In the early morning hours of November 28, 1858, the Wanderer arrived off the coast of Georgia after forty-two days at sea from Africa, carrying an illegal cargo of enslaved Africans. Its captain, William Corrie, went to Cumberland Island and found assistant light keeper Horatio Harris, then crossed to Jekyll to find pilot James Clubb, who safely brought the ship through the sandbars into St. Andrews Sound and to the south end of Jekyll Island the next morning. There, 407 Africans of the original 487 purchased after the ship's trip up the Congo River were brought ashore and, after the grueling Atlantic crossing, were treated by Brunswick doctor Robert Hazelhurst. They were shocked to encounter Africans brought there decades earlier by the duBignons who wore pants and shirts and spoke English, and one of the duBignons' old slaves, Jack, recognized the language of one of the newly arrived Africans, reviving painful memories of his own childhood capture and passage to America. The 407 illegally imported Africans were hidden in the woods of Jekyll Island and on duBignon's plantation, and some were taken by Charles Lamar's steamboat, the Lamar, to Savannah for sale. Captain Corrie and his fellow conspirators, including Jekyll Island owners John and Henry duBignon, hoped to profit while escaping the law, and the crew tried to remove signs of slave-holding structures from the vessel, but rumors spread quickly and Brunswick port authorities impounded the Wanderer. U.S. Assistant Attorney Joseph Ganahl soon built a case against those involved; by December, three crewmen were arrested and tried in Savannah, and it later emerged that Charles Lamar had organized the venture. Lamar, Henry duBignon, and three other men were later tried in Federal Court for taking the Africans after they landed on Jekyll Island, but by May of 1860 all of the crew and others charged in connection with the affair were acquitted.
