A well-loved story in the Golden Isles claims that an eccentric millionaire sea captain once set his sights on joining the impossibly insular Jekyll Island Club at the height of the Gilded Age.
Portrait courtesy of Jan Galloway
Captain Frank Duncan MacPherson
Denied membership, the story goes, he answered the slight the only way a self-styled pirate might—by training cannons toward the most exclusive enclave on the southeastern coast. The tale has circulated for generations, told with just enough confidence to make listeners pause before laughing—and then wonder if it might be true after all.
Whether Frank Duncan MacPherson Strachan ever pulled a cannon’s lanyard is impossible to say. No contemporary account records the blasts. But the legend endures because it fits the man—and because it rests on something entirely real.
Photo restored by Josh Dukes
Frank Duncan MacPherson Strachan
Strachan arrived in Brunswick in 1898 as federal dredging transformed the harbor into a deep-water port. Scottish-born and raised along the coast, he was a yachtsman from youth and a winner of the prestigious Astor Cup. He built his fortune at the edge of global trade, helped organize Georgia’s first shipbuilding company during WWI, and had a habit of placing himself in untested ventures where confidence mattered as much as capital.
Around 1910, long before St. Simons Island became fashionable, Strachan built one of the island’s earliest substantial seasonal cottages and named it Beach Lawn. Positioned to be seen from the Pier and passing vessels, the house was both refuge and proclamation. The compound included servants’ quarters and a private reservoir. It was an island estate designed to operate on its own terms, whether anyone approved or not.
Original photo by Charles Tait, colorized by Josh Dukes
Beach Lawn circa 1912
The home was moved by barge to Daufuskie Island, SC, in 1986.
Even during Prohibition, Strachan leaned into his reputation. When the Coast Guard seized 41 quarts of illegal whiskey aboard his yacht Roamer, the charges were dismissed, but the story stuck. Within his own family, he was simply known as “the pirate.”
Postcard image provided by Josh Dukes
The Cannons
This circa 1905 postcard view shows 3 Spanish-American war cannons that would remain after the Beach Lawn cottage was completed.
And there were cannons. Three of them. National Register documentation confirms that Spanish-American War–era coastal defense cannons predating the house stood in front of Beach Lawn, facing the Sound. They were relics of federal fortifications once guarding the harbor entrance. Whether those cannons ever thundered toward Jekyll matters less than the fact that they were there at all, under the command of a man who seemed entirely capable of firing them.
Josh Dukes is a local historian, digital photo restoration and co-author of Brunswick: Past & Present (available at local retailers and online at joshdukesofficial.com.)
