The Sea Pines shell ring may be seen at the Sea Pines Forest Preserve’s east entrance. The ring measures 150 feet (46 meters) in diameter and is thought to be over 4,000 years old. It is one of at least 50 known to exist. Archaeologists think the ring was a garbage dump built by Indians who lived in the interior of the ring, which was maintained clean and utilized as a gathering place. When the shells were taken and used to construct tabby for roads and structures on Hilton Head, two more shell rings were destroyed. Green’s Shell Enclosure, Sea Pines, and Skull Creek shell rings are all protected by law and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The seas around Hilton Head Island have been known, occupied, and battled over by the English, Spanish, French, and Scots from the dawn of recorded history in the New World.
In 1521, a Spanish expedition led by Francisco Cordillo explored the region, bringing European contact with native tribes for the first time. Captain William Hilton set off from Barbados in 1663 on the Adventure to explore territory assigned to the eight Lords Proprietors by King Charles II of England. He discovered a headland at the entrance to Port Royal Sound during his trip. After himself, he dubbed it “Hilton’s Head.” He stayed for a few days, seeing the trees, crops, “sweet water,” and “clear fresh air.”
In 1698, John Bayley of Ballingclough, County Tipperary, Kingdom of Ireland, was awarded Hilton Head Island as part of a barony. Alexander Trench was hired as the island’s first retail agent by another John Bayley, the son of the first. Hilton Head was once known as Trench’s Island. Trench sold some property to John Gascoine in 1729, and Gascoine dubbed it “John’s Island.” After another owner, the site became known as Jenkin’s Island.
The South Carolina provincial half-galley Beaufort was stationed at a bay at the southern point of Hilton Head in the mid-1740s to protect against Spanish invasions. Captain David Cutler Braddock, captain of the Beaufort, is commemorated by the point and cove. Captain Braddock was a notable privateer and mariner during Colonial times. He had previously been sent to the Georgia schooner Norfolk by James Oglethorpe, Georgia’s founder, and assisted in chasing the Spanish back to St. Augustine during their unsuccessful 1742 assault of St. Simons Island.
He spent two years in the Georgia Commons House of Assembly after arriving in Savannah in 1746 and earned a career as a very active privateer. During a privateering expedition in 1756, he made a famous map of the Florida Keys. The Library of Congress owns the chart.
On Hilton Head Island, there was just a small community of farmers throughout the revolution. Throughout the revolution, this populace remained totally Loyalist, remaining loyal to Parliament and the King. They elected to “remain on” in South Carolina after the revolution and make the best of life under the new republican system of government.
The Zion Chapel of Ease, a modest Episcopal chapel for plantation owners, was built in 1788. All that remains of the chapel is its ancient graveyard, which is located near the intersection of William Hilton Parkway and Mathews Drive (Folly Field). There is a memorial to Charles Davant, a significant island planter during the Revolutionary War. Captain Martinangel of Daufuskie Island shot Davant in 1781. The Baynard Mausoleum, which was erected in 1846 and is the oldest complete structure on Hilton Head Island, is also located here.
On Hilton Head Island in 1790, William Elliott II of Myrtle Bank Plantation cultivated the first harvest of Sea Island Cotton in South Carolina.
Fort Walker was a Confederate fort in what is now Port Royal Plantation during the Civil War. The fort served as a base for Confederate forces, and its cannons guarded the entrance to Port Royal Sound, which is supplied by two slow-moving and navigable rivers, the Broad River and the Beaufort River. It was critical to the southern economy and the Sea Island Cotton trade. The greatest navy ever gathered in North America headed south on October 29, 1861, to conquer it. The fort was attacked by the US Navy during the Battle of Port Royal, and it surrendered to over 12,000 Union forces on November 7, 1861. The fort was christened Fort Welles in honor of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles.
Hilton Head Island played an essential role in the Civil War as a center of operations for the Union blockade of Southern ports, notably Savannah and Charleston. On Hilton Head Island, the Union also constructed a military hospital with a 1,200-foot (370-meter) frontage and 60,000-square-foot floor space (6,000 m2).
Hundreds of former slaves came to Hilton Head Island to own land, attend school, reside in government housing, and serve in the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers (although in the beginning, many were “recruited” at the point of a bayonet).
To accommodate them, a hamlet named Mitchellville (in honor of General Ormsby M. Mitchel) was built on the island’s north end.
Major General Quincy Adams Gillmore, commanding the Department of the South with headquarters at Hilton Head, issued an order on May 15, 1865, declaring that “the people of the black race are free citizens of the United States,” whose rights must be protected according to law. While based in Hilton Head, he issued an additional order stating that under the act establishing the Freedmen’s Bureau, any plantation owners who were found to have failed to inform African-Americans of their new status as free people would be “made liable to the pains and penalties of disloyalty, and their lands subject to confiscation.”Martin Delany, the first black officer in the US military to attain the rank of major during the Civil War, was also stationed at Hilton Head at the time.”
Built in the 1870s on the southern tip of what is now Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort, the Leamington Lighthouse is also known as the Hilton Head Rear Range Lighthouse.
William P. Clyde, a rich shipping entrepreneur, bought 9,000 acres on Hilton Head Island in 1890 to use as a private hunting preserve.
The Sea Islands Hurricane struck in Savannah on August 27, 1893, with a storm surge of 16 feet (5 meters) and moved north over South Carolina, killing over 1,000 people and displacing tens of thousands.
20th and 21st centuries
Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort
Around 1900, at what is now Port Royal Plantation, an experimental steam cannon guarded Port Royal Sound. Although the cannon’s propulsion mechanism was fixed, it allowed for long-range shots for the time.
Alfred Lee Loomis, a Wall Street billionaire, scientist, and supporter of scientific study, bought 17,000 acres (69 km2) of the island (about 63 percent of the entire surface) for roughly $120,000 in 1931 to utilize as a private wildlife reserve with his brother-in-law and partner Landon K. Thorne. Large concrete gun platforms were erected on the island’s Atlantic coast to fight against a hypothetical invasion by World War II’s Axis forces. This kind of platform may be found all over the Eastern Seaboard. The Mounted Beach Patrol and Dog Training Center on Hilton Head Island taught U.S. Coast Guard Beach Patrol troops how to safeguard the southeast coast of the United States with horses and dogs.
Three lumber mills logged 19,000 acres (77 km2) of the island in the early 1950s. Only about 300 people lived on the island. Private boats and a state-run ferry were the only ways to get to Hilton Head until 1956. Shipbuilding, cotton, logging, and fishing were the island’s main industries.
In 1956, the James F. Byrnes Bridge was completed. The island was opened to automotive traffic from the mainland through a two-lane toll swing bridge that cost $1.5 million to build. In 1974, a barge collided with the swing bridge, thus shutting down all vehicle travel to the island until the Army Corps of Engineers erected and operated a pontoon bridge while the swing bridge was restored. The swing bridge was decommissioned in 1982, and the modern four-lane bridge was built in its place.
Sea Pines Resort, built by Charles E. Fraser in 1956, was the first resort on Hilton Head Island. Other projects imitated Sea Pines’ design and landscape, including Hilton Head Plantation, Palmetto Dunes Plantation, Shipyard Plantation, and Port Royal Plantation. Sea Pines, on the other hand, proceeded to stand apart by establishing a distinct community within the plantation named Harbour Town, which is anchored by a well-known lighthouse.
Fraser was an outspoken environmentalist who modified the whole layout of Harbour Town’s marina in order to conserve an ancient live oak. It was dubbed the Liberty Oak by generations of youngsters who had witnessed Gregg Russell, a singer and composer, perform under the tree for over 25 years. When Fraser died in 2002, he was buried close to the tree.
The Heritage Golf Classic was originally held in 1969 at Sea Pines Resort and has since become a regular fixture on the PGA Tour. In 1969, the Hilton Head Island Community Association successfully opposed the construction of a BASF chemical facility on Victoria Bluff’s coastlines (now Colleton River Plantation). Soon after, the group and other concerned individuals “south of the Broad ” battled Brown & Root (a division of Halliburton) plans for off-shore oil platforms and Chicago Bridge & Iron plans for ten-story tall liquefied natural gas transport spheres.
The Chamber of Commerce began rallying support for the town’s incorporation as a municipality as a result of these events, which served to energize the community. A vote on incorporation was approved in May 1983, when the Four Seasons Resort (now Hilton Head Resort) was developed along William Hilton Parkway. Hilton Head Island had grown into a city.
The Town Council enacted the Land Management Ordinance in 1987. The Cross Island Parkway opened in January 1997, while Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort debuted in 1996. On May 1, 2007, a smoking ban in pubs, restaurants, and public areas went into force. The Shelter Cove Towne Center first opened its doors in 2014.
The National Register of Historic Places includes Fort Howell, Fort Mitchel, the Zion Cemetery and Baynard Mausoleum, Cherry Hill School, Daufuskie Island Historic District, Fish Haul Archaeological Site, Green’s Shell Enclosure, Hilton Head Range Rear Light, Sea Pines, Skull Creek, SS William Lawrence Shipwreck Site, and Stoney-Baynard Plantation.