The only way to arrive on the shores of Cumberland Island is by boat. Once you step off the dock, you have entered into a living history book. Tangled branches overhead lock antiquity and mystery into the fabric of the island. Under Spanish moss tinseled throughout the branches of Southern Live Oaks, and up the well-worn dirt paths laden with prints from horses’ hooves, there is a gracious southern mansion from a bygone era. This was the playground of the Carnegie family and now the legacy lives on as the Greyfield Inn.

Cumberland Island boasts a long lineage of strong women. While most have heard of steel-tycoon Andrew Carnegie and his brother Thomas, as some of the founding men of America, it is less likely that the names of Margaret Carnegie Ricketson and Lucy R. Ferguson ring a bell.

Yet, it is these tenacious women that helped make Cumberland what it is today.