An iconic place, a destination tucked away with many stories to tell. First established in 1958, Palmetto Bay Marina is one of Hilton Head’s oldest working marinas. Since then, many things have changed, but her island spirit has remained the same.
Opossum Point Landing
Circa 1783
Palmetto Bay Marina
1959
Aerial View
Palmetto Bay Marina 1974
Palmetto Bay Marina - 2009
from the Cross Island Expressway Bridge
(as per town of Hilton Head)
The following information and photographs were provided by the Coastal Discovery Museum. The Museum gathered the information for the timeline from Town residents and long-time Islanders. The Museum relied on significant input from the
Community to put together the timeline. A book entitled "Images of America Hilton Head Island" covers the Island's history and is available for sale at the museum, (843)689-6767.
SOOO B.C, - fOOO B.C. - Archaic Period Native Americans visited this area seasonally.
1335 A.D. - Green's Shell Enclosure, a 4-foot-tall shell ridge that encloses 2 acres, was built along the banks of Skull Creek.
1521 - A Spanish expedition, led by Francisco Cordillo, explored this area, initiating European contact with local tribes.
1663 - Capt. William Hilton sailed from Barbados, on the Adventure, to explore lands granted by King Charles II to the eight Lords Proprietors. Hilton Head Island takes its name from a headland near the entrance to Port Royal Sound.
1698 - John Bayley, of Ireland, was given most of Hilton Head Island as a barony. Twenty-four years later, his son appointed Alexander Trench as his agent in charge of selling the land. For a short time, Hilton Head was called Trench's Island on some 18th century maps.
1711 - Beaufort, South Carolina was founded.
176Os - Beaufort County's shipbuilding industry was one of the largest in the 13 colonies. The deep-water creeks around Hilton Head and the prevalence of hardwoods (like live oak) made the island a popular place for shipbuilding. The USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides," was rebuilt in 1997 using live oaks felled during construction of Hilton Head Island's Cross Island Parkway.
1779 - Privateers sailing with the British navy burned many houses on Skull Creek and around the island on their way to Beaufort and Charleston. Hilton Head residents tended to be Patriots, while Daufuskie residents were Tories.
1780 - Daufuskie Islanders burned several Hilton Head homes, including the Talbird home.
1788 - The Zion Chapel of Ease, a small wooden Episcopal church for plantation owners was constructed. All that remains is the cemetery, home to the Baynard Mausoleum, near Mathews Drive.
179O - William Elliott II, of Myrtle Bank Plantation, grew the first successful crop of long-staple, or Sea Island, cotton in South Carolina on Hilton Head Island.
1813 - During the War of 1812, British forces landed on Hilton Head Island, burning many of the houses along Skull Creek.
f860 - There were more than 20 working plantations on the island before the Civil War. Most plantation owners did not live on Hilton Head. The island was populated with slaves and overseers,
Queen Chapel, A.M.E. Church is located on Beach City Road.
Hilton Head Lighthouse was originally built by the Coast Guard in the 1870's.
1861 - Beginning in July, Fort Walker was built on Hilton Head Island at the entrance to Port Royal Sound in Order to protect the port from Union attacks.
1861 - On November 7th, Union forces attacked Fort Walker (later renamed Fort Welles in honor of Gideon Welles, secretary of the Navy) and Fott Beauregard in the Battle of Port Royal. Nearly 13,000 Union troops flooded onto the island in the days after the battle.
1862 - Hilton Head Island was also referred to as Port Royal, in reference to the Port Royal military installation. Port Royal was the home to the Department of the South.
1862 - Hilton Head's population swelled to over 40,000, including Union troops, civilian store-keepers, missionaries, prisoners of war, and slaves seeking refuge from their owners. One of the oldest structures on the island, the Queen Chapel, A.M.E. Church is located on Beach City Road. African Methodist-Episcopal missionaries founded the Queen Chapel in 1865. The original building has been a praise house used by slaves on the Pope plantation. The structure was updated in 1892 and 1952.
1862 - Gen. Ormsby Mitchel set up the town of Mitchelville to house the island's first freedman's village. Mitchelville residents elected their own officials, passed their own laws, and established the first compulsory education law in the state. The Mitchelville community was built along modern-day Beach City Road.
1862 - Fort Mitchel was built as a battery to protect Skull Creek from Confederate attacks. Fort Sherman, which circled the military installation, was completed.
1865 - The First African Baptist Church was founded in August. Several island churches formed out of this church, including St. James, Goodwill, Central Oakgrove, and Mt. Calvary.
1868 - Large-scale military occupation of the island had ended. The island's population dropped to only a few thousand.
187Os -Some of Hilton Head Island's plantations were reclaimed by their antebellum owners after paying back taxes charged to their property. Other properties were held by the United States government, sold to speculators, or sold to freedmen who remained on the island after the Civil War.
1872 - The island was once again referred to as Hilton Head Island.
l893 - An enormous hurricane hit Beaufort County, killing at least 2,000 people in the county and flooding parts of the island with its 12-foot surge. Many of Hilton Head Island's structures were destroyed in this storm.
l9O1 - A l5-inch steam cannon was installed and tested on the beach at Coggins Point (modern-day Port Royal Plantation). It was I of 13 designed to protect the United States coast.
1917 - Troops were stationed at the former Union Fort Walker during World War I as lookouts for possible submarine attacks.
192Os - Gullah native islanders sailed bateaux from Hilton Head to the mainland, carrying people, crops, and livestock to the market on River Street in Savannah. Charlie Simmons Sr. operated the first mechanized ferry in 1930 from Simmons Fish Camp, located near Marshland Road. The Hilton Head Lighthouse was originally built by the Coast Guard in the 1870's. This lighthouse was built nearly 1 mile inland, and a smaller range lighthouse was built closer to the beach. Now, it is called the Leamington Lighthouse and is no longer used for navigation.
192Os -The Hudsons and Toomers operated oyster factories on Hilton Head Island from the 1890s until the 1950s. By this time, the boll weevil had destroyed almost all of the Sea Island Cotton in the region.
t94O -The island's population was approximately 1,100 most of whom were descendants from freedmen who had made their homes on Hilton Head.
1941 -Marines were stationed at Camp McDougal near the Leamington Lighthouse. The lighthouse had been built in the 1870's and was known as the Hilton Head Lighthouse until the Palmetto Dunes development, Leamington, began. Marines paved the first road on the island, which ran from the ferry landing at Jenkins Island (now Outdoor Resorts) to the lighthouse.
1949 - A group of lumber associates from Hinesville, Georgia, bought a total of 20,000 acres of pine forest on Hilton Head's southern end for an average of nearly g60 an acre. They formed The Hilton Head Company to handle the timber operation. The associates were Gen. Joseph B. Fraser, Fred C. Hack, Olin T. McIntosh, and C.C. Stebbins.
1950 - Logging took place on 19,000 acres of the island. There were three lumbermills built to harvest the timber. The island population was only 300 residents.
1950 - The first electricity was brought to the island by Palmetto Electric Cooperative.
1953 - A state-operated car ferry began running from Buckingham Landing (near Bluffton, on the mainland) to Jenkins Island (at Outdoor Resorts).
1954 - Hilton Head Elementary School opened for the island's black students. Isaac Wilborn was the principal of the elementary school from 1954 until it closed in 1974. The school was replaced by a new integrated school constructed on a new site in 1975.
1955 - Beaufort County state representative Wilton Graves opened the Sea Crest Motel on Forest Beach. At first, it consisted of two rooms. The first vacation cottages were developed on Folly Field Road The J. Byrnes Bridge opened on May 20,1956. This was the first bridge connecting Hilton Head to the mainland, The cost was $1.5 million. At first, the bridge cost $2.50 per round trip. The toll was phased out by 1959. The Byrnes Bridge was a swing bridge. It swung open to allow boats to pass through on either side of the center support.
1956 - James F. Byrnes Bridge, a two-lane toll swing bridge, was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million. This opened the island to automobile traffic from the mainland. This year, forty-eight thousand cars traveled across the bridge. The toll was discontinued in December 1959.
1956 - Charles E. Fraser, bought his father's interest in The Hilton Head Company and began developing it into Sea Pines Plantation.
1956 - Norris and Lois Richardson opened the first supermarket on the island, located near Coligny Circle in the North Forest Beach area.
1955 - The Hilton Head Island Chamber of Commerce was established.
1958 - First deed to a lot in Sea Pines Plantation was signed. Beachfront lots initially sold for $5,350. By L962, they were selling for $9,600.
1958 - Telephone service was offered by Hargray Telephone Company. The first Hilton Head office did not open until 1960.
1958 - Palmetto Bay Marina Opened.
James F. Byrnes Bridge, a two-lane toll swing bridge, was constructed at a cost of $1.5 million.
196O - The Island's first golf course, the Ocean Course, designed by George Cobb, was built in Sea Pines Plantation.
1961 - The McIntosh family subdivided 360 acres of The Hilton Head Company to start Spanish Wells.
1962 - Port Royal Plantation was developed by Hilton Head Company, led by Fred Hack.
1965 - The Sea Pines Medical Center was built. It was staffed by a retired doctor who lived in Sea Pines but served the entire island community.
1965 - Hilton Head Island had its first rural mail route established.
1967 - Sea Pines Plantation installed the island's first gates'
1967 - The Palmetto Dunes area was acquired from the Hilton Head Agricultural Company by Palmetto Dunes Corporation, headed by William T. Gregory, for $1,000 per acre.
1967 - The Hilton Head Airport opened.
1969 - Harbour Town village was completed. The full-time population of the Island was 2,500.
1969 - The first Heritage Golf Classic played at Sea Pine's Harbour Town Links.
197O - Island Packet newspaper was first published'
1970 - The Hilton Head Company started Shipyard Plantation.
1971 - Sea Pines acquired land on the north end of the island, which was developed into Hilton Head Plantation.
1974 - The swing-bridge was struck by a barge which force island residents to travel off the island on a pontoon bridge constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The bridge was closed for six weeks.
1975 - The island's full-time population by this time was 6,500. Over 250,000 visitors came to Hilton Head.
1975 -Hilton Head Hospital was completed.
1979 - Hurricane David missed the island, but high winds left beached eroded and destroyed several Singleton Beach homes.
1982 - A four-lane bridge was built to replace the two-lane swing-bridge to the island. The island's full-time population was 12,500. More than 500,000 visitors came to Hilton Head in 1982.
1982 - Wexford Plantation and Long Cove Club were developed.
1983 - The Town of Hilton Head Island incorporated as a municipality.
1985 - Hilton Head's Comprehensive Plan was adopted by the town council. The population was over 17,000 full-time residents.
1987 - The town council passed the Land Management Ordinance of the Town of Hilton Head Island.
1989 - The Cross-Island Parkway project was approved. The Parkway's bridge spans Broad Creek and links the south end of the island to the north end.
1995 -The permanent year-round population exceeded 28,000 people. The island had over 1.5 million visitors.
1995 - Construction on the Cross-Island Parkway began.
1996 - The Master Land Use Plan for Ward One was started by the Town.
1997 - Cross Island Parkway opened in January. The total cost was $81 million for construction, land acquisition and planning.
Possum Point Plantation extended from Broad Creek to the Atlantic Ocean and was bordered by Point Comfort to the west and Shipyard to the east.
In 1883 W.D. Brown sold 165 acres of Possum Point Plantation to Josiah Wright for $1.00 an acre. The parcel eventually passed to the Highsmith Lumber Company and in 1949 to Thorne and Loomis.
- Trinkley, Chicora Research Series 88, Archaeological Survey of Sea Pines Senior Living Center - Tract
"The Browns (W.D.) had bought Cherry Hill, Possum Point and Mathew’s Field and they soon opened a genera! store that eventually would become the island post office”
- Holmgren, Virginia C., Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle, p. 118
"Both William and Samuel Fickling resided on Hilton Head in 1798....They may have sold their property ai Possum Point and Shipyard before secession, as the map prepared for Sherman in 1'86i puts the name “Wills" at Possum Point. The Navy map of 1873 wrote 'Wells'. Either could be in error. The 465 acres of Possum Point between the public road and the beach were called Fickling's at confiscation and bought by W.D. Brown, in April 1876, along with adjacent property totaling 1000 acres. The Federal government recorded Brown's bid of $150 as the highest offered. Just a year before his murder, Brown sold the 465 acre Fickling plot for $10,000 to Roy Rainey. The rest went in plots of 100 to 165 acres, all eventually picked up by Thorne and Loomis."
- Holmgren, P.127
"In the post-Revolutionary period the Stoneys were easily the island's largest landowners... James and John Stoney also owned 1000 acre Possum Point..."
- Peeples, Robert, Tates of Ante Bellum Hilton Head Island Families, p. 4
"As early as 1798 William and Samuel Fickling lived on Hilton Head Island, Samuel's wife being Elizabeth Davant who apparently inherited 1000 acre Possum Point...Their heirs still owned portions in 1861, all lost to the Direct Tax Commission and unredeemable."
- Peeples, P. 12
As early as 1783 the 323 acres of Lot 31 of Bayley's Barony was known as Possum Point Plantation, taking the name from the natural bluff overlooking Broad Creek. It had been leased by planter Robert Richards but was purchased by planter James Davant who willed it to his daughter, Lydia (1780-1824) who in 1798 has married planterThomas Webb (1769-1816). She sold Possum point to Samuel Fickling, husband of her sister, Elizabeth Davant, who had inherited adjoining Lot 38.
- Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names (Before the Contemporary Development), p.34
Location - Lot 31 of Bayley's Barony
Origin of name - named for the natural bluff overlooking Broad Creek.
Other names - also called Fickling's
Robert Richards, lessee
James Davant (1744-1803) purchased the Lot.
Lydia Davant Webb (1780-1824), inherited and sold to her sister's husband, Samuel Fickling
Samuel Fickling. Elizabeth Davant Fickling had also inherited adjoining Lot 38.
W. D Brown purchased at confiscation in April 1876 along with adjacent land totaling 1000 acres
Brown sold 165 acres to Joseph Wright in 1883, property known as Boyd Tract; sold to Highsmith Lumber Co. in 1943 and to Thorne and Loomis in1945.
Brown sold 105 acres to Frazier, l54 acres to Grayson, 100 acres to Campbell in 1883.
William Clyde bought these 359 acres from heirs in 1905.
Brown sold 465 acres to Roy Rainey on July 13, 1922 for $10,000.
See also Wells Plantation.
Wednesday, 01 April 2009 03:53 By Dwight Williams
In 1959 an undertaker by the name of Jim Dunbar arrived with his family on Hilton Head Island.
He and his wife Peggy came to open a marina at the end of a dit road that terminated at a tidal creek.
Piles were driven into the soft mud and a single floating wooden dock was lowered with a crane that would double as a boat lift. A building was erected. Then in May 1959 the marina opened with a staff that included the Dunbars' son, Stewart, and 13-year-old daughter, Dottie.
“We knew we had a customer whenever we heard a truck with a boat trailer," Dottie recalled. “'There was no telephone service." When the phone lines were laid a few months later, locals could dial 3-9-1-0, and a Dunbar would answer the telephone.
Life on Hilton Head Island would never again be the same.
During the summer Dottie, Stewart and their friends spent their day! in cut-off jeans. “Kids would be dropped off by their parents to fish and crab from the docks," Dottie said. "Then their parents would leave to go to the beach.”
The marina became home to the island's first charter boat when Captain Buddy Hester began the island's first sport-fishing charter company.
With this, an island avocation became a vocation. “He was responsible for a lot of the young men who went into the same industry,” Dottie recalled. In the winter months pilings were added to support another floating wooden dock.
The Dunbars sold the marina to Sea Pines in 1965 but the marina remained a second home to an extensive gallery of unforgettable characters.
Captain Woody Collins pulled up to Palmetto Bay Marina's docks in the mid-1970s. His days were spent shrimping and fishing the local waters; in the evening he sold the day's catch on the dock.
“It was a real sleepy, tight-knit community of people down there,” Collins recalled. “We would get together and cook up a big pot of something on the wood-burning stove.”
John Rumsey arrived on Hilton Head in 1977, the same year Ted Turner won the America’s Cup. He came with a brilliant young architect named Carl “Bunky" Helfrich. Bunky had been a friend of Turner's since their boyhood in Savannah. At the time Turner owned a smattering of billboards and a small television company in Atlanta that broadcast the Braves.
Rumsey crewed on several of Turner's many yachts, including the 12-meter American Eagle and 60-foot Tenacious. In 1977 he, Helfrich and their friend Gary Wheatley decided to purchase the marina. They installed more dock sections and a larger travel lift that would handle much larger boats, including Turner's.
Apparently Turner was as quotable then as he is now.
“I hate the sea, “ Ted Turner once said to Rumsey. “But I hate land worse.”
The marina continued to change hands down through the years, with new owners improving the facilities to varying degrees.
"Every now and then entire sections of dock would float away in the middle of the night with boats still tied to them," Collins recalled.
Inevitably, the marina's footloose atmosphere slowly slipped away with each capital improvement. When the marina again changed hands in the mid-1980s, it wasn't certain that the new owners would allow Collins to sell his shrimp off the dock. Rumsey suggested that he set up a little shop a few yards away from the marina office.
In that moment an institution was born. Collins and his wife Lynn set up a couple of tables to clean the shrimp. Soon the shrimp cleaning moved indoors and the tables were surrounded by chairs to seat customers. Over time the outdoor space evolved into Captain Woody's Bar and Grill, the restaurant so near and dear to the hearts of Hilton Head Islanders.
Robert Graves arrived in the Late 1970s and began building sport-fishing boats in a shed on the premises- Meanwhile, Helfrich went on to design the Chart House and the Yacht Club of Hilton Head, just a few yards away from the marina. Fuzzy Davis, a legendary inshore fisherman based himself at Palmetto Bay Marina, working the local creeks and sounds.
“A number of people lived on their boats at the marina” Rumsey recalled. "They were young and enthusiastic about fishing and sailing.”
One of those people was Pat Horn, who lived on a 42-foot houseboat at the marina for two years with his wife and daughter.
“It was a special way to live," he recalled. "It was pretty funky back then. Definitely a little different than it is now.”
“Living at Palmetto Bay Marina was like traveling while standing still,” Woody Collins recalled. “People from up and down the Eastern Seaboard would pull in, stay a few days, and then head off. Then some interesting stranger would pull in to take their place.”
Within a few years condominiums and businesses began to spring up around the marina. in 1992 Dottie started her own fishing competition - Dottie Dunbar's All-Women Fishing Tournament, an annual event that now attracts anywhere from 35 to 60 anglers each fall.
