We travel on 11/16/2011 to Mid-Atlantic The Oaks at Point South near Yemassee, SC. On 11/20/2011 we visited Hilton Head Island to see Hilton Head Range Rear Lighthouse, Harbour Town Lighthouse, and Stoney-Baynard Plantation Ruins. The first light on the island was reportedly built by Union soldiers stationed there during the Civil War. After six years of service, the original tower was destroyed by a storm in 1869. Congress then authorized the expenditure of $40,000 for a pair of range lights on the island to guide vessels into Port Royal Sound. Due to a lengthy squabble over land rights, the lights were not finished until 1881. The front light was exhibited from the top of the keeper’s dwelling, while a six-legged tower rising to a height of 95 feet served as the rear light. The lantern and watch room atop the rear light were originally built of cypress wood and were reached by climbing 112 steps housed in the tower’s central column. The rear light was located a mile and a quarter inland from the front light. By positioning their boats so that one light was positioned atop of the other, like the sites in a gun, captains knew their ship was in the proper channel. By 1884, the channel into the sound had shifted, creating the need to realign the lights. Rather than move the dwelling, a mobile front range light was constructed to track the shifting channel. The picture shows the Hilton Head Range Rear Lighthouse.
Hilton Head’s period of calm and isolation following the Civil War lasted through the Great Depression. Then, in the 1940s, three families purchased large tracts of land covering much of the island and formed a lumber cutting consortium called The Hilton Head Company. As the island was being used for hunting, farming, and lumbering, the population still remained low. This started to change when the James F. Byrnes Bridge, a two-lane toll swing bridge, was constructed in 1956. With the island now accessible to the general population, Charles Fraser purchased his father’s interest in The Hilton Head Company nurturing a vision to create an environmentally friendly residential resort community. As part of Fraser’s plan, no building would be taller than the tallest tree, every structure would be painted in natural earth tone colors, and the oceanfront would be open to as many as possible. Streets were laid out to avoid the largest trees and historic artifacts, such as the tabby ruins of the Baynard Plantation and the Gullah cemetery on Braddocks Point, were delicately preserved. At the heart of his Sea Pines Resort development Fraser envisioned an “intimate harbor village with low-country ambience seasoned by the influence of the small distinctive ports along the coast of southern France and Italy.” To achieve this affect, Fraser flew his design team over dozens of small Mediterranean harbors so they could capture the unique coastal charm of places like Portofino, Italy. The result is Harbour Town with its marina, shops, restaurants, and striped lighthouse. Construction on the octagonal Harbour Town Lighthouse began in 1969 and was completed in the spring of 1970. Those who questioned the effectiveness of building such a structure to attract boaters from the Intracoastal Waterway called the tower “Fraser’s Folly.” Within a decade, however, the lighthouse was acclaimed a “stroke of genius.” Positioned as the backdrop for the final hole of the Harbour Town Golf Links, the tower has made many an appearance on golf telecasts. The red and white lighthouse, seen by millions of tourists, boaters, and golfers, has become a widely recognized landmark and a symbol for all of Hilton Head Island. The picture shows the Harbour Town Lighthouse.
The tabby ruins of the historic Baynard estate, which includes the main house as well as slave quarters, have been preserved at Sea Pines and are currently listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. Originally built by Captain Jack Stoney in the 1790s, the Baynard house was once a grand antebellum plantation house overlooking the Calibogue Sound. Legend has it that the house changed hands when Stoney lost a poker game to William Baynard in 1840. Baynard, a successful Sea Island Cotton plantation owner, raised four children at the mansion with his wife, Catherine. When the Union forces invaded Hilton Head Island in 1861, the Baynard’s evacuated the property. The residence was raided and served as Union headquarters during the Civil War before being burned. The picture shows the plantation House wall.
On 11/27/2011 we drove to Hunting Island State Park to see the Hunting Island Lighthouse. On March 8th, 1859, the following official Notice to Mariners was published by the Lighthouse Board: “Notice is hereby given that at sundown on Friday, the 1st day of July next, the new lighthouse and beacon on the north point of Hunting Island, S.C., will be lighted, and will be kept burning during that night and every night thereafter from sunset to sunrise.” It is not known whether the beacon light, which would have served as a front range light, was actually ever built, but the Hunting Island Lighthouse was activated on the prescribed date, with Anton Johnson serving as the first keeper. The latitude and longitude given as part of the notice place the lighthouse nearly two miles off the northern end of Hunting Island, given its shoreline in 2000. Obviously, the original Hunting Island Lighthouse is no longer standing, but its demise was not due to the advancing ocean but rather to a retreating army. Confederate forces blew up the lighthouse in 1861 to hinder the approach of the Union fleet before the Battle of Port Royal. Plans for a new tower were made shortly after the war, but the completion of the tower was delayed until 1875 due to an illness that affected the construction crew. Perhaps the Lighthouse Board knew that the new tower might eventually need to be moved as the construction plans called for a cast-iron tower to be assembled from several 1,200-pound sections bolted together. The metallic shell, manufactured by Phoenix Iron Works of Philadelphia, PA, was lined with bricks and capped with a second-order Fresnel lens. The picture shows the Hunting Island Lighthouse.
On 11/30/2011 we drove to Walkabout Camp Resort in Woodbine, GA. We visited Fort Caroline National Memorial and Yellow Bluff Fort Historic State Park on 12/4/2011. Both are located near Jacksonville, FL. At first, the settlement was to be a commercial venture, but religious conflict in France broadened the goals. The growing persecution of French Protestants (Huguenots) led their most powerful member, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, to make a proposal to the crown: the colony could also be a refuge for Huguenots. An exploratory expedition, commanded by Jean Ribault, left France in February 1562. On this voyage, he erected a monument at the River of May (now known as the St. Johns River). Permanent settlement of 200 soldiers and artisans began in 1564, led by Rene de Goulaine de Laudonniere, who had accompanied Ribault on the previous expedition. With help from the Timucua Indians, the colonists began building a village and fort on the river’s south bank, naming the area La Caroline after their king, Charles IX. The settlement barely survived that first year. Good relations with the Indians eventually soured and by the following spring the colonists were close to starvation. Twice mutinous parties had sailed off to make their own fortunes and some were eventually captured by the Spanish, revealing the presence of the French colony. The remaining colonists were about to leave Florida in August 1565, when they spotted sails on the horizon. Ribault had arrived with a relief expedition of supplies and 600 soldiers and settlers, including more women and some children. On learning of Ribault’s departure for Florida, Phillip II of Spain sent Admiral Pedro Menendez to remove the French from Florida. Menendez established a base to the south at St. Augustine. Ribault sailed down the coast seeking to attack the Spanish, but his ships were scattered by a hurricane and beached far to the south. Seizing the opportunity, Menendez marched north with 500 soldiers to attack the weakly guarded colony. It is believed that the Spanish camped overnight nearby, and attacked early. Forty or fifty French people, including Laudonniere, escaped and sailed for France. Out of the remaining 200 people, only about 60 women and children were spared. Menendez next marched south and found the shipwrecked Frenchmen, Ribault among them. They threw themselves on his mercy, but to Menendez they were heretics and enemies of his king. At a place later named Matanzas (Slaughter), he put to the sword about 350 men – all but those professing to be Catholics and a few musicians. France never again strongly challenged Spanish claims in North America. The picture shows Fort Caroline.
The Picture shows Abigail on a French Cannon in Fort Caroline.
Located near the mouth of the St. Johns River, this site was an important military position during the Civil War, allowing access to the inland areas of Florida’s east coast. There was never an actual fort on Yellow Bluff, but an encampment that was fortified and equipped with large guns for protection. Constructed in 1862, the site was occupied by both Confederate and Union troops during the Civil War and-at its peak-housed over 250 soldiers. The site has a T-shaped earthworks and covers about 1.3 acres. Located on Yellow Bluff peninsula on the north side of the St. Johns River (on New Berlin Road). The picture shows the Yellow Bluff Fort State Historic Park.
On 12/7/2011, we traveled to MA Three Flags in Wildwood, FL and stayed for a week. Then on 12/12/2011 we drove to NACO Peace River in Wauchula, FL for a three week stay. While there on 12/18/2011 we visited Paynes Creek State Historic Park in Bowling Green, FL. During the 1840s, tensions between the settlers and Seminole Indians prompted authorities to establish a trading post in Florida´s interior, away from settlements. Built in early 1849, the post was attacked and destroyed by renegade Indians that summer. In late 1849 Fort Chokonikla was built nearby as the first outpost in a chain of forts established to control the Seminoles. The Seminoles never attacked the fort, but the Army was nearly defeated by mosquitoes. The picture shows the site of Fort Chokonikla.
The picture shows the monument site erected in honor of Captain George S. Payne and Dempsey Whiddon, clerks killed at the trading post during a Seminole attack.
