Cumberland belongs to the American people — Not Gilded Age heirs

Looking across the marsh and the St. Marys River at Cumberland Island from my home is a daily reminder of what makes this coast extraordinary. Cumberland belongs to every American, but those of us in Fernandina Beach are among the fortunate few who have this national seashore as our immediate neighbor. Whether we cross the water by kayak, skiff, or passenger ferry, that untamed shoreline is our communal backyard and a public trust.

Right now, that trust is being treated like expendable real estate.

Under the guise of improving park management, the National Park Service has proposed a"voluntary land exchange" that deeds away roughly 80 contiguous acres of federal seashore along Old House Road—a scenic path through maritime forest along the island’s western marshfront—into private hands. At a recent public meeting on the swap, the Cumberland superintendent declared, "We are not going to name names." Public land records make that silence easy to understand: the beneficiaries trace directly to the Gilded Age dynasties of the Carnegies and Rockefellers.

In the first exchange, trustees Ledyard H. McFadden and Nancy McFadden Cannon — direct descendants of James Stillman Rockefeller and Nancy Carnegie — propose trading a 10-acre proposed wilderness inholding for 20 acres of buildable, marsh-front federal land with access from Grand Avenue, Cumberland’s unpaved central artery. In the second, Lucy Foster Flight and Franklin "Whit" Foster — Carnegie descendants holding the expiring residential rights on Stafford House — seek to trade roughly 119 acres of remote interior tracts for 60 acres of prime federal land adjoining the McFaddens.

To see through this trade, one has to understand the legal difference between a life estate and fee-simple ownership. A life estate is temporary, granting an individual the right to live on a parcel for their lifetime, after which full ownership automatically reverts to the public. Fee simple, by contrast, is absolute ownership — land that can be cleared, built on, sold, or willed to heirs in perpetuity.

Both private parcels being offered to the government are technically fee-simple deeds, but they are isolated, landlocked, and hemmed in by protected wetlands where building is virtually impossible. Meanwhile, the Carnegie family's life estate on historic Stafford House is nearing its legal expiration, after which private occupancy ends and the public assumes unencumbered ownership. Facing the loss of their historic footprint, the heirs are pulling off an eleventh-hour swap: trading remote, undevelopable interior acreage to lock in permanent, inheritable fee-simple deeds on prime public ground.

On paper, the government gains acreage. But these are hardly interchangeable acres. These families want to trade up.

On Sunday, October 4, I took a boat across to Cumberland to walk these parcels myself. Standing beneath ancient live oaks overlooking the marsh, the physical reality is unmistakable. The public land the heirs stand to receive along Old House Road is far more accessible, high, and dry than the isolated acreage they hold today. In exchange for swamp and wilderness, the families walk away with prime road frontage tailored for luxury residential development, allowing building footprints of up to 15,000 square feet per parcel, accommodating up to eight massive private estates.

A life estate ends with a human life; a fee-simple deed is forever.

To justify the swap, the private parties and the Park Service claim the trade resolves trail crossings, even floating informal suggestions that hikers could face trespassing charges on historic routes. That is manufactured leverage. Island thoroughfares used by the public for generations carry established access rights under Georgia law. Trail crossings in national parks across the country are routinely resolved with simple access easements—never by deeding away 80 acres of national seashore to private enclaves. Giving away public parkland to build private compounds violates the National Park Service’s organic mandate and the Seashore’s founding legislation.

Biologist and naturalist Carol Ruckdeschel, who has fought for this island longer than anyone, recently summarized the stakes in five words: "Cumberland is counting on us."

Our community has until October 16 to put formal opposition on the administrative record through the Park Service planning portal. Urge the agency to reject the swap, protect trails using simple easements instead of giving away public land, and require a full Environmental Impact Statement before any public ground is signed away.

Beyond the portal, call your representatives. In Florida, demand intervention from U.S. Representative Aaron Bean and U.S. Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody. Across the river in Georgia, contact U.S. Representative Buddy Carter and U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Congress created the Seashore, and Congress has the power to stop this deal.

After more than a century of private retreats, and 50 years of taxpayer-protected privilege inside

our national seashore, how much is ever enough for these families? The American people kept their side of the 1972 bargain. It is time for the Carnegies and Rockefellers' descendants to keep theirs—before another private-property rope is strung across Old House Road.

Rebecca Purington is a Florida native, retired technology entrepreneur, and Fernandina Beach resident dedicated to preserving Cumberland Island.