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Photographer’s Note

Beach Creek is a tidal creek that extends inland from the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway falling short of reaching the beach by only a few hundred yards. The creek is navigable as far inland as the Dungeness ruins.
In the 1880s Thomas M. Carnegie and his wife, brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, bought land on Cumberland for a winter retreat, and in 1884, began building a mansion on the site of Dungeness, though he never lived to see its completion. His wife, Lucy, and 9 children, however, continued to live on the island, and named their mansion Dungeness after the Greene's. Dungeness was a 59 room Scottish castle. They also built pools, a golf course, and 40 smaller buildings to house the 200 servants that worked at the mansion. The last time Dungeness was used before it burned in 1959 was for the 1929 wedding of a Carnegie daughter. It is thought that the 1959 fire was started by a disgruntled poacher who had been shot in the leg by a caretaker weeks before. Today, the ruins of the mansion remain on the southern end of the island. The Carnegies owned 90% of the Island. In the 1890s "The Settlement" was established at the north end of the island for black workers. White workers received $1 a day, while black workers received $0.50. The First African Baptist Church, established here in 1893 and rebuilt in the 1930s, is one of the few remaining structures of this community. Sadly, the church and area inhabited by slaves and later free blacks is not accessible to the public.
This is my last posting for a couple of weeks, it is vacation time and I will not have internet access most of the time. I hope to have many nice photos to share from Italy, Switzerland and France in a couple of weeks.

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Additional Photos by Asa Jernigan (asajernigan) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 2970 W: 78 N: 3796] (13859)
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