OurCoast.com :: Lowcountry City Guide

In Sea Pines Plantation, near the southern end of the island, stand the Stoney-Baynard Ruins. These are the remnants of the great antebellum Braddock's Point Plantation, which dates from the mid-18th century. As elsewhere across the South, Hilton Head came to prominence and prosperity on the strength of cotton, and the planters raised large houses to anchor their plantations. Though some of the homes were made of wood or brick, many in this region were constructed of tabby, which is a mixture of oyster shells, some whole and others burnt to a lime powder, as well as sand and water. The Stoney-Baynard home was thus constructed, and its ruins are a monument to the ingenuity of the design and materials used in these grand homes.

The double moniker of the house is in the Southern tradition of naming a home for each of its owners, as with the Richardson-Owens-Thomas House in Savannah. Captain Jack Stoney, a patriot raider of some note in the Revolutionary War, used his profits from captured British cargoes to build the Stoney-Baynard House, which dates from 1793. The house passed to the ownership of William Eddings Baynard about 50 years later; if the contemporary accounts are to be believed, he won the plantation in a poker game and, no fool he, quickly took to running the plantation himself. Baynard and his wife both died before the Civil War and were buried in the Baynard mausoleum in Zion Cemetery, which still stands today. The house was damaged and abandoned during the war and its remains were left to the elements.

Today, the tabby structure is comprised of a foundation and the outer structure or shell of the home. Seen from a distance, the ruins seem blurred. Up close, the thousands of oyster shells create a honeycomb, a complex texture that is simultaneously pocked and smooth. There are windows that look like ancient portholes, and bits of stucco still cling to the tabby. the effect is not unlike that of a medieval abbey or a Roman ruin, the remnants of a dream.

Nearby are the foundations of two other buildings. One is the slave dwelling, long and narrow; the other is marked by the simple and cryptic sign "Use Unknown." At the end of the clearing stands the remains of an ancient and enormous chimney support. The elements have shaped this piece so that it looks like a rough throne once used by one of the Norse gods, or a primitive altar for mysterious worship. The ruins are surrounded by tangled vines and high trees, and bits of fern poke their way through the tabby of the old house.

The site is solemn and beautiful, the last remnant of Hilton Head's glorious plantation culture. The Stoney-Baynard ruins suggest a great deal about the aspirations of its builders, and they are a somber tribute to an era that today exists only in memory.

Sources include Margaret Greer's The Sands of Time: A History of Hilton Head Island, Rebecca Kaufmann Crowley's Hilton Head Guidebook.

--info courtesy of BestRead Guide