History of Beaufort County

Written by Michele Roldán-Shaw

he History of Beaufort County is an interesting tribute to the historical significance of our County. The First chapter begins with the Paleo-Indian period, 10000 B.C. to 8000 B. C. These were believed to be the first people who walked in this area we call Beaufort County between 11,000-12,000 years ago. History tells us they would have entered an environment very different from today’s. It was cooler then, with the average temperatures fifteen degrees lower than we now experience. The climate was wetter and the forests of hardwoods covered a rolling, sandy plain etched with rivers and valleys. Massive sheets of ice extending from the North Pole down into New England held so much sea water the Atlantic Ocean was fifty miles further east than it is now.

During the Paleo-Indian period, the last ice age came to a close and with the retreat of glaciers came a gradual warming and rise in sea levels.
During the Archaic Period, 8000B.C.-2000 B.C., sea levels were within thirteen feet of today’s levels and the sea islands were beginning to take shape.

Shellfish, primarily oysters, became a substantial part of the Indian diet, and large shell middens (mounds of discarded shells and other materials) are evidence of the increased use of the estuary system. By the end of this period, Beaufort County’s forests, marshes, waterways and islands appeared much as they do today.

The Woodland Period, 2000 B.C.-1000 A.D., shows the most striking sites left by Indians in Beaufort County, the shell rings. Oyster shell walls up to 10 feet high have been found.
Chapter Two describes the European arrival. Beginning with the Spanish explorers from the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola between 1514 and 1517.

Later the French Captain Jean Ribault led an expedition from Normandy in 1562. This voyage landed him in the large deep harbor “Port Royal.” On Parris Island in Port Royal Sound and he and his men built Charlesfort, the first Protestant outpost in the New World in May 1562.
This was taken over by the Spanish and the Port Royal area thrived peacefully for years. With the defeat of their Armada by England in 1588, followed by a strong English effort to colonize North America, the Spanish did not make another attempt to settle in the area we now call Beaufort County.

In the mid-1600s, the Carolinas became the subject of attention from the English. They decided to place a colony, named Charles Towne, on the Ashley River, near the present day Charleston in 1670. Even though there was no English colony or town in Port Royal, English settlers found their way into the area in pursuit of trade with the Indians.

Chapter Three goes into detail about the town of Beaufort before the Revolutionary War. Queen Anne’s war in Europe (1702-1713) pitted England against France and Spain. An English out post was placed on the bay of the Beaufort River in 1703 to act as a lookout and to provide some defense from the possibility of a Spanish attack on Charleston. The outpost attracted settlers and Indians, becoming a focal point in the Port Royal area. This was the beginning of the sea port town of Beaufort.
Chapter Four takes us to the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783. In December 1778, the British captured Savannah and established a base at Ebenezer, Georgia. The Patriots created new bases at Purrysburg, Sheldon and Beaufort. Over the next two years Beaufort was a battleground as campaigns raged between Charleston and Savannah. As the British moved through the Lowcountry towards Charleston they laid waste to property owned by Patriots. Plantations were burned, cattle and livestock killed or stolen, crops destroyed and the Prince William Parish Church at Sheldon was burnt to the ground. The amount of loot seized during the raids was enormous.

Chapter Five begins with the plantation era. Ultimately it was cotton that restored the economy of the Beaufort district and ushered in the greatest period of prosperity the area had ever known.

In 1790, William Elliott II grew the first crop of sea island cotton in Beaufort County at his Myrtle Bank Plantation on Hilton Head Island with other planters in the area quickly following.

By the end of the 1850s, South Carolina’s secession from the union was imminent. The Beaufort District, like the rest of South Carolina, was locked into the plantation-cash crop system. The Civil War would soon end this system along with the wealth and success this area had known. However, one of the legacies of the plantation era is the many African traditions and cultural elements which would survive, becoming the basis of the area’s Gullah Culture which is widely studied and celebrated today.
Chapter Six covers the years of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period afterward. Historically, the reconstruction period extends from the end of the Civil War to 1877. It was during this time span that what are known as the “Reconstruction Amendments” were added to the United States Constitution.

In 1868, the South Carolina Constitution introduced some progressive policies. The representative to the new South Carolina legislature from Beaufort County was the former slave, Robert Smalls, whose career embodies the Reconstruction Period in this area.

Chapter Seven takes us into the twentieth century.

The economic struggles continued partly due to the European markets finding sources for cotton in India and other parts of the world.

The hurricane of 1893, moved over the sea islands from Savannah to Georgia with winds recorded at over 100 miles an hour. By all accounts, the worst devastation from the storm occurred around the Beaufort county area.

The last chapter in this wonderful book on Beaufort County history is about rediscovery and modern history.

In 1896 they would inaugurate the modern commercial seafood industry in Beaufort County. As demand for our oysters and shrimp continued, more shrimp docks and houses appeared and in the years following World War ll, seafood became the major business in Beaufort County. By the 1940s, the most important employer in the Lowcountry was the federal government. Parris Island had become the Unites States Marine Corps training center. But something unforeseen happened in the 1950s that brought Beaufort County national attention and would make it once again one of the wealthiest counties in the state...Hilton Head.

Michael C. Taylor is the author of this most informative book about the history of our area. He is the executive director of the South Carolina Battleground Preservation trust, an archaeologist and historian, the first director of the Museum of Hilton Head Island, and the co-founder of the Southeastern Ecological Institute. He hosted the award winning documentary Hilton Head Island: A Television History.