Du Bignon Burial Ground State Historical Marker

Located on Horton Rd. on Jekyll Island, Ga.

 

(Text)

 

Le Sieur Christophe Anne Poulain du Bignon

(1739-1825)

Horton - du Bignon House

du Bignon Burial Ground

 

Beginning with Poulain du Bignon, five du Bignon generations made

Jekyll Island one of Georgia's most romantic Golden Isles. This

tabby ruin and burial ground alone remain from Jekyll Island's

century (1794-1886) as the du Bignon Plantation. Christophe Poulain,

native of Lamballe, Britanny, was a much-decorated French naval

captain whose loyalty to Louis 16th in the French Revolution forced

him to flee his patrimonial lands. In 1792 on his ship, the Sapelo,

he brought his family to the hospitable Georgia Coast. With four

other French royalists, he purchased first Sapelo Island and then

Jekyll. By 1794 he acquired Jekyll as his own plantation and

enlarged Major Horton's house as his manor. Sea Island Cotton

recouped his fortunes and supported a Georgia dynasty of landed

aristocracy like that established by his forebears. In 182 Poulain

was buried near du Bignon Creek with a live oak tree as his

monument. His son Henri added honors to the island plantation

as he made the Goddess of Liberty reigning queen of coastal

racing boats. And when Henri's grandson, John Eugene du Bignon,

sold Jekyll to a group of millionaire capitalists, with them

forming the Jekyll Island Club, Poulain du Bignon's island began

a new chapter in its fabulous history.

 

063-18 GEORGIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 1965

 

 

Photo: Ed Jackson

© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, The University of Georgia

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