Issued to Lucy Coleman Carnegie United States Steel Corporation $100,000 Gold Bond - 1901 dated Orange Color Steel Bond

Lucy Ackerman Coleman was born in August 1847 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to William Coleman, a prominent iron manufacturer, and his wife Nancy. This spirited young woman, though only five feet tall, was full of energy and humor. At the age of seventeen, she attended Linden Hall boarding school in Fernandina Beach, Florida, where she first encountered the nearby island that would later become her home. In Pittsburgh, Lucy attracted many suitors, including Andrew Carnegie, a business associate of her father's, and his younger brother Thomas. While Andrew had vowed not to marry before his mother's passing, Thomas was free from such a promise. He won Lucy's affection, and they wed in Pittsburgh in June 1866. Their marriage was marked by mutual devotion, and by 1881, they had welcomed nine children into their family.

In 1881, Thomas Carnegie acquired 4,000 acres on Cumberland Island, and in 1882, he purchased additional land from the nephews of Robert Stafford, who had managed a cotton plantation on the island from 1834 until his death in 1877. This acquisition included the site where the Greyfield property would later be developed. Carnegie constructed Dungeness, a 40-room mansion, at the southernmost point of the island, with construction commencing in 1884 and concluding in 1885. He passed away from pneumonia the following year at the age of 44.

His widow, Lucy Coleman Carnegie, became the sole heir to his estate and took ownership of the Cumberland Island properties. After her husband's passing, she acquired an additional 12,000 acres on Cumberland and further expanded her landholdings with dividends received from Andrew Carnegie's sale of the Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan and his associates in 1901. She commissioned the construction of Greyfield, a semi-formal Colonial Revival style residence, for her daughter Margaret (1872–1927) and her husband Oliver G. Ricketson; construction began in 1901 and continued until 1905. The Greyfield property and the house are named after an earlier landowner, John W. Gray, who purchased that section of the island in 1825.

Upon her death in 1916, Lucy Carnegie owned 16,000 acres on the island; while there were other landowners in the northern part, her holdings were the most extensive. In 1912, she established a will that created a complex trust arrangement to prevent her heirs from dividing or selling the island properties until the death of her last surviving child, unless they reached a unanimous agreement. The passing of her daughter Florence Carnegie Perkins in 1962 dissolved the trust, leading to the division of the island among the heirs. That same year, Lucy Ferguson transformed Greyfield into an inn, which, as of 2021, continues to be operated by her descendants as a bed and breakfast. Ferguson resided at Greyfield for over 70 years before relocating to a smaller residence.