new book, which ranges from pre-Columbian times through the Civil War and its aftermath, June Hall McCash shows how the environment, human conflict, and a desire for refuge shaped the island long before the club's founding." "Jekyll's earliest identifiable inhabitants were the Timucua, a flourishing group of Native Americans who became extinct within a hundred years of their first contact with Europeans. After being caught up in the New World contests between France, Spain, and England, the island became part of a thriving English colony. In subsequent stories of Jekyll and its residents, the drama of our nation plays out in microcosm. T