"Beaufort"
(Origin of the Name)

Beaufort
(How to Pronounce It)

Beaufort
(Name for Residents of the City )

Cities and Towns (Incorporated Areas)

Climate

County Seat

Education

Famous People

See Famous People of Beaufort County .

Food
Recipes for Frogmore Stew and
Other Lowcountry Specialties

Geographic Features

The Gullah Dialect
and Sea Island Culture

Hilton Head Island
Frequently Asked Questions

History
(A Timeline)

1. The recorded history of the area now known as Beaufort County goes back to 1561 (or earlier) with the Spanish explorations of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon.

2. In 1562, Huguenots, under the leadership of Captain Jean Ribaut* established the short-lived French settlement of Charlesfort on present-day Parris Island.
   * The alternate spelling, "Ribault", reflects the archaic French writing system of the 16th century. Whatever the spelling, the most accurate pronunciation of "Jean Ribaut" for English speakers is "zhahn ree-BOH" (the "zh" is like the "s" of "pleasure").

3. In 1566, the Spanish, led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, returned to build the settlement of Santa Elena (also on Parris Island).

4. By 1588, Santa Elena had been abandoned, though the Spanish continued to claim sovereignty over the region.

5. In 1629, Charles I claimed the Carolinas for England.

6. The first Englishman to explore this region was Captain William Hilton, who arrived in 1663 and gave a favorable report upon his return to Barbados.

7. In 1666, Lt. Col. Robert Sandford came to Port Royal and left a young English surgeon, Dr. Henry Woodward, with the Indians; Sandford recommended that an English colony would thrive in the area.

8. In 1670, English colonists were dispatched from Barbados with the intention of settling on Port Royal Island, but were persuaded by the Indian chief and Dr. Woodward to move instead to Charles Town, some sixty miles to the North.

9. A group of Scottish traders attempted a settlement called Stuart Town in 1684.

10. Stuart Town was destroyed by a Spanish attack in 1686.

11. Beaufort Town was founded by the Lords Proprietors of Carolina in 1710.

12. The Yemassee Indian War of 1715 slowed early growth of the newly founded Beaufort Town.

13. In 1729, the province was transferred back to the Crown and with this new stability Beaufort developed into one of the wealthiest, most aristocratic and cultivated towns of its size in America at the time. Beaufort prospered under the plantation system with rice, indigo and finally cotton as prime crops.

14. Although Beaufort was occupied by British troops from 1779 to the end of the Revolution, it was spared destruction and so quickly recovered, enjoying its greatest period of prosperity in the first half of the nineteenth century.
    
    

    "The Secession Oak" in Bluffton Photograph by Dennis Adams (August 29, 2002)

    "The Secesion House" in Beaufort(1113 Craven St.). Photograph by Dennis Adams (August 20, 2002)

15. Bluffton’s "Secession Oak" may already have been two centuries old on July 31, 1844, when as many as 500 people met beneath its canopy. According to Janice Hunter Cantrell (in the Bluffton Historical Preservation Society’s No. II: A Longer Short History of Bluffton, South Carolina and Its Environs, they had come to hear their congressman, Robert Barnwell Rhett, "who had been so vociferously agitating since the 1820s for … Secession". And so began "The Bluffton Movement", which "led to South Carolina’s withdrawal from the Union on December 20, 1860 – the first state to secede."
    
    A plaque in the basement of "The Secesion House" in Beaufort, SC. (1113 Craven St.) reads, "In this house the first meeting in favor of secession
    was held in 1851."
    
    

16. Federal Troops occupied Beaufort early in the Civil War. In November of 1861, Union naval and army detachments subdued Confederate forts off Port Royal Island, established a strong blockade base on Hilton Head Island, and occupied the town of Beaufort not only for the duration of the war, but for years afterward. As a Federal base of operation in the South, the town escaped destruction during General Sherman's "March to the Sea". Most land owners suffered ruin, however, when their houses were confiscated by the Federal government and sold for taxes. On the other hand, many of the freed slaves were able to buy land for the first time.

17. In 1862, the Penn School was founded on St. Helena Island as a school for African-American Sea Islanders.

18. Beaufort was slow to recover from the hardships of Reconstruction. The ravages of the boll weevil to the cotton crop and the vast devastation of the hurricane of 1893 slowed progress.

19. The Fire of 1907 destroyed much of downtown Beaufort.

20. The era of the military bases began on October 28, 1915, when the Marine barracks on Parris Island commenced full recruit training operations. The Naval Hospital facilty was completed in 1949, and in 1960 the Marine Corps Air Station at Beaufort was officially commissioned. These installations are a major part of the economy to the present day.
    
    

21. It was not until World War II that Beaufort County really began to recover from its severe depression with the growth of the Parris Island military installation, the emergence of vegetables and seafood as exportable commodities, and -- most recently -- the advent of tourism and resort and retirement communities.

22. Major commercial development of Southern Beaufort County than began on Hilton Head Island in the 1950s grew dramatically in the last third of the 20th century. In the 1990s, the Sun City housing development in Okatie and growth in the Bluffton area brought more residents and business "South of the Broad (River)."
    
    
23. The 2000 Census showed that Beaufort County had the fastest-growing population in the state.

Industries and Agriculture

Islands: Origins of Names
See also our Web page on the nature of the Sea Islands

Land Area

Longitude and Latitude
of Key Locations
(in degrees, minutes and seconds)