Sensing History
One of the most powerful experiences of being a northerner transplanted to the Lowcountry is the sensation that history is somehow merged into and an integral part of our everyday activities.
This may be due to the fact that there are remnants of yesterdays throughout the Lowcountry, that we pass every day, and researching those remnants is so available that a question as to a church, building or a tree can be answered before one puts one’s head on their pillow for the night
Old Town Bluffton is one of those mixed environments that entice the observer to learn more.
Bluffton is a lot older than one thinks
I, of course, was driven to take my discovery efforts back to the very beginnings of Bluffton being populated and march through the centuries of its many iterations.
While garnering my education (which seemed endless years at the time) history was taught like a digital clock, as specific points in time. When I choose to research history as an enjoyable and entertaining exercise in learning, I found that my findings resembled an old analogue clock. It is more natural for the journey of time to be seen as a continuing process along a path where the changes are driven slowly by culture, environment and economics.
I will try to make the flow of the 348 years since humans first created the early beginnings of Bluffton as entertaining to my readers as the discovery of the very diverse history of this most interesting town has been to me.
The Beginnings
The journey began about 1670, when Lord Cardoss, leader of the nearby Scottish settlement in Beaufort, invited the Yamasee people to establish settlements in the area. The historian, Steven J. Oatis, described the Yamasee as a multi-ethnic amalgamation of several remnant Indian groups, including the Guale, La Tama, Apalachee, Coweta, and Cussita Creek, and others. By 1715 the population of Yamasee had grown to over 1,200, inhabiting ten villages in today’s Bluffton and the surrounding Port Royal Sound Area. However, a not so successful war with the British forced the entire population to abandon the Lowcountry in 1717 and migrate to Florida.
Ever the opportunists and folk with a keen eye for land and economic opportunity, by 1718 the British Crown divided the area up into several baronies, included among them was Devil's Elbow Barony, that contained the future town of Bluffton. Who was the first Baron, Sir John Colleton, a former Barbadian planter, who accumulated a considerable fortune growing cotton, corn and indigo.
The First Burning of Bluffton
The Colleton family prospered and grew and by 1776 Sir John Colleton (grandson of the original owner) developed plantations throughout the greater Bluffton area. It would appear to this amateur historian that Johnny Colleton had some inside information since in 1777 he sold off to folk who would become American Patriots, most of his land holding.
Low and behold, a few years later, in 1779, during the midst of the American Revolution, British General Augustine Prévost, sacked the Port Royal Sound area and burned to cinders all the former Colleton plantations including what is now known as Palmetto Bluff.
After the American War for Independence, life in the Bluffton area slowly returned to its Pre-Revolution calm and tranquility. This period, known to historians as the Antebellum era (1785–1861) marks those seventy-six years when Bluffton developed as a trade, farming and manufacturing center, competing with Savannah for progress and growth.
During this period the town of Bluffton was built on two adjoining parcels in the Devil's Elbow Barony. The first streets were formally laid out during the 1830s and the name of Bluffton decided upon in the early 1840s.
The Second Burning of Bluffton
The first South Carolina secession movement began under what is now known as the Secession Oak tree, (Still flourishing in Stock Farms, Bluffton), led by R. Barnwell Rhett on July 31, 1844, almost a full seventeen years before the First Battle of the American Civil War began with the firing on Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861.
During those seventeen years Bluffton prospered and grew.
In the 1850s a steamboat landing was built at the end of Calhoun Street, to this day the main thoroughfare of Old Town Bluffton. The town became the commercial center of southern Beaufort County as a stopover between Savannah and Beaufort.
In 1852 the town was officially incorporated by an act of the South Carolina General Assembly.
It was during this chapter in the history of Bluffton that the iconic Church of the Cross was designed by architect Edward Brickell White to seat up to 600 parishioners. On July 17, 1857, the first services were held at the Church of the Cross. It still stands at the foot of Calhoun Street and holds services weekly.
By 1860, Bluffton was stable and flourishing.
…and then The Civil War focused on Bluffton.
In late May 1863, Major-General David Hunter, Commander of the Department of the South, ordered the destruction of Bluffton by fire. The Union "Expedition against Bluffton" was carried out on June 4, 1863, destroying approximately two-thirds of the town's estimated 60 structures. Only the town's two churches, Church of the Cross, being one; and fifteen residences Heyward House a private residence in 1863 and now Bluffton’s Historical Center one of the fifteen, remained standing after the attack.
Presently eight antebellum homes and two churches exist in Old Town, highlighting the town's now popular Nationally Registered Historic District.
A New and Different Role for Bluffton
A town that is ideal as a vacation destination, a magnificent place to live as a young couple or as a retiree or just to visit for a day to enjoy the natural beauty or the regional Farmers’ Market every Thursday on Calhoun Street.
155 years after Major-General David Hunter moved on to Beaufort, leaving a decimated Bluffton behind him, Bluffton, South Carolina, is prospering, growing and getting better.
From schools and medical facilities to housing and communities to fit every economic stratum, surrounded by beauty and tranquility, Bluffton, South Carolina is the place to be.
VISIT US AT OUR NEW LOCATION IN THE HEART OF OLD TOWN BLUFFTON:
BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY HOMESERVICES HILTON HEAD REALTY
212 Bluffton Road
The Promenade
Old Town Bluffton, South Carolina
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