IICITY GUIDEII
THROUGH THE
Years Signal Station, Hilton Head, South Carolina, 1863 Photographed by Henry P Moore. This station was established by Lieutenant E. J. Keenan on the roof of the mansion of a planter at the extreme northern point of Hilton Head Island, Port Royal Bay. Through this station were exchanged many messages between General W. T. Sherman and Admiral S. F. Dupont. Photo from wikicommons
BY EDWARD THOMAS
There’s no question there was significant human activity on Hilton Head Island during the pre-recorded history of North America 4,000 or more years ago. The mysterious shell rings from that era, preserved today in the Sea Pines Forest Preserve and Green Shell Park off Squire Pope Road, are testament to that fact. When Captain William Hilton arrived in 1663, this 12-mile-long coastal island was occupied by a native tribe called Escamacu. They were part of the Cusabo Confederacy of Tribes that inhabited land up and down the nearby coastline. Hilton was not the first European to arrive in local waters. Spanish and French explorers had already been seeking opportunities for settlement, but Hilton, an English
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sea captain, arrived from the island of Barbados where BY EDWARD THOMAS land was scarce. He was enticed by opportunities that had become available when British King Charles II granted an enormous swath of territory (stretching from Virginia to the Savannah River) to a group of eight loyal noblemen called the Lords Proprietors. They encouraged settlement by other Englishmen to secure the Land Grant.
THE ENGLISH PREVAIL
Over the next 150 years the English, using Charles Town (now Charleston) as their base of operations, and African slaves as their labor force, slowly assumed control of this rich coastal land for cultivation of high-incomeproducing crops like rice, cotton and indigo. Hilton Head
