ISLE OF WIGHT — As the park bearing her name continues to develop, it is also hoped her story remains alive and resonating, said a local historian.
Community leaders and others gathered Saturday morning at the Susie King Taylor Freedom Park next to Jones Creek on the Isle of Wight to celebrate what would have been Taylor’s 178th birthday.
Dr. Hermina Glass-Hill, the director of the Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and Ecology Center, said she hopes visitors to the park learn more about Taylor and also become familiar with the area’s natural offerings.
“I think as soon as they enter the park and when they get past the sign, they see the beauty,” she said. “They see the ecology. They saw what they can do here, that nature is all around us, and that we live within us. Susie King Taylor escaped from within this coastal ecology.”
The park itself has been around for years, but it has undergone significant improvements and it was renamed after Taylor, who escaped from slavery not far from the park’s site.
The park, called Jones Creek Park, was renamed in honor of Taylor in July 2025.
After she made her way to the Union lines on St. Simons Island, she eventually married a soldier in the U.S. Army’s first all-Black regiment. She served that unit as a nurse and laundress and she taught soldiers in that regiment how to read and write.
Taylor learned to read and write in secret schools, called “bucket schools,” since no Blacks, either freed or enslaved, were allowed to be literate in Georgia at the time.
After the Civil War, Taylor became the only Black woman to have a memoir of her war experiences published, “Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers.”
The park has a new playground and pavilion, to go with new parking and benches. Up next for the park are walking trails and perhaps a fishing pier.
Glass-Hill also pointed out the park, visible from Interstate 95, also can be a haven for bird watchers.
“There is more to it than just history. There is something for everybody,” she said. “I hope people will engage nature, in addition to history and culture and environment and they will explore. Because that’s what Liberty County is all about.”
