This area was one of several St. Simons Island plantations owned by John Couper (father of James Hamilton Couper, see below) who lived at Cannon Point, St. Simons Island, and who donated his library of 20,000 volumes to the Library of Congress.
The remains of this antebellum-eraplantation contain two surviving slave cabins, which were part of a set of four built before 1833. Among the better examples of surviving slave cabins in the South, they are composed of tabby, a cement consisting of lime, water, and crushed oyster shells. The cabins have built-in windows and a central chimney.[4]
James Hamilton Couper, namesake of the owner and manager of the plantation, was an architect and a builder. He designed and built the cabins to house the slaves who served in the plantation's main house. Utilizing a duplex plan to house more than one family, the cabins were originally part of a planned community of slave dwellings.
The Hamilton Plantation and Gasciogne Bluff were sold after the Civil War to Anson Dodge and the Georgia Land and Lumber Company of New York in 1874 to erect lumber mills.[5]
The Cassina Garden Club owns the cabins and offers tours on Wednesday mornings in June through August.[6] The cabins are near Arthur J. Moore Drive.[7]
