History Park Considered for Hilton Head Island

Courtesy of www.islandpacket.com

By LAURA NAHMIAS
lnahmias@islandpacket.com
843-706-8169
Published Saturday, January 2, 2010

History park proposal considered for Hilton Head Island

A Revolutionary War-era cemetery and an early-1800s mausoleum on Hilton Head Island are the centerpieces of a proposed history park an area group says will bring history to life.

The cemetery and mausoleum, owned by the Heritage Library Foundation, stand at the headwaters of Broad Creek, near the intersection of Mathews Drive and William Hilton Parkway.

"This (site) was really the center of civilization for Hilton Head Island," said Jason Stevens, a foundation volunteer who helped develop the proposal along with foundation president Robert Smith.

Before the Civil War, the island had as many as 25 plantations, said Smith. Plantation owners attended church at Mt. Zion Chapel of Ease, a small wooden structure on the site. Their slaves worshipped in a separate prayer house. Both structures were dismantled by Union soldiers during the Civil War to build temporary housing for themselves.

But that wasn't the site's first brush with history.

In 1781, it was the location of the ambush of Revolutionary-era landowner and patriot Ambrose Davant, Stevens said.

Hilton Head Islanders supported the Revolutionary rebels and drew the ire of nearby Daufuskie Islanders, who supported the English Crown. Tories from Daufuskie rowed to Hilton Head and lay in wait for Davant in the woods near where the cemetery now stands.

They shot him dead.

Later, in 1795, the first body was buried in the cemetery, which now includes members of some of the island's leading families -- Baynards, Kirks and Stoneys.

The 2.3-acre site also included a muster house and Masonic lodge, according to a 1825 map.

The mausoleum and cemetery largely fell out of use by the end of the Civil War.

"People drive by this site every day and are completely unaware of its historical significance," Stevens said after he recounted the skirmishes and stories of the people who lived and died near the island's core.

The mausoleum and cemetery are inaccessible from the highway. Shrouded in moss and with only a few historical markers to highlight the area, most people pay little attention to the place that was once at the epicenter of Hilton Head social life in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Stevens said.

Foundation members want to place markers where the church and other buildings stood.

Another part of the plan is to grow crops similar to those planted at the plantations, including indigo and a local strain of cotton known as sea island cotton.

The foundation is asking the town to consider ways that it can promote the site as a tourist attraction by adding historical markers and information kiosks, as well as developing town-owned land near the site for parking and bike access.

The town's Public Facilities Committee will consider the proposal Tuesday.

The foundation's ideas are still flexible and funding hasn't been discussed, said Curtis Coltrane, assistant town manager. He said the site, so close to the parkway, might be difficult to develop but the town is open to suggestions.

Foundation president Smith believes the site would be a boon for the island.

"It will give the community and our visitors a wonderful place to learn about and celebrate the Island's fascinating history," he wrote in a foundation newsletter.

Hilton Head Island

Hilton Head Town Seeks to Honor Native Islanders

Article courtesy of Islandpacket.com - a complete news resource for Hilton Head Island.

Town seeks way to honor native islanders
Ferrymen Simmons, Frazier among first Councilman Ferguson would like to recognize

By DANIEL BROWNSTEIN
dbrownstein@islandpacket.com
843-706-8125
Published Monday, September 7, 2009
Well before the first bridge to Hilton Head Island was built in 1956, two native islanders helped connect the remote barrier island with the rest of the world.

Many in the native island community would like the Town of Hilton Head Island to memorialize Charlie Simmons Sr. and Arthur Frazier, two men who worked around the clock to ensure islanders had the supplies they needed to survive on an island far from the nearest department store or hospital.

Both ran ferries and filled countless other roles, such as merchant, banker, public works department and ambulance service before development brought those modern institutions to the island.

Bill Ferguson, who represents the native island communities on Hilton Head Town Council, wants to build a monument honoring the contributions of native islanders -- beginning with Simmons and Frazier -- at Mitchelville Beach Park.

Ferguson said the entire community owes a debt of gratitude to the two men, not just the dozens of native island families and affluent visitors who used their services.

"Without them, Sea Pines and Port Royal wouldn't be here as it is today," he said, "because (the developers) used these fellows as an instrument of transportation before the bridge was built."

Ferguson's idea involves renaming the park to something like "Mitchelville Memorial Park for Native Islanders." Last week, Mayor Tom Peeples asked for Ferguson's help to build consensus among the island's black community for a potential name.

"It's a sublime piece of property with a generic name on it," Ferguson said of the park.

The town built Compass Rose Park in 2008 as an homage to Sea Pines founder Charles Fraser and others instrumental in making Hilton Head a premier resort.

But some believe not enough is being done to highlight the history of native islanders, many of whom are the direct descendants of freed slaves, said Emory Campbell, former director of the Penn Center and owner of Gullah Tours.

"Despite what National Geographic says, this island does have a soul," Campbell said referring to the magazine's 2007 ranking of beach communities that slammed the island. "It goes back a long way to even the Indians. History is so important. Folks who are coming in now are looking for history and unfortunately don't know how important this island is to United States history."

Hilton Head was home to the South's first freed slaves, and Mitchelville, a fully-functioning village for those released from bondage, was the nation's early experiment at Reconstruction.

After the Civil War, the island was a close-knit agrarian community. Families were rich with land that produced crops and estuaries that provided a bounty of shellfish, but were cash poor and largely disconnected from the mainland.

Simmons, who worked on ferries as a young boy, began his own service in the 1920s using a sailboat to get between Hilton Head and Savannah. In 1927, he upgraded to the Lola, a 33-foot boat with a 15 horsepower engine.

He transported wealthy northerners to Honey Horn, then a hunting preserve, and helped islanders haul their produce, seafood and livestock to Savannah, where he sold the cargo at City Market and use the proceeds to fulfill families' shopping lists.

Simmons died in 2005 at the age of 99.

Frazier came along a bit after Simmons. In 1944, he began operating a boat service between Jenkins Island -- near where the J. Wilton Graves Bridge today connects to Hilton Head Island -- to Buckingham Landing, where the Sea Trawler restaurant recently opened. He also owned several trucks and a barge that could carry cars.

When he was drafted for World War II, residents successfully lobbied the government to give him a waiver because his services were so vital to their way of life.

In 1968, Frazier lost a leg in an automobile accident, and in 1985, he was shot in the face during the robbery of his convenience store along William Hilton Parkway. The cream- and rust-colored commercial buildings he owned still stand and are home to a produce market and a massage parlor. A wooden, homemade sign still marks Frazier's Holiness Temple.

He died in 2003 at the age of 89.

"I knew them both," Campbell said. "They were outstanding men."

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