We are excited to share with you that the The St. Simons Land Trust has purchased approximately 16 marsh-front acres in the historic Harrington Community, the last large undeveloped tract of land south of the Lawrence Road-Frederica Road roundabout. This property is now named after its original owner, conservationist Elouise Spears.
SPEARS PRESERVE AT HARRINGTON
The Harrington Community was once home to formerly enslaved people who had worked on Georgia’s barrier islands during the plantation era. Following the American Civil War, the land that runs between North Harrington and South Harrington Roads, in the mid-island area of St. Simons along Frederica Road, was divided into ten-acre lots that were owned by descendants of those enslaved people. It became the largest residential neighborhood on the island for African-American families, who used the now 100-year-old Historic Harrington School as a community center as well as a place to raise and educate their children.
Over the decades, nearly all the original 10-acre parcels were sold and subdivided multiple times, resulting today in roughly two dozen different HOA’s and hundreds of homes. The once intact community of primarily African-American residents founded businesses, restaurants, churches, and the historic school.
“Elouise Spears was a pioneering conservationist in our community. It was she who coined the phrase ‘Don’t Ask, Won’t Sell.’ For decades, she and her ancestors set the example of land stewardship on St. Simons.”
–Jim Barger Jr., Chair of the Land Trust’s Board of Directors
Only a few of those “Don’t Ask, Won’t Sell” signs remain on the island, and now less than 2% of the residents in the Harrington Community are descendants of the original landowners.
“Acquiring this property was a multi-year process,” said Emily Ellison, the Executive Director of the Land Trust. “It was an emotional, deeply meaningful day for all involved when we were finally able to close on the property and promise the owners that their family’s land would never be developed.”
“It is an honor for the Land Trust to partner with [Mrs. Spears’] daughter and son-in-law, Natalie and Joe Dixon, to preserve this ecologically valuable marsh-front maritime forest forever,” continued Jim Barger. “For most of my childhood, Harrington was the hub of a culturally rich, thriving Gullah-Geechee community.
“My hope is that by continuing Elouise Spears’s conservation ethic, we may demonstrate to future generations the contributions made by the African-American families who settled the Harrington Community in the wake of the United States Civil War – a legacy as historically significant as General Oglethorpe’s British settlement a century earlier at Frederica.”
According to Ellison, the Land Trust’s staff and board will be working with the Dixons and others in the Harrington community to not only preserve the land itself, but also to honor the significance of those who settled there and made it their home for so many years. The maritime forest will remain untouched, and the public will be able to experience it through the Elouise Spears Heritage and Nature Trail, an earthen path that will weave through the property and provide opportunities for birding, hiking, and learning more about an invaluable piece of the island’s and the region’s history.
“The Spears tract contains beautiful mature maritime forest, palmetto thickets, and considerable marsh frontage – ideal habitat for diamondback terrapins, small mammals, wood storks, and painted buntings, to name a few. Given its size and proximity to protected marshlands, and its location in the Altamaha estuary, it provides an important wildlife corridor in a heavily developed part of St. Simons….”
–Susan Shipman, Board Member and Chair of SSLT’s Stewardship Committee
A dedication of the property and the trail will take place in 2025. “At that time, we will honor Mrs. Spears and her family as well as the people who made this purchase possible,” said Emily Ellison. In 2023, the Land Trust received a bequest from the estate of Steve and Miranda Hires, lifetime St. Simons residents whose gift to the organization enabled its leadership to acquire the property without having to launch a capital campaign or obtain financing. “That bequest to the Land Trust was transformational,” added Ellison. “We would never have been able to act as quickly as we did to purchase the land without such generosity. It will be an honor to soon publicly recognize Elouise Spears, Natalie and Joe Dixon, and Steve and Randy Hires for making such a gift to the island possible.”
This Land Trust acquisition is particularly meaningful to Natalie Dixon, Mrs. Spears’ only child. She recently said,
“My mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother paid taxes on that property for decades and wanted to make sure it was never destroyed. I think that they would be as grateful as I am that it will now be protected from development forever.”
We look forward to sharing more information about the future of this property with you soon.