On Mackay’s Island, now known as Pinckney Island, the first trading post in the immediate area is created. Alexander Mackay is the only licensed “Indian agent,” licensed to trade with Indigenous people (mostly Yamasee). Why does this matter? The Tabby property lies along Skull Creek and faces the Post. As early as 1690, European frontier agents were actively trading up and down the South Carolina colony coastline and helping to open the sea islands for colonist settlement. When Mackay dies in 1731, his will lists the names of Native American women and African men he has enslaved on his Mackay Island plantation. His wife later marries Charles Pinckney, the namesake of the island.

Credited with conducting the first survey of the Port Royal Sound, he claimed over 5600 acres of Beaufort County between 1701 and 1706. He is widely known for his horrific treatment of the Tuscarora people and as a leader against the Yamasee in that War. He goes on to control 1500 acres on Hilton Head Island by 1715, worked by enslaved West Africans.

The Yamasee War is still noted as one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history, and the Port Royal Sound was the heart of it. War broke out in Pocotaligo, (now Yemasee, SC) and lasted intermittently until 1732. After Yamasee settlers were cleared from the Port Royal Sound, vast tracts of already cleared land were now available to European settlers, including on Hilton Head Island.

Philip de le Gal and his son, Philip de le Gal Jr., are released from indentured service and are granted 100 acres on Hilton Head Island. They had arrived in Charleston in 1720 from Guernsey Island with Eleanor de le Gal (wife and mother) and worked seven years in Charleston. For their labor, they were granted 100 acres of land each, but it was land on the frontier close to pockets of Yamasee resistance fighters. Evidence suggests that either father or son also fought in the Yamasee War. (South Carolina Department of Archives: Online lookup number: 137418)

Buying, selling, and granting of land in the greater Hilton Head Island area is happening at a rapid pace. Archival documents such as will transcripts, plat maps, and sale of land receipts show thousands of Hilton Head Island acres being bought and sold in this period.

Current research dates the Barnwell Tabby structure to this period (not the 1800s as previously thought).

Archaeological excavations and data indicate the Tabby walls could have been built as early as 1710, and the floor as early as 1760. (Note: We’re still researching at this very moment!)

However, the purpose of the structure is still being debated. One historian, Dr. Eric Plaag, believes it was the remains of an early antebellum structure (a plantation house). Other experts, like Dr. Trinkley and Dr. Seeber, believe it could have been an industrial or storage structure for trading or farming.

The Tabby was initially thought to have been part of Cotton Hope Plantation, owned by Squire Pope, but this theory has since been disproved. It was also theorized that it was the Marabuoy plantation home of Henry Ladson, but map records indicate Marabuoy was to the north. Research is ongoing.

While the Tabby is being built (or was already built), the Stono Rebellion happens. It was led by an Angolan man named Jemmy who had been captured and enslaved in the South Carolina colony. In September of that year, he led dozens of enslaved people in a rebellion throughout the Lowcountry against their enslavers. The conflict left nearly 100 people dead and terrified slave-holders throughout the British colonies.

In a direct response to the Stono Rebellion, on May 10, 1740, South Carolina Governor William Bull passed the Negro Act of 1740 which made it illegal for enslaved people to: leave the property they were enslaved on, assemble in groups, raise food, earn money, or learn to read or write. The Act also made it lawful to murder those who rebelled (murdering those who rebelled was previously outlawed). This would have directly affected all the enslaved people on Hilton Head Island.

This is the year the people enslaved by Eliza Lucas Pinckney grow their first successful indigo crop. Quickly, the crop is propagated across the South Carolina Lowcountry and by 1775, planters would export over a million pounds of indigo dye. Whatever the use of the Tabby, it was part of a working indigo plantation for most of its early history.

Archaeologists have located a letter from Planter residents in St. Luke and St. Peter Parishes (now Beaufort County) asking for permission from the Governour to free an enslaved man named Abram for his service in helping stop a large-scale rebellion. The letter describes how dangerous the local area is, as enslaved communities are constantly resisting. (South Carolina Department of Archives: search Archives ID: Series: S165015)

The French and Indian War was fought between England and France, and all their colonies across the globe. In the American colonies, France controlled the interior from Louisiana to Canada, and the coastline from Georgia to New England was controlled by England. In the Carolinas, the Cherokee Nation was stuck in between. In the SC “backcountry,” Cherokee soldiers began attacking isolated plantations in response to their own communities being destroyed in Virginia.

After the French and Indian War helped to destroy Indigenous threats to the west, a wave of wealthy planters continued to purchase pre-cleared and farmed land. Planters develop a network of families to marry into in order to increase profits and land ownership.

In the lead up to the American Revolutionary War, the South Carolina Lowcountry planters were protesting taxes at the same time as Bostonians. Hilton Head Islanders were both Tories (British Supporters) and “Patriots” (supporters of a new country). During the war, the island was invaded by British Troops several times. One of these times is described in an October 27, 1779, Pennsylvania Gazette article (begins bottom middle column titled “CHARLESTOWN”).

Landowners who supported England during the war are declare traitors to the United States and all their land and possessions are forfeit. Plantations of Tories in the Lowcountry are sold or auctioned off (like a Sherifs sale) and throughout the area local Planters are doubling, tripling, and quadrupling their land holdings. Many plantations on this island are bought by people who already have several plantations, like Honey Horn Plantation which was bought by John Hanahan as his third sea island plantation.

Sea Island Cotton (a new variety developed on Hilton Head Island by people enslaved by William Elliot at Myrtle Bank Plantation in 1790) had become one of the most valuable cash crops in the world. The bolls of cotton were two times the length of a regular boll, and thus one field had double the crop yield. Sea Island cotton was integral to the Industrial Revolution and was shipped to England by Hilton Head Planters to be milled into cloth. Unlike other cotton varieties, Sea Island Cotton could not be ginned (or cleaned by a machine) so enslaved people on this island were cleaning cotton by hand until the after they were emancipated.

This time period is the second, third, or fourth generation for some plantation-owning families on Hilton Head Island. In the early years, these plantations worked more like homesteads, providing everything they needed for themselves. But by the early 1800s, Sea Island Cotton production had transformed plantation life. Instead of focusing on many small tasks, enslaved people were forced to work en masse on cotton production, with very little time for anything else. Plantations went from supplying their own food to ordering food from New England to keep their enslaved workers from losing any time in the cotton production process. (For more description on this, see: Tombee: From the Life Story and Plantation Journal of Thomas B. Chaplin | Facing South, search for “oysters”). In this period, the Tabby property is one of a few tracts that were purchased by Squire Pope (1838) and consolidated into a new plantation he called Cotton Hope.

On July 31st, 1844 Robert Barnwell Rhett (born Robert Barnwell Smith) a Bluffton-born planter, launches the “Bluffton Movement”, the beginning of the Secession Movement. In 1860, in a speech on the Senate floor Rhett stated the following about the cause of the national divide at that time: “The Union of the Constitution, was a union of slaveholding States. It rests on slavery, by prescribing a Representation in Congress, for three-fifths of our slaves. There is nothing in the proceedings of the Convention which framed the Constitution, to shew, that the Southern States would have formed any other Union; and still loss, that of they would have formed a Union with more powerful non-slaveholding States, having majority in both branches of the Legislature of the Government. They were guilty of no such folly.”

As Beaufort County was the seat of secession, it was invaded early in the war. Only seven months after the war was declared, the Port Royal Sound was invaded by federal United States Troops (Union) and won, and it was rapidly established as the Headquarters for the Department of the South for the entire war.

January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signs into law the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all enslaved people in the United States. Thomas Barnwell Jr.’s great-great-grandmother escapes with her family (parents Ceasar and Mariah Jones) from enslavement on Rose Hill Plantation (Bluffton, SC) to Mitchelville, located a few miles away from the tabby structure, on the east side of Hilton Head Island. After the war, Ceasar and Mariah move across the island and establish the neighborhood of Jonesville.

The Reconstruction Policy is an eight-year federal push to make policies that integrate newly freed Black Americans into civic life. During Reconstruction, Black Americans were elected into office at every level. In this period, South Carolina was the only state whose legislature was majority African American. In those eight years, 29 African American men served in the South Carolina Senate, and 210 African American men served in the South Carolina House of Representatives. Additionally, Beaufort County had a higher percentage of Black landowners than any other district in the United States in the past or present. It is in this period that the Barnwell Tabby transitioned from being owned by Planters to newly freed Gullah Geechee people.

When William P. Clyde, like many others, purchased and consolidated old plantation properties, he turned them into hunting plantations. This was the first resort-style property ownership to occur on Hilton Head Island. During this period across the Atlantic south, wealthy Northerners began establishing the now long-held tradition of purchasing old plantations and turning them into private hunting and leisure resorts. The Tabby was at this point a ruin and would not have been livable like the Honey Horn Plantation big house (page 19/55, images 47811, 47812)

Known as The Hurricane of 1893, the storm destroys hundreds of homes and kills thousands of people throughout Beaufort County.

Queen Smalls owns the property on which half of the Tabby resides. Most residents of Hilton Head Island are Gullah Geechee and are living on homesteads in many different small neighborhoods across the island. They are speaking Gullah, working the land and sea, and building new lives after another deadly hurricane hit in 1898 (pages 19 and 20/55)

Through the Lowcountry, Sea Island Cotton had still been a staple of the economy for small and big-time farmers. The Boll Weevil plagues of the 1920s destroyed the cotton crops, pushing the Lowcountry into a new era where oyster harvesting and shrimping became the predominant source of income.

Thomas Barnwell Sr.and his wife, Hannah White Barnwell, purchased the land on which half the Tabby resides (the property line ran through the middle of the Tabby at this point in time). This is the same year that Thomas Barnwell Jr. was born. For eight years, the country has been in the grips of the Great Depression, and vast Gullah Geechee land loss began in this period.

Between 1930 and 1950, lumber companies owned by non-local white people had nearly clear-cut the island. This primed the way for the development of large planned communities, spearheaded by the Hilton Head Company, which Fred Hack owned.

During the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, Hilton Head Island and its Gullah Geechee residents were fighting for equal rights here and alongside people like Dr. King. King famously came to the Penn Center to work on the “I Have A Dream” speech in the same years Mr. Barnwell was working there.

Thomas Barnwell Jr. was one of 12 Gullah-Geechee men who developed a Black-owned and operated fishing dock and cooperative, where they could expand their businesses free from discrimination. Up until now, Black fishermen were prohibited from using the whites-only docks and earned far less than their white counterparts. The Tabby is just a short distance from this dock, where the Town now has the Rowing and Sailing Center on Squire Pope Road.

When plans were announced to bring a petrochemical plant to Victoria Bluff, Barnwell and other Hilton Head Islanders worked together to stop the chemical plant from building on the Colleton River.

Thomas Barnwell, Sr., dies, and Hannah White Barnwell, his wife, assumes ownership of the property. At this point in time, the property line cuts through the middle of the Tabby, leaving the other half under Ruth and Cora Jones’s control.

An archaeologist first recorded the Barnwell Tabby site, Dr. Robert Stephenson of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, during a road-development survey project. The Tabby was assigned the site number 38BU90. Dr. Stephenson recorded the Tabby as a two-story tabby construction.

Hannah transfers ownership of her portion of the Barnwell Tabby property to her son, Thomas Barnwell, Jr. The other portion is controlled by relatives.

Dr. William Trinkley conducted an initial survey of the site and recommended further investigation.

Dr. Michael Trinkley, an archaeologist at Chicora Foundation, returns to the site and digs 34 auger (test) pits. He reported that it is “a standing tabby structure of likely industrial or storage function.” (Page 110)

Mr. Colin Brooker, an architect and tabby expert, also investigates the ruins. Brooker concluded it was difficult to determine the function and date of construction due to a lack of evidence. He suggests the presence of a central chimney would confirm domestic use.

Both stress the importance of further investigation and recommend inclusion on the National Historic Register at the state level.

Half of the Tabby property is owned by cousins Ruth and Cora Jones, and both families use the land for grazing cows and goats. In 1991, Barnwell Jr. participated in a land swap to assume full control of the Barnwell Tabby property. While he considered developing the land, in the end, he chose to preserve the Tabby.

Thomas Barnwell Jr. initiated the preservation efforts. Colin Brooker, the architect and tabby expert who consulted with Trinkle in 1988, was hired to develop a plan to restore the tabby in phases. In July and August of 2009, Phase I of the restoration took place, and repairs were made to the east facade (side). This included restoring windows, reinforcing with timber, reconstructing lintels, and adding new tabby to the walls. Builder Rick Wrightman is brought in to perform the restoration. The Barnwells sourced oyster shells from Florida to ensure they were the same type as the original.

In September and November of 2016, the second phase of restoration began. Over 285 hours, builder Rick Wrightman restores lintels on the south, west, and north facades. Door frames and lintels on the north and south sides are also restored.

While tabby is a sturdy material, it will break down if not fully protected. From November of 2017 through January 2018, Wrightman’s team constructed a wooden frame to support the addition of a pavilion-style roof. By February of 2018, the roof was complete, and 388 hours went into protecting the Tabby’s walls.

Dr. Kimberly Cavanagh, Associate Professor of Anthropology (Chair of Humanities) at the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB), assembles an excavation team, including Dr. Audrey Dawson (archaeologist), Dr. Eric Plaag (historian), and USCB undergraduates. Dr. Katherine Seeber, an archaeologist, and her staff assist.

The Barnwell Family begins to work with the research to develop educational resources and explore on-site educational opportunities, in pursuit of turning the Tabby into a symbol of Gullah-Geechee heritage. As the “Tabby Team” grows, Dr. Seeber leads the educational resource development.

The Barnwell Tabby remains privately owned by the Barnwell family and is being preserved as an educational and historical resource