For the few years that I have been doing cemetery surveys in Glynn County,
this cemetery has remained a mystery, it's location, the real name, the
truth in whether such a place exists.
The first indication of this cemetery was brought to my
attention by a list of cemeteries that was compiled by a Glynn County
employee. Unfortunately this gentleman can not be reached, and he
only provided vague directions.
In June of 2004, a gentleman by the name of Wesley
Fricks, who is an avid researcher on Ty Cobb and his involvement in the
Dover Hall Plantation, brought the name Shadow Island to the front.
While researching his topic of the history of Dover
Hall and the major league baseball moguls' purchase, he found a few
newspaper articles, some of which mention a Shadow Island off of Dover
Hall Plantation.
So, where is this Shadow Island, exactly? And is
it still called this? Who is buried here?
Firstly, who is buried here? From newspaper accounts, this is the
burial ground of the Dover Hall Plantation slaves. And in the early
1900s, this cemetery was deemed over 200 years old, and VERY haunted! |
From my research, so far, no reference to a Shadow
Island exists, on maps, or in oral histories. However, two islands
off of Dover Hall look promising.
One being Goat Island. Another, which has no
name, is off the very tip of the Dover Hall lands. Dover Hall forms
a peninsula out into the Turtle River. It is also in the fork of the
Turtle and Buffalo Rivers.
These islands can be accessed by land or water.
At low tide you can walk from the mainland to these islands.
Update!
Thanks to the efforts of Ms. Harriet Ozell [of the Ozell Investment
Group] we have a location for Cemetery Island!!!
Ms. Ozell's field is in real estate, and in her
spare time she loves to read about our local history through deeds and
property records. On one of her free moments she decided to search
for Cemetery Island. A plot map in a deed book clearly marks the
island off of the peninsula of the Dover Hall lands, one of the two
possible islands to be Cemetery / Shadow Island.
This story is not over yet, more
information is in the making! |
