Working Together To
Save Butler Island
Darien, McIntosh County, Georgia
4th Annual Butler Island Day 2024
all are welcome | 11 am - 2 pm | bring an outdoor chair
watch the video
Our gratitute to all who joined us for the very special panel discussion on Saturday, June 11, at 6 PM EDT. The event was free and open to all. McIntosh County has a rich and complex history, and researching the history of its families can be fascinating, frustrating, and very rewarding, all at the same time. The event focused on researching the roots and branches of African American family lines found among Coastal Georgians with ties to Butler Island Plantation. Butler Island Plantation was home to those enslaved and in some cases SOLD AWAY in 1859 at the LARGEST SLAVE SALE documented in U.S. history. This historic event is often referenced as “The Weeping Time.”
Many African Americans are unaware of deep personal ties to this historic sale of enslaved people and the plantation which held their ancestors in bondage. The panel members have deep personal ties and/or have spent years digging into the region’s records. Check and Click Here to view an image outlining a number of documented surnames carried by Coastal Georgia descendants with ties to Butler Island Plantation and its incredible history to see if your family line may be tied to Butler Island roots or branches, or if you’re simply curious about the surnames or family lines associated with the plantation.
The panel
- Eunice Moore, Butler Island Descendant and Burning of Darien Museum Co-Operator
- Griffin Lotson, Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Vice-Chairman, 7th generation Gullah Geechee, Manager of the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters
- Missy Brandt-Wilson, Butler Island Coalition Member, Burning of Darien Museum Co-Operator, former Chair, McIntosh County Historic Preservation Commission
- Dr. William Collins, Historian and Family Researcher, Burning of Darien Museum Co-Operator
- Adolphus Armstrong, Low Country Georgia DNA Project Coordinator, Former President of Moran Family Reunion, Co-Founder of UJIMA Genealogy of Coastal Georgia
- Terri Ward, Front Porch Genealogist, Moran Family Reunion Historian, Co-Founder of UJIMA Genealogy of Coastal Georgia
- Stacy Ashmore Cole, Researcher and creator of the website TheyHadNames.net, President of Coastal Georgia Genealogical Society
directions to Butler Island
The Butler Island site is open to the public. Free parking is available just off of Highway 17 at the entrance to the site.
Recent Events
Guided Tours
May 14 2 PM
Tour with Gullah Geechee Cultural Corridor Commissioners Griffin Lotson
June 4 11 AM
Tour with Butler Island Direct Descendant Eunice Moore
sunset tours
May 28 6:30 PM
June 4 6:30 PM
A sunset tour of the Butler Island site. See the Weeping Time Commemorative Lights at sunset in honor of the 429 enslaved men, women and children sold during the Weeping Time, the largest auction of enslaved people ever in the United States on March 2-3, 1859.
Thank you to Georgia Humanities for its grant supporting the Butler Island tours and Genealogy Panel, and to the M.K. Pentecost Ecology Fund for its grant that sponsored the Weeping Time Commemorative Lights Display.
Butler Island Day -- October 30, 2021
Joseph McGill, founder of the nationally known Slave Dwelling Project, visits important sites associated with slavery. He gave a wonderful presentation at the Butler Island site during the first annual Butler Island Day Commemoration.
City Council Presentation
The Coalition to Save Butler Island made a presentation before the Darien City Council on August 25, 2020 as part of its continuing campaign toward Butler Island preservation. Descendants of Butler Island enslaved people Eunice Moore and Commissioner Griffin Lotson spoke, as did Megan Desrosiers of One Hundred Miles. Also present were Mrs. Alberta Mabry, another descendant, and Coalition members Alex Muir, Missy Brandt Wilson, Rev. Bill Barton and Hermina Glass-Hill.
Bill that threatened butler island defeated
Thank you to every one of you who supported the Coalition’s successful mission to Kill House Bill 906! As we transition into Phase II to preserve the history of the Butler Island Plantation (Huston House), we will need your continued support. The memory of The Weeping Time shall never be forgotten. Stay tuned!
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources started talking to a potential buyer for the Butler Island Plantation & House about putting a distillery there in 2018, depite denials. The One Hundred Miles conservation group obtained the DNR emails under the Georgia Open Records Act. Read the emails for yourself and watch the progression toward HB 906, which attempted to lay the groundwork for the transfer and would have opened the door to sale of other historic properties.
Historical marker at the Butler Island heritage site near Darien, Georgia, erected by the Georgia Historical Society, The Vanderkloot Fund, and the Lower Altamaha Historical Society. A ceremony conducted by local community leaders and Butler Island descendants marked the historic occasion. (Video used with permission of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission.)
about house bill 906
House Bill 906 purported to amend the Official Code of Georgia as related to the Heritage Trust Program “so as to condition the method utilized for conveyance of heritage preserve property on the property’s amount of acreage; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.”
Instead its apparent purpose was actually to change the Code to allow transfer of heritage preserve property to private entities, which potentially affected hundreds of heritage sites across Georgia, including Butler Island:
“The State of Georgia and the Department of Natural Resources may convey fee simple title in up to and including 15 acres of a property dedicated as a heritage preserve under Code Section 12-3-75 for good and valuable consideration as determined by the State Properties Commission to a willing county or local government or private entity…”
Download a PDF of the bill from the Georgia State Legislature page here.
The bill was only killed because thousands of you spoke up. Members of the Georgia legislature received over 24,000 emails about it, and it never made it to the floor.
Speaking Out to Save Butler Island
Public Historian (researching families enslaved by Irish slaveholders in South Carolina and Georgia)
the weeping time slave auction: Why it matters
Want to learn more about The Weeping Time? An excellent resource is “The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History,” by Anne C. Bailey, Professor of History & Africana Studies at SUNY Binghamton.
