St. Simons Island --- The bones of Cyrus Dart rest beneath the grayish-green waters off this blessed barrier isle.

My great-great-great-grandfather was a medical doctor and the quarantine officer for the port in the decades following the American Revolution. In 1817, he drowned at the age of 53 when his rowboat capsized on the way to inspect a ship's crew for communicable diseases. He was accompanied by his teenage son, Urbanus, who managed to swim safely ashore. Otherwise, I would not be here to chronicle this saga of a Southern family in black and white.

Cyrus could not have imagined the diversity of descendants who gathered here on Patriot's Day to honor the patriarch of Dixie's branch of the Dart family tree.

Folks say there is a sense of place in the soul of Southern families.

For me, that sense of place centers on Glynn County, the home of my forebears and site of the marshes and beaches where I grew up. But there are as many such home places as there are multihued families throughout the South, where people different in many ways can come together to explore their shared ancestry. In this region so long troubled by issues of race, many of us really are brothers and sisters under our skins.

A long look back

Born and reared in Connecticut, Cyrus came to Georgia after serving as an underage private in the Revolutionary army and then completing his medical studies. Since his body was never recovered from the Atlantic, it would be two centuries before a marker honoring his military service would be placed beside the grave of his wife, the former Ann Harris of St. Simons. She is buried on the grounds of Christ Church near the island's historic Fort Frederica, which dates to the settlement of the colony of Georgia by Gen. James Oglethorpe.

At a ceremony organized by the Georgia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, descendants of Cyrus Dart and three other Revolutionary War soldiers gathered beneath the live oaks on a spring morning. We shooed away sand gnats and hugged our distant kin.

Amongst my family, there were black cousins from Maryland and New Jersey and Brunswick, which is just across the marshes. There were white cousins from Chicago and Miami and Tennessee and Jesup, which is 40 miles through the piney woods on U.S. 341.

Many knew each other only by the lapel markers we wore bearing an American flag and the words ''Cyrus Dart.''

''I was actually a little nervous,'' said Rena Page, 30, an African-American graphic designer from Jessup, Md. Her lineage to Cyrus goes through Edwin Dart, a Glynn County Ordinary of Courts in the 1920s and 1930s. Edwin was born in 1880 and was later known as ''Judge Dart.''

''I didn't know what the reaction would be. I didn't know who knew. I've always known. The older generation kept it alive for us,'' said Rena, an Army Reservist and owner of Tusk Grafx. Her grandmother, Norene Dart Page, 79, grew up in Brunswick but moved to Newark, N.J., in 1950. Norene Dart Page is the daughter of Earl Dart, who was a son of ''Judge Dart.'' Her uncle, Roland Dart, was also fathered by Edwin, she recalled.

''The boys were raised by a woman named Emma. We never knew who their mother was. I wish I did,'' said Norene. ''My Uncle Roland told me that, during that time, some of the Darts had wanted the boys' names changed. But someone in authority in the family said, 'A Dart is a Dart whether he is black or white.' ''

'Connected to history'

Edwin married Katherine Cummings of New York City in 1910, at the age of 30, and after the births of Earl and Roland.

Growing up in Brunswick during the era of segregation, I always knew there were black Darts and white Darts in our town and that we were somehow connected. But I was more concerned with football and the beach and girls than with genealogy.

As a child, I once asked my mother about some Darts in the Glynn County phone book with first names that I didn't recognize. She said they were descendants of slaves who had taken the family name after being freed. Since some of my ancestors were slave owners, that was true as far as it went. But at least some of us were also blood kin, some born of relationships that came long after the Civil War.

In Brunswick, the races ''didn't mingle much back then," said Norene. She remembers her sister meeting a white woman at the health department once and being asked her name. "My sister said 'Ethel Dart.' And the white woman said, 'My name is Ethel Dart, too.' "

I asked Rena if her side of the family bore a grudge from those times.

''We have no resentment at all,'' she said. ''I loved the ceremony [honoring Cyrus], and I was determined to go."

Sharing family yarns

After the ceremony, when my wife, Sherry, and I had to catch a plane home to Washington, D.C., McKinley said he and about 11 Darts, all cousins, ''went out to eat and talk and had a good time.''

There are many family yarns to share.

By the time Urbanus, the son who swam to shore when Cyrus drowned, reached manhood, the town of Brunswick had largely been deserted. Through some legal maneuvering, he gained ownership of much of the property and promoted the re-establishment of the community. He donated the land upon which most of the town's churches were built and still stand. He also served in the state Legislature.

The Georgia poet Sidney Lanier wrote his classic ode ''The Marshes of Glynn'' while sitting beneath an oak tree in the front yard of my great-grandfather, the first William Robert Dart. The tree is now memorialized as ''Lanier's Oak'' and the Victorian house is home to the Brunswick-Glynn County Chamber of Commerce.

There is also a story about Aretha Dart, Norene's sister, going to court before Judge Dart after a confrontation with a white woman who was visiting Brunswick from Valdosta during the Jim Crow era. Aretha was the judge's granddaughter, although he showed no official recognition.

The visiting white woman ''was calling my sister names,'' said Norene. Judge Dart told her to stop.

''Then he told my sister to look away when she passed the woman's house,'' recalled Norene Dart Page. ''And he told the white woman that the sooner she could go back to Valdosta, the better.''

Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sunday, May 8, 2005

Ceremonies honor 4 island residents who served, nearby battle.

By TERRY DICKSON, The Times-Union

ST. SIMONS ISLAND -- Historic and Revolutionary War heritage organizations honored heroes and patriots of the war Tuesday by dedicating four memorial markers and unveiling a historic marker to a Georgia Navy victory next door.

In a morning ceremony at Christ Church Episcopal, the Sons of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Revolution honored four island residents who served in the war. Just 2 1/2 hours after that ceremony, the same organizations were joined by the National Park Service and others next door at Fort Frederica National Monument to honor Col. Samuel Elbert's victory over three British warships 227 years earlier.

The ceremonies were so close because it is the spot the British established an expensive presence on the barrier island in the 1730s as a buffer to protect South Carolina from invasion from the Spanish in Florida. Christ Church and its cemetery are located just outside the earthen berms that formerly protected the fortified town of Frederica.

Historian Buddy Sullivan summed it up in the ceremony at Fort Frederica. "We're walking through history here,'' he said to the crowd of more than 200, some of whom found shade under old live oaks.

He encouraged the crowd to put themselves back 300 years and imagine there was nothing there but the oaks and a few Indian tribes.

"There were no English settlers at that point. There were deer flies,'' he said.

Mark Grant places a flag on the grave of his fourth great-grandfather, Robert Grant, a Revolutionary War patriot buried at Christ Church Episcopal. TERRY DICKSON/The Times-Union

There were plenty of deer flies and sand gnats at both ceremonies.

Sons of the American Revolution color guards in kilts or the blue coats and knee britches of American Revolutionary War soldiers did double duty, leading processions to graves at the 10 a.m. ceremony and to the historic monument at the end of the 2 p.m. dedication.

They stood at attention in the morning while brass markers were unveiled at monuments to William Page, Robert Grant, Samuel Wright and Cyrus Dart.

Unlike the others, Dart, whose body was never recovered after he drowned nearby, has no grave. Instead, he is remembered at Christ Church in a granite monument provided recently by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Descendants of Elbert and the four soldiers attended the ceremonies in good numbers. Many were local, but some traveled long distances. Descendants read biographies of the patriots including Bill Brown, a great-great-great grandson of Cyrus Dart. Brown noted that Dart was a quarantine officer at the Port of Brunswick and drowned when a rowboat capsized as he and his son Urbanus -- Brown's great-great grandfather -- were rowing to a ship.

"I'm glad Urbanus was a good swimmer. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here,'' Brown said as the crowd laughed.

Mark Grant and his father, Robert Grant, placed flags on the grave of Robert Grant, who had been a Revolutionary War surgeon on the staff of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, in South Carolina.

Navy musician Petty Officer 2nd Class April Boucher walks past a row of historic flags at Fort Frederica National Monument during the dedication of a historic marker to the Georgia Navy. TERRY DICKSON/The Times-Union

Mark Grant, from Warrenton, Va., said he learned about "my fourth great-grandfather'' after his own son was born four years ago.

"I didn't know anything about my ancestor. I wanted my son to know where he came from,'' Grant said.

The ceremony was very meaningful to him and provides a heritage to his children, Grant said.

Father and son King Aiken Sr. and King Aiken Jr. are descendants of both Grant and Page because their families intermarried, King Aiken Sr. said.

"I'm very proud of what has gone on today,'' King Aiken Sr. said.

Aiken said he was gratified by the heavy turnout at the morning ceremony.

"Nobody knew what kind of significance anyone would see in it. We too often forget that these people and the ones fighting today make a great sacrifice,'' he said.

Of the 73 previous marker dedications, the Christ Church cemetery ceremony was the most heavily attended, said George Thurmond, president of the Georgia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

Thurmond credited St. Simons Island resident and organizer William Ramsaur for much of the success.

"The planning for this has taken a year,'' he said. "He visited at least nine of the 28 state chapters.''

Until Ramsaur began promoting it, the naval action was largely unknown.

The historic marker dedication drew James Elbert Whitehead and his family from Cape Canaveral.

Whitehead said his family still owns a locket with a miniature portrait of Samuel Elbert, the only known likeness of his forebear.

"We looking forward to maybe meeting some of our relatives,'' he said as the marker was unveiled.

Virginia Steele Wood gave an account of how Elbert and Georgia soldiers were helped by the tides, winds and good fortune when they used three galleys to outmaneuver the three British sailing vessels.

Although it was an obscure battle, it was nonetheless important, Park Superintendent Mike Tennent said.

"We lose sight of the fact history is made in small places by ordinary people,'' he said. "For every epic battle, there are a thousand small engagements.''

The people who take part in those actions deserve to be recognized and remembered, he said.

Source: Georgia Times Union 4/20/2005, Page 1

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042005/geo_18524367.shtml

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