Well, the charming cumberland
Island is home to east coast America's only really wild horse herd. The serene abandoned
island was once home to the super-rich Carnegie family, who bought it in the 1880s.
The Cumberland Island’s over 150 horses are descendants from domestic horses
used in local Civil War battles. The Horses are par for the course in the Wild
West, but there are a few roaming the wild east of America as well. The off to Atlantic
coast of Georgia is home to the only unmanaged feral herd of horses on the east
coast. The area is pretty much deserted, the island’s former grand inhabitants
have moved on but the horses have remained. Recently they have been snapped,
over a decade of visits, by French photographer Anouk Masson Krantz, for the
soon-to-be released book Wild Horses of Cumberland Island, published by Images
Publishing. The Cumberland Island is made up of white sand beaches, immense
rolling dunes, old growth maritime forests and a salt marsh tidal estuary. It’s
only reachable by boat and there’s only one hotel to choose from - The
Greyfield Inn, one of the few buildings on the island that isn’t a grandiose
ruin.
More than home to 150 wild
horses, the island has had a cheered history. It is well believed that horses first
would have arrived with Spanish settlers in the 17th century. There were
plantations and Civil War battles there in the 19th century, however after that
the wealthy Carnegies bought most of it in the 1880s. Therefore, the legendary
industrialist family lived there with their own horses but it was sold to the
National Park Service in 1972. A descendant of the original owner, Thomas
Carnegie, Oliver ‘Mitty’ Ferguson runs the island's hotel. The Cumberland
horses aren’t native to the island but as they are descended from domestic
breeds, it's said their ancestors must have escaped during the Civil War. If
you are horse lover, then you must see horses taking free rein of a treasured
environment in a sparkling set of pictures.
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