The recollection below was written by Elizabeth Spalding Wylly in the late 1800’s when she was a small child. At that time nearly two thousand head of cattle roamed freely on Sapelo.
Elizabeth Spalding Wylly, was the g-g-g granddaughter of John Mohr Mackintosh who was the first to ship and ranch cattle on Sapelo after he received a Royal Grant of 350 acres as did his son and kinsmen on April 5th of 1756. John Mohr Mackintosh was the Clan Chief of the Borlum Mackintoshes as was his son William. They had received in total over 1000 acres by February 1757 “on Sapelo Island in St Andrews Parish bounded on the southeast by the marshes of Newport River”. This was in addition to Royal Grants on surrounding islands. William Mackintosh lodgings were where Chocolate Plantation stands today. Three years later his brother-in-law Patrick (Andrew) MacKay bought the remaining 9520 acres and majority of Sapelo. Shortly thereafter and upon the death of MacKay William Mackintosh and his son-in-law James Spalding became Executers and Trustees of the Sapelo estate and soon increased the number of cattle on the island.
Thomas Spalding, with his mother Margery Mackintosh Spalding, visited his father James and grandfather William on Sapelo many times as a child. Later, upon the death of his wife’s father Richard Leake, Thomas inherited the sale transfer of Sapelo and there established the family seat for generations to come. Like their forebearers, Spalding’s grandsons bought and shipped Spanish wild cattle to Sapelo throughout the late 1800s.
“There was demand for beef by the vessels anchored and waiting to be loaded with timber to carry to various ports. Darien was still a thriving town with a good market and quite a good population with two large Hilton Dodge lumber mills operating there. On Sapelo I watched as a child one of these cattle loadings on a flat boat which I will give you an account. Everything went well at first. Among the cattle that day was a fine animal, a full-grown cow, which had always given trouble, being hard to manage and high spirited. By her behavior she had been given a well-deserved name and called “Break-ranks.” As I said, everything went well at first until she found herself pinned in on all sides by the corral, except by the way of the flatboat where she was determined not to go. She became frantic, made for the corral and tried to tear it to pieces with her horns only to be deterred by the whips of the drivers. All of this of course excited all the other cattle and when she commenced tearing from one end of the coral to the other, pandemonium immediately broke loose! She was then trying to jump over the corral only to be stopped again from this by the whips of the drivers. We had all been watching from the flower garden, but when the situation with Break-ranks seemed to be getting worse, we were moved into the house to watch from the windows for security’s sake. Finally, after much hard and efficient work by the drivers, Break-ranks was subdued as much from exhaustion I expect, as anything else, and driven on the flatboats where she was quickly and firmly secured. The other cattle were then driven on the flatboat without too much trouble and a hectic day was over, but never in my mind forgotten. That night, tired from all the excitement, I was lulled to sleep by the rhythmically, soft ringing of the bell buoy in the clam sea.” Elizabeth Spalding Wylly
Elizabeth’s granddaughter and husband hope to bring awareness of the Wild Cattle of Sapelo through their Feral Forward Project and guide service.
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Elizabeth Spalding Wylly
On Sapelo many of the first cowboys and cow hunters were African Americans, as noted as the “drivers” above. After the collapse of the South some of the former island bondsmen, or “Spalding People,” as they were known, stayed and “worked the cattle from the saddle” as they had for so many years earlier. At its peak there were over 2000 head of domesticated and wild cattle on the island, but two consecutive hurricanes in the 1890’s proved too much for the island proprietors and the black cowboy era of Sapelo that reached back well over a hundred years became a forgotten memory. Today, the wild beasts of Sapelo continue to increase in size and numbers as they persist to adapt and develop.