Historic Honey Horn Tour CD
Honey Horn is the only plantation on Hilton Head Island that has an original plantation house standing today. While Indians hunted and fished here in the 1700's, its earliest documented use was as a working farm in 1805. Most of the existing structures date from 1920 to 1930 when the property was used as a hunting club. The name Honey Horn was derived from a corruption of the name of one of the property's first owners, John Hanahan.
Sea Island Plantation Overview CD
Get a perspective of life on the sea islands from William Hilton’s charting of the island in the 1660's continuing through the antebellum years to 1860. The tour examines sea island life, heritage crops like indigo and cotton, native islander and plantation life and a visit to the historic Fish Haul Tabby Ruins.
History of Hilton's Headland Tour CD
This tour includes the early explorers of the island including William Hilton, the importance during the Civil War, Mitchelville which was the Nation’s First Freedman’s Community, and the Steam Cannon. The tour also includes a visit to the ruins of the Forts of Port Royal which are not open to the general public otherwise.
Native Americans on the Sea Islands Tour CD
This tour traces thousands of years of occupation as evidenced by many sites on Hilton Head Island and includes all Native American occupation on the island with a visit to the Mississippian site of Green’s Shell Enclosure.
Hilton Head Island Trolley Tour CD
Climb aboard the red trolley and join us for an overview of the island. Visiting various historical points of interest, a glimpse of residential developments and a brief stop for shopping in Harbour Town, reminiscent of a Mediterranean seaside village with its many unique shops, picturesque harbour and landmark lighthouse. 21/2 hours
"Old House" Plantation Tour CD
An overview of Plantation life in the South at the Coastal Discovery Museum precedes the trip by car to the off-island home site of Thomas Heyward, Jr. The plantation house no longer exists, but a discussion and overview will be given of plantation life as it was at that particular site. Mr. Heyward was a rice plantation owner and signer of the Declaration of Independence and his history is an interesting history of this particular area.
Fort Mitchel Tour with Civil War Overview CD
Presented at the site of this earthen work fort on Skull Creek, the tour includes an overview of the role Hilton Head Island played during the Civil War and identifies other Civil War sites and activities on the island.
Honey Horn Plantation
Honey Horn is the only plantation on Hilton Head Island that has an original plantation house standing today. While Indians hunted and fished here in the 1700's, its earliest documented use was as a working farm in 1805. Most of the existing structures date from 1920 to 1930 when the property was used as a hunting club. The name Honey Horn was derived from a corruption of the name of one of the property's first owners, John Hanahan. Contact
Heyward House – Bluffton
The Heyward House, built as a summer home for the owner of Moreland Plantation, John Cole, was constructed C1840 and is one of only eight antebellum homes remaining in the coastal town of Bluffton and is the 4th oldest structure remaining in southern Beaufort County. It is the only historic home open for visitation by the public in Bluffton's National Register Historic District. Visit the official site
Forts
Fort Walker Port Royal Plantation CD
The first Fort built near the spot where Captain William Hilton is credited with claiming the Island. You can visit the remains of the Fort at the end of Fort Walker Drive on your own if you are already in the private plantation.
Fort Sherman CD
Built by Union troops after the surrender and capture of Fort Walker. The surrounding wall can still be seen at the end of Fort Walker Drive on your own if you are already in the private plantation.
Fort Howell Beach City Road CD
Fort Howell, named in honor of Gen. Brigadier Joshua B. Howell, is an earthworks fort created in 1864 on the Civil War era plantation of Captain William Pope. Its primary function was to protect Mitchelville. This fort covers three acres of land and was erected by Union troops, the 32nd Colored Regiment from Pennsylvania.
Fort Mitchell Hilton Head Plantation CD
Built in 1862 to defend the Union held Island against Confederate attacks. All that remains today are gentle mounds shadowed by moss draped oaks.
Stoney-Barnard Ruins
The House was House built by Captain John Stoney in the 1700's and destroyed by fire between August and December 1867 two years after the end of the Civil War. In addition to the ruins of the great house, there are other tabby (an inventive masonry technique) foundations nearby, most likely slave quarters for the house servants. History
Green's Shell Enclosure
Green's Shell Enclosure was built along the edge of Skull Creek and was occupied by Native Americans during the Irene Period, 1300-1450 A.D. While the primary function of this two-acre embankment was farming, the shells that make up the enclosure were utilized to make jewelry, tools, and also used for religious rituals. As you walk along the bank, you can still see the remnants of this Native American village. Contact
Simmons Fishing Camp & Ferry Dock
In the 1920's, local Gullah resident Charlie Simmons Sr. operated the first mechanical ferry on Hilton Head Island. Native Islanders would tear pictures of merchandise from the Sears & Roebuck catalogue and give it to Mr. Simmons who would shop for them at the store on the mainland. Charlie Simmons opened the world to the islanders. Contact
Harbour Town Lighthouse
The hexagonal Lighthouse was constructed between 1969 and 1970 and renovated in 2001/2002. With no significant maritime traffic and no hazardous rocky shoals the sceptical public nicknamed it “Fraser’s Folly" after Charles Fraser who designed the harbour. Within a decade, however, the lighthouse was acclaimed a "stroke of genius" Seen by millions of tourists, boaters, and golfers, it has become a widely recognized landmark and a symbol for all of Hilton Head Island. Positioned as the backdrop for the final hole of the Harbour Town Golf Links, the tower has made many an appearance on golf telecasts.
As visitors climb the tower, they can read displays on each of the nine landings describing the history of Hilton Head Island early inhabitants, colonial history, plantation life on the island, and the Civil War. The middle landings house historical information on the construction of the bridge linking the island to the mainland and details of Fraser’s plan for Sea Pines Resort. Interspersed with all the historical information on the island are several ghost stories attached to lighthouses and sites on the island.
Upon completing their history-lesson ascent of the tower, visitors will find the Top of the Lighthouse Shoppe along with panoramic views of Calibogue Sound, the Harbour Town Golf Links, and Haig Point Lighthouse on the northern end of Dafuskie Island.
As the lighthouse was built as more of an aid to commercialization than an aid to navigation, purists might not consider this modern building an authentic lighthouse. However, it is listed on navigational charts, and its white flash with a period of two and a half seconds can be seen at a distance of fifteen miles. More
Leamington Lighthouse & Camp McDougal
Built in 1879 by the US Coast Guard it was originally for guiding shipping vessels into Port Royal Sound. In 1937, the Lighthouse was the site of Camp McDougal, which later became a World War II US training station. Contact
Churches
Most of these Churches served as places of worship for abandoned or freed slaves during and after the Civil War and are still open every Sunday.
Queen Chapel
The Queen Chapel AME Church founded in 1865, when missioners James H.A. Johnson and James Handy arrived on Hilton Head to wait out a storm while en route to Charleston. They began their own services with singing and worship under an oak tree. This event marks the beginning of African Methodism in South Carolina. The building was updated in 1892 and 1952.
First African Baptist
Founded in 1865 on Beach City Road, several offshoot Churches resulted from this congregation including Central Oakgrove, Mt Calvary and St James.
Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery and Baynard Mausoleum
The cemetery and mausoleum are all that remain on what once was the site of the Zion Chapel of Ease, built in 1788 and destroyed in 1868 by islanders seeking wood. The ghost of William Baynard, distraught by the death of his wife from yellow fever on their wedding night in 1830, is said to haunt the cemetery during storms.
The First Freedman's Village Mitchelville
Mitchelville, established by the Union army for contraband blacks after the Island’s fall in November 1861, is an ‘experiment in citizenship’ designed by General O. M. Mitchel, and was radically different from the other military camps established in the Port Royal region. It was developed as an actual town, with neatly arranged and named streets, 1/4 acre lots, a town supervisor and councilmen elected by the black residents, laws regulating sanitation and community behavior, and a compulsory education law, perhaps the first in the south. Each house was built by its occupants, not by the military with garden plots behind the houses, and had about 1500 inhabitants by 1865. There are also accurate maps of the village and a series of photographs taken in 1864 by Samuel A. Cooly.
After 1867 there is evidence that the village continued relatively unaltered and intact into the early 1870s. The economy of its inhabitants, however, turned away from the declining wage labor opportunities and returned to the agrarian base, the inhabitants entering the sizeable ‘black yeomanry’ class. Sometime in the early 1880s Mitchelville ceased being a true village and became a small kin-based community. This community apparently continued into the early twentieth century, based on the nucleated settlement observed on the 1920 Hilton Head topographic map. This settlement, as could be predicted, was centered around a church.
All that remains today is a forested glen and historic markers.
Fish Hall Plantation Ruins
The 1100 acre Fish Hall Plantation is one of the most significant archeological sites on Hilton Head Island. Once it was a plantation with an adjoining cemetery and slave quarters, and was the home of Confederate General Thomas Drayton. Today all that remains are chimneys from the slave's quarters. Contact
Shell Ring
Located in Sea Pines Forest Preserve, semi-nomadic Native Americans constructed this 150 foot diameter ring 4,000 years ago during their annual fall migration. The ring, or midden, is refuse from food sources that were thrown outside of their circular encampment. It is comprised of oyster, mussel and clamshells, with fragments of animal bones and deer antlers. Contact
