Wild Horses Living off the East Coast of America on a Bewitching Island. the charming Cumberland Island is home to the east coast of 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 of 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 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 Carnegie 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 a horse lover, then you must see horses taking free rein of a treasured environment in a sparkling set of pictures. Source: Dailymail
