Stoney-Baynard Ruins
In 1776, Captain John Stoney (1757-1821) bought the 1000 acres known as Braddock's Point Plantation from Beaufort merchant John Mark Verdier and, around 1793, began building the mansion house whose ruins you see today.

His son, Captain James Stoney (1772-1827) who inherited the property, left it at his death to Dr. George Mosse Stoney who gave it to his eldest son (better known as "Saucy Jack") in 1838. Only two years later, "Saucy Jack", according to one of the colorful local legends, lost the house and land in an all-night poker game. The winner: William Eddings Baynard, a wealthy planter from Edisto Island who already owned two island plantations.

Baynard was a highly successful planter of the world-famous Sea Island Cotton which he grew at Braddock's Point as well as his other holdings. He and his wife Catherine raised four children here at the "big house" and it was here that he died in 1849 at the early age of 49.

When the Union forces invaded Hilton Head Island in 1861, the Baynards evacuated the property. During the Civil War, the house was used by Union troops and according to oldtimer's stories, it was burned by a Confederate raiding party. It took the Baynard family 15 years to regain Braddock's Point by paying $500 in back taxes to the federal government. However, they never again lived at Braddock's Point.

Stoney-Baynard Hall
As you approach by the path from the street, you are facing the rear of the house...its largest remaining wall portions. The rectangular foundation measures 40 feet wide by 46 feet long (1,840 square feet, total), but there is a reason to believe the structures overall dimensions exceeded the above figures. A spacious porch or piazza would have been added to the front entrance of the house or perhaps to its entire perimeter, dramatically increasing the size of the building. Note the large square holes which held the sturdy beams needed to support the porch. Baynards home faced the marsh to catch the cool breezes blowing from nearby Calibogue Sound. Along the massive central hallways, floor-length windows would have adorned the walls on each floor to ensure the cross-ventilation so necessary to comfort in the South. You are welcome to walk in the low opening (it was not a doorway) to the cellar and its adjoining rooms, but duck your head!

Tabby
Look closely at the wall surface here. These remaining portions of the Stoney-Baynard home exemplify a masonry technique called tabby which was popular in the Low Country during the 18th and 19th centuries. Tabby was produced by first burning crushed oyster shells to make lime and then mixing this substance with sand, whole shells and water. When it dried, tabby formed good, sturdy cement suitable for foundations and walls.

A Close Up View of Tabby
Tabby cement was poured between a series of deep two-foot forms...much as modern-day concrete...upon which were placed regularly spaced round ties. Notice the circular holes in the walls. These reveal the original location of the ties. Large joists underlying the first floor (built 8 feet above the ground) were embedded directly in the tabby, leaving the rectangular depressions at your eye level. Tabby went out of favor after the Civil War. The technique lost out to a popular superstition that only masonry buildings were healthy sleeping places.

Sea Island Cotton
The tabby outlines of two small buildings east of the "big house" may represent storehouses for William Baynard's cotton. A half-century before his time, an enterprising planter named William Elliot produced South Carolina's first successful crop of Sea Island Cotton right here on Hilton Head Island. An experimental strain which had been imported from Barbados, this new hybrid was tall, black-seeded and had a long, silvery fiber well-suited for making fine laces and muslins. The improved staple was welcomed by the English market, and there was an immediate world demand for Sea Island Cotton. In 1828, these quality fibers commanded a top price of $2 per pound. By careful seed selection and by using saltmarsh muck and oyster shells as fertilizer, Island planters like William Baynard ensured the continuing success of Sea Island Cotton and realized great profits for themselves. Since the plant could best prosper in the light, sandy soil and subtropic climate of the Sea Islands, Hilton Head Island became a major producer of this long-staple cotton.

Cotton Cultivation
Now overgrown with a century of vegetation, in plantation days, this high ridge (23 feet above sea level) would have been lined with a manicured live oak "avenue", affording a clear view to the nearby cotton fields. The growing season for Sea Island Cotton lasted from March to September. When the bolls burst in autumn, women and children began to harvest the crop. But long-staple cotton was more difficult to pick than the upland variety, and picking progressed slowly. Slaves were expected to pick 75 pounds of cotton each day. The blacks whose labor supported the grand lifestyle of the Baynards lived in small, poorly constructed houses about a mile from this site. Their settlement, now largely destroyed by development, consisted of two rows of houses forming "Slave Row" or "Street." Although they greatly outnumbered the white residents on Hilton Head Island, the details of their daily lives are poorly understood and almost never recorded in historical documents.

The Tabby Block
For years the Tabby Block was a mystery, but it is a mystery no longer. A recent discovery has shown that the lone block of tabby at the opposite end of the ridge from Stoney-Baynard Hall originally supported a chimney. The worn area in the center represents the hearth, eroded by years of hot fires which gradually deteriorated the tabby. The ledge at the base of this block provided support for a floor joist, indicating the floor of the structure was raised several feet above the ground level. Not as large or imposing as the Big House...this structure may represent an earlier house or perhaps the dwelling of an overseer. Only further archaeological research will provide the answer to this and the many other mysteries which surround these two centuries-old plantation ruins.

Directions: Located off Plantation Drive, Baynard Ruins Park is on your right just after you pass Baynard Cove Road and Marsh Drive. If you wish, park your car at the entrance, and explore the ruins of the pre-Civil War home of William E. Baynard.

Indian Shell Ring
The Indian Shell Ring in the Sea Pines Forest Preserve has provided all of this information about the long-ago visitors to Hilton Head Island. We are indeed fortunate that it has remained intact for 4,000 years! Please appreciate this glimpse of prehistoric life on Hilton Head, but leave it undisturbed by your visit. Help us to preserve it for others to enjoy.

What is the Indian Shell Ring? This ring of shells, piled several feet above the ground, was used by Indians as a refuse heap. It contains the oysters, clams and mussel shells, together with the bones of deer, raccoons, bears, fish and even some nutshells that have remained intact. All of this garbage was pitched out the doors of the ring of nearby huts, which were made out of branches and palm fronds. The interior of the Shell Ring was kept clear and used as a common area. This Indian Shell Ring is a truly unique in that it is still undamaged. It is on of only twenty Shell Rings sill in existence. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is protected by law. The other rings- including two on Hilton Head- were broken up when the shells were removed and used in the form of tabby for roads and buildings. Some of the Indian Shell Rings were originally 10 feet high and 30 feet wide at the base. This one is 150 feet feet in diameter.

Where is the Indian Shell Ring? A short walk starting at the East Entrance of the Forest Preserve (off Lawton Drive) leads to the Indian Shell Ring, which is well marked and has recently been cleared to provide a remarkable view of the total Ring. It was probably located in this particular area because of nearby springs and it is thought that the present terrain is almost the same as it was when the Shell Ring was built.

When was the Shell Ring built? The Indian Shell Ring in the Forest Preserve was built at the time of the Great Pyramids of Egypt- 4,000 years ago.

Who built the Indian Shell Ring? The name of the Indians who built the Shell Ring is not known to us. (After all, who is there to ask, since these people lived here 4,000 years ago and left no written history?) We do know several interesting things about them, though, thanks to the traces of their way of life that they left behind in the Shell Rings.

They were seminomadic. They wandered up and down the Savannah River according to the season, arriving here on Hilton Head in the fall of the year (according to an analysis of discarded clam shells). These Indians represent a transition period of 1,000 to 1,500 years between fully nomadic peoples and the more settled tribal groups who had become agrarian by about 1000 A.D.

They had no bow and arrows as yet, but used spears and spear throwers (atlatl) for hunting game. Their spears were fitted with distinctive stemmed projectile points, usually made of chert (a rock resembling flint, mined near here on the Savannah River in the vicinity of present-day Allendale). Some points were made of antler, as were the drills that were used to make sockets for the points.

The Shell Ring builders are believed to have invented pottery in North America. Remains of their "fiber-tempered" pots, made of clay mixed with Spanish Moss, have been found in this area. The pottery is very similar to that found on the Yucatan Peninsula.

"Fraser's Folly:" The Harbour Town Lighthouse
The emblematic candy striped Harbour Town Lighthouse, completed in 1970, was the brainchild of Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser as a landmark for Hilton Head Island.

The concept of building a private lighthouse just for show was dubbed "Fraser's Folly" by critics but it has proved remarkably successful in building a brand for the Heritage Golf Tournament and Hilton Head Island itself.

Although not intended as a navigational lighthouse, a flashing light at the top can be seen for nearly 15 miles. The lighthouse marks the entrance ot the Harbour Town Yacht Basin and also serves as a museum. the lighthouse's interior is now a climb through thousands of years of Hilton Head Island's history and displays a range of past events and people of the island, from the nomads who once walked the coast to the first bridge from the mainland that helped usher in Hilton Head's modern era. The top of the lighthouse showcases panoramic views of Calibogue Sound, Daufuskie Island and Hilton Head Island.