The Chesser family claimed an island inside the Okefenokee Swamp in the 1850s and built their home. Those were the days.

“It was a boy’s paradise in the late 40s and 50s when I grew up here,” said Joe Lester Chesser about his home on Chesser Island. 

Now 89 years old, he was one of seven children of the fourth generation of Chessers who settled there. Strolling to the house through the surrounding forest, Joe can still point out each tree he planted on the property.

“If you didn’t grow it you didn’t eat,” he said. Fields now bare surround the Homestead where his family grew corn to feed the pigs and blue-ribbon cane to make syrup. 

“Everybody from everywhere came to buy Chesser syrup,” he said.

It took 55 gallons of juice to make seven or eight gallons of syrup. Family members started boiling the juice at daylight and prepared three batches a day. Joe said they became “real uptown” after his parents installed a bathtub inside the house and bought a refrigerator with a freezer compartment powered by kerosene. A radio with a battery as big as the radio was family entertainment in the evening. His mother instilled a deep respect for education. Chesser’s brothers and sisters went on to college and successful careers. He went to the University of Georgia and became a forester.

The Chesser Homestead is now part of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Visitors can tour Chesser's childhood home and experience how life was lived in the swamp.