THE FRENCH:

The next year in 1790, in the Liberty County court, a petition was filed to divide Sapelo into five equal shares. The co-partners were French noblemen fleeing revolutionary France, and the names that appear on the records appear to have been anglicized. In 1793 another joined the group but returned to France soon after. One of the partners bought Jekyll Island and moved there; two died in 1794; and only two were left on the island, de Boisfeuillet and the Grand Closmesle.

The de Boisfeuillet family remained at their home called Bourbon for many years. But ultimately, after the death of his wife, de Boisfeuillet left the island to be near his much loved married daughter, Natalie. In the late 1790’s the share owned by the Grand Closmesle was sold to the Marquis de Montalet, a former planter who left Santa Domingo after the uprising there. Upon the death of his young wife, the Marquis moved to Sapelo and build his house called “le Chatelet”. In time this name has become corrupted to “Chocolate”.

The era of de Montalet is one of the more gentle passages in Sapelo’s history. With his companion, the Chevalier de la Horne, he devoted his time to the cultivation of their garden, fruitlessly searching for truffles (aided by a pig on a leash) and training Cupidon, their black chef, in the production of culinary masterpieces worthy of a cordon bleu. Their slaves provided enough cotton for them to be in a position to purchase a few luxuries, wine and brandy, but there was apparently no pressure to make a fortune; gracious living was the prime requirement. The ruins of his house still remain.

Others lived and built at Chocolate after the French: Captain Swarbreck, Senator Rogers, and finally the Spalding heirs. Consequently the tabby ruins seen today represent the complex accumulations of several short-lived eras.