100,000 BCE

Spring Island formed bordering the Atlantic seaboard during a period of falling sea level due to global glaciation.

18,000 BC - 13,000 BCE

Sea level reached its lowest recent level at 150 - 350 feet lower than today. Port Royal Sound was a 'blackwater' river swamp draining into the Savannah River, east of present day Hilton Head. Present day Spring Island was located 50 - 60 miles from the ocean. Sea level begins to rise as polar ice caps melt.

10,000 BCE

Oldest dated Native American artifacts from Port Royal Sound found on Dawes Island.

4,000 BCE

Holocene epoch ends. Height of ocean waters reaches present levels causing modern day barrier islands to form. Slight fluctuations in sea level continue to occur.

1,000 BCE - 500 AD

Native American artifacts found on Spring Island, dated to the Woodland Period.

1493

Columbus' 2nd expedition to the New World (Hispaniola). Several hundred indigenous Taino people are shipped back to Spain—the first trans-Atlantic slave voyage.

1525

Spaniard Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon builds fort on St. Helena, SC.

February 8, 1562

Sailing from the port of Le Havre in France and accompanied by diarist/artist Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, sea captain Jean Ribaut enters and names "Portus Regalis." He establishes Charlesfort honoring heir to the throne, Charles IX.

1576

Spanish destroy French colony at Charlesfort, reclaim area for Spain.

1663

William Hilton arrives in the area hoping to establish a British colony.

1670

Territory of Port Royal granted to Lord Ashley (Anthony Ashley Cooper) by King Charles II. Lord's Proprietors decide to move infant British colony to Charleston.

1706

Indian Trader John Cochran secures Spring Island through a Crown grant.

1715 – 1717

South Carolina and Georgia ravaged by Yemassee War; John Cochran killed in Pocataligo, SC.

1715 – c. 1885

Spring Island owned by the heirs of John Cochran, including Mary Cochran Barksdale and John Edwards, Jr., George Edwards' parents.

1776

George Edwards born. In 1800 he is recorded as residing permanently on Spring Island.

1816

George and Elizabeth Edwards purchase 14 Legare Street in Charleston, SC.

April 11, 1859

George Edwards dies. His son, George Barksdale Edwards dies in June of 1860.

November 7, 1861

Battle of Port Royal Sound.

January 1, 1863

Harriet Tubman hears the Emancipation Proclamation read in Beaufort, SC.

December 16, 1910

Freed slave Collins Mitchell dies on Spring Island.

1920

Colonel William Copp purchases Spring Island.

1966

Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Walker, Jr. purchase Spring Island from Mrs. John F. Lucas.

1990

Chaffin Light Associates purchase Spring Island. The Spring Island Trust is established.

Commercial Waterways

Since earliest times until the mid-20th century Spring Islanders' journeyed as much by water as land. In early colonial days it was generally safer and easier traveling by ship or bateau than on dirt roads or trails that were often muddy, rutted and impassable.

Native Americans navigated local coastal waterways by dugout canoe. Their trade was mostly with inland tribes, penetrating deep into the Piedmont via the Savannah and Santee Rivers. A major trading post between colonists and local Indians was located where the Chechessee gatehouse is today.

Empire Outpost

Port Royal Sound was explored, settled and fortified by Spain long before England's colonies were established. Its superb natural harbor and deep channel offered ideal protection from hurricanes and storms. Its strategic value was guarding shipping lanes.

In 1525, Lucas de Allyon on a scouting expedition from Hispaniola (now Cuba) named the point of land off St Helena's Island, "Punta Santa Elena." Spanish attempts settling the region all ended in disaster.

"No Fauer or Fytter Place"

Six other national flags have flown over Port Royal Township. Jean Ribaut named "Portus Regalis" for its size and grandeur. His crew built Charlesfort off the eastern side of Parris Island. Ship captains William Hilton and Robert Sanford separately explored Port Royal Sound prior to English migrants from Barbados settling Lady's Island in 1670.

Deepwater access was a key to Spring Island's early history. Boats have access 24/7 to various locations on the perimeter of the island.

Battle of Port Royal Sound

November 7, 1861, on a clear and beautiful morning, Spring Island's inhabitants would have heard opening salvoes of a massive bombardment by the "Federal South Atlantic Blockading Squadron," commanded by Samuel F. Du Pont on the flagship USS Wabash. The Federal fleet had sailed from Hampton Roads to blockade Port Royal.

Their targets were land forts guarding the entrance to the Sound—Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island and Fort Beauregard on Bay Point. On November 2, 1861, a small Confederate "Mosquito Fleet," including the Savannah and Lady Davis had sallied forth from Savannah to help defend against a fleet of overwhelming size and strength.

The Federal fleet executed a battle plan involving a two-mile long elliptical sailing pattern, firing first on one fort, then another. By mid-afternoon both forts were in the hands of Federal forces. Following the engagement many Southern whites fled the area, leaving behind thousands of slaves. The Union army shortly occupied Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, St. Helena's, Ladies' and Fripp Islands.

Early History

Spring Island's tabby ruins were once part of an elegant plantation home owned by George Edwards (1776 – 1859). Edwards traced his lineage back to John Cochran, who received Spring Island as a Crown Grant from the Lords proprietors in 1706.

The Edwards family was one of the wealthiest of South Carolina's Low Country planters, making their fortune growing Sea Island cotton. Historical records indicate that this business was extraordinarily lucrative.

George and Elizabeth Edwards

In 1812 Spring Island had four main plantation settlements, including the nearby ruins. At least 250 slaves worked here in 1840. By 1850 the land was valued at $50,000, with the slaves and animals at $100,000 (roughly $3 million by today's standards).

The Edwards family lived on Spring Island periodically, spending summers in Charleston while sometimes vacationing in Saratoga Springs. George and Elizabeth Edwards' primary residence was a grand Adams-style townhouse at 14 Legare Street, Charleston, purchased in 1816. They attended St. Michael's church in Charleston. During antebellum times some plantation owners and families attended church with their slaves. The Edwards may have done so or worshiped privately (no record exists of a freestanding chapel on Spring Island).

Civil War Diarist

In February 1862, Federal sergeant John Frederick Holohan, stationed on Hilton Head Island, left a remarkable diary entry and map recording his impressions of Spring Island while foraging for supplies. He found the place virtually deserted, with the exception of some slaves.

Tuesday, February 4th, 1862
…Landed on Spring Island at the mansion of Dr. Edwards […] The Island is…covered with unplucked corn and unpicked cotton. Herds of cattle, half wild, roam about at will…Dwelling houses for overseers and larger buildings for the storage of cotton were at intervals along the shore where landings were made.

Wednesday 5th, 1862
…The building was large, roomy and imposing externally, and had been furnished with elegance and taste by the opulent proprietor of the Island. But vandals had smashed the grand piano, cut and mutilated the costly paintings and furniture and carried off the best carpets and other articles capable of removal.

…Magnificent avenues of live oaks led away in three directions at least for half a mile, and the immediate grounds were enclosed by a fence of ossage, orange, trimmed as rectangular as a stone wall and ornamental shrubbery adorned the grounds. Flowers grew every-where in profusion and everything about us was calculated to delight the eye and overpower the senses with beauty and fragrance!

Aftermath

The Edwards house was still standing in 1872, not burned by Federal troops as myth would have it. In January 1865 some of Sherman's forces traveled by sea to Beaufort from Savannah. They left on land traveling towards Gardens Corners, roughly along the path of present-day Highway 21.

George Edwards died in 1859; his son George Barksdale Edwards died in 1860 at 50 years of age. In 1861, Spring Island was seized for non-payment of taxes by the Federal government. The onset of the War Between the States interrupted litigation in the courts over ownership and then proceeded from 1865 through 1872. That year Elizabeth Inwood purchased Spring Island for $8600.00. When she died in1885 her son, Henry Creode Trenholm Inwood, became the last collateral descendent of John Cochran to own Spring Island.

First Inhabitants

Native Americans inhabited Spring Island at least 8000 years ago. Archeological sites among its woods, creeks and river/marsh edges have yielded many artifacts, mostly from the Woodland period (500 B.C. to 1000 A.D). Tools, pottery shards, projectile points, beautiful grinding stones and deer horn needles offer clues into daily life, demonstrating skilled craftsmanship and sophisticated design sense. An important burial site lies below the 17th green.

Food and Hunting

Spring Island's estuarial ecosystem offered plentiful and diverse food supplies to Native Americans. Chroniclers noted the wellness of people living in the Port Royal region. Their diet included shellfish, fish, acorn and hickory nuts, grapes and other wild fruits and vegetables. Indians hunted deer, wild turkeys, raccoons and alligators.

The hunting and fishing abilities of Indians were renowned. In c. 1575, Fontenada wrote that Indians, "are great anglers and at no time lack fresh fish." Matthews, in 1680, observed their fishing with, "netts, hooks, weirs, and by shooting them with arrows."

Old Settlements and Colonial Disruption

Prior to European invasion, each tribe constituted a Nation with a king as its leader—its size being measured in number of bowmen. Warriors raided, took captives and occasionally killed members of rival nations. Early Europeans described Indian laws and social customs as ethical.

Local tribal groups included the Witcheaugh, Escamacu and Wimbee. These relatively small tribes spoke different languages. Few words from Port Royal Sound's original population are preserved for posterity; most Native American place names are from the Yamassee language.

European colonization of the southeastern seaboard brought diseases, disrupted Native American settlement patterns. This destabilized inter-tribal relationships causing refugees to flee into neighboring territories. By some accounts, populations declined to 1/7th their original numbers within 200 years of Spain's first settling Florida.

Yamassee War

Spring Island lay on a fault line between Spanish and British interests. Yamassee refugees from Florida and Georgia were first documented arriving into the Carolinas in 1684. Their tribe had already absorbed Guale (St Augustine) and Tamo (Oconee River) tribes-people. By the early 1700's a "reserve" of ten Yamasee towns had formed, three in the Low Country, including Chechessee (Ichisi) and Ocute. Numerous abuses by European traders were perpetrated on the Yamassee. Indian trader John Cochran was infamous for mistreating indigenous peoples. April 15th 1715, the Yamassee revolted, massacring over a hundred settlers, looting plantations, burning settlements, including the town of Beaufort. The Yamassee War continued through 1717.

Medicine Men

Early European settlers understood Native Americans to have tremendous expertise preparing and prescribing medicinal cures from plants. Monardes News from the Newfound World detailed uses of sassafras (called "pauame" by a local tribe). Another wonder plant, the 'Beades of Sainct Helen,' was probably the American potato bean (Apios Americana, Apios tuberosa). In 1718 Lawson observed Sewee, "Practitioners that have extraordinary Skill and Success... not often going above one-hundred Yards from their Abode for their Remedies." Dr. D. Rogers The American Physician (1824) drew heavily on Native American's practice of folk medicine.

Shared Remedies

European migrants encountered some known and many unfamiliar medicinal plants. The wax myrtle or bayberry (Myrica cerifera) is a common Spring Island shrub. Settlers made a stimulant for weak mucous membranes by mixing its root bark with wax made from its berries. Its leaves were used to flavor soups or scattered around doorways to repel fleas. The Low Country's Gullah people, of African American heritage, refer to it today as mucklebush.

A common understory tree is sassafras (Sassafras albidum). Its roots are dried and made into tea, its leaves ground to produce ointment for skin treatments. Sassafras was an early colonial export product to Europe; bulk shipments to England were used to treat colic, general aches and pains and venereal disease.

The "toothache tree" is also called prickly ash (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis). Native Americans brewed tea from bark and berries as cure for toothache — a practice borrowed by European and African Americans. This grove may well have been established around the 1800's next to a slave quarters.

African American "Doctoring"

Waring's History of Medicine in South Carolina noted, …"the medical care of the slave was in general as good as that of his master and better than that of the lower class white man." Folk medications involving plant remedies were an essential part of health care practices within enslaved African American communities.

Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is everywhere you look on Spring Island. Its early uses included relief of arthritis, prepared by boiling the plant. Some Gullah people still use it as a remedy for high blood pressure, lining their shoes with the green plant. Life everlasting (Gnaphalium polycephalum) can be boiled or dried and smoked and is sometimes called "rabbit tobacco." A woman raised nearby recalled, "I can remember when I caught a cold; just before I went to bed my mother would boil some 'life everlasting.'"

When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies
I bid farewell to every fear
And wipe my weeping eyes.
Hymn, written by Dr. Isaac Watts

Hallowed Grove

Three marked graves repose below a towering tree canopy and an understory that stretches towards the eastern marsh side and Atlantic Ocean. Two offer the names of African American veterans, Gullah men who fought for the Union during the Civil War. A more elaborate tombstone at the center of the cemetery marks the resting place of a young woman.

The "Old House" cemetery was originally set aside to serve the community of enslaved workers living in a nearby slave row, or quarters. After emancipation the land was used as a burial ground by families of tenant farmers. The total number of graves in the space is a mystery—possibly in the hundreds. Outside of working conditions on plantations, mortality rates were very high for children (from yellow fever, malaria) and women (at childbirth).

'Mid the sunny flat on the cotton field
Lies an acre of forest-tangle still;
A cloister dim, where the grey moss waves
And the live oaks lock their arms at will…
The Negro Burying Ground, written by W. C. Gannett, Unitarian minister

Burial Rites

Descriptions of nighttime plantation funerals appear in antebellum letters and diaries and later testimonials from ex-slaves. They often mention the 'ring shout' or 'plantation walk-around,' which had roots in the sacred "Circle dance" (still practiced in regions of West and Central Africa). The following anecdote, transcribed in the speaker's Gullah patois, conjures a scene from long ago:

Dey go in a long pruhcession tuh duh burying ground
an dey beat duh drums long duh way an dey submit duh boy to duh ground.
Den dey dance roun in a ring and dey motion wid duh hans.
Dey sing duh body tuh duh grabe an den dey let it down
and dey succle roun in duh dance.

Most of the graves in the cemetery are now unmarked owing to the growth of ground vegetation. Before the Second World War the graveyard likely looked very different. Some graves would have been decorated with shell markings. This tradition is thought to originate with BaKonga tribes people in Congo, who believe seashells shroud the immortal soul. Other grave marking techniques would have denoted the continuation of African traditions. These included decorating a loved ones resting place with personal and household belongings (spectacles, gun locks, clocks, chinaware, etc.), by carved objects or plants (yucca and cedar).

I wonder where my mudder gone;
Sing, O graveyard!
Graveyard ought to know me;
Ring Jerusalem!
Grass grow in de graveyard;
Sing, O Graveyard!

Graveyard ought to know me;
Ring Jerusalem!

Ground-Penetrating Radar Study (GPR)

In 2006 a GPR study completed by researchers from the University of Georgia at Athens surveyed two quadrants of the "Old House" cemetery—roughly 20 x 30 and 7 x 7 yards in size. Research data provided computerized imaging, showing patterns of grave 'anomalies,' some directed north-south, most lying east-west. Researchers also determined that there might be cluster patterns, thought to suggest the presence of family plots.

Ghosts and Spirits

Gullah custom discourages people spending time in cemeteries, believed to be places where unquiet spirits remain. Voodoo practices are also associated with graveyards. Many references to spirits, hags, spooks and ghosts survive within the oral and written histories of the Low Country.

Establishment of Praise Houses

Buildings referred to as "pray's" or meeting houses—or simply classrooms once dotted sea-islands of the Low Country.

Praise house leaders were revered laypersons, versus clerics. Their responsibilities included leading religious services and upholding "just laws" when presiding over ad hoc courts. Praise houses also acted as community centers and schools. A praise house stood in the Bonny Shore area of Spring Island; first-person accounts in the early 20th century refer to it as a school for black children.

Praise houses sprang up in sizable numbers on plantations like the Edwards' estate. Their prevalence reflected slave communities being widely scattered across the landscape, comprising individuals hailing from diverse regions of West Africa (holding different spiritual beliefs). Additional praise houses were built when missionary activity brought new Christian denominations to plantation communities.

Religious Practices

Religious expression for the first African slaves on Spring Island would have been in open-air, "brush arbor" meetings organized somewhat outside the control of planter or overseer. In the early 1800s a string of slave uprisings spurred South Carolina's planters to fund the "Plantation Mission System," an initiative promoting Christianity. At this time some plantation owners and their families attended Sunday church services with their slaves. The Edwards family may have done so—or worshiped privately (no record exists of a freestanding chapel on Spring Island).

From the early 1800s on praise houses became increasingly important to the communities they served. Their most important function was as places of fellowship. Congregants sought God, underwent initiation—gaining spiritual instruction before being baptized and formally welcomed as church members.

Certain religious customs practiced in praise house were drawn directly from West Africa—for example, the "shout" and the practice of rhythmic hand clapping. Such traditions are now woven into the Gullah heritage and the "praise house spirit."

Voodoo and Magic

Art and spirituality are entwined in African folk cultures and this quality became a part of African American traditions within the Low Country. "Haint Blue" painted on window and door-frames is a particular color thought to ward off evil spirits.

"Root" customs share characteristics with African voodoo/hoodoo practices. Specialists known as "doctors" among enslaved peoples had knowledge of natural medicines, but also the ingredients for magical potions. The latter practices were kept secret from white people who feared and tried to eradicate them.

African American Veterans of the Civil War

The "Old House" cemetery includes two graves belonging to Gullah infantrymen who fought for the Union in the War Between the States, their service earning them stone markers. They both served in the 21st Regiment, United States Colored Troops (USCT).

Anthony Edwards' grave is located due west of this sign. Nearby is the resting place of Collins Mitchell, who was born between 1824 and 1830, likely on Spring Island.

For reasons unknown Collins Mitchell enlisted in the army as "John Fripp," the name carved on his headstone. Mitchell died a free man on Spring Island December 16, 1910.

Enslaved Family

Collins, his wife Bella, their daughter and son were all enslaved on the Edwards' plantation. When George Edwards' died, his son George Barksdale raised money by auctioning some slaves—including Mitchell and his family. They were sold in Charleston's slave market on February 15 1860.

Bella was sold to a different buyer than the rest of the family, a calamitous event. In a remarkable story they were reunited before the end of the Civil War—during which time they experienced years of upheaval, saw Emancipation, returning to Spring Island free of thralldom.

Civil War Adventures

The opportunity to reunite was significantly improved following the Battle of Port Royal Sound, when many white South Carolinians fled the Low Country. Thousands of slaves were left behind; many refused to accompany their owners. Those willing to take the risk fled servitude, making the dangerous trek to the protection of Union lines.

Collins Mitchell next appears working as a paid laborer for the Union forces on Morris Island, at the mouth of Charleston Harbor—a crucial base in the Union siege of Charleston. On the December 27, 1864 he enlisted as a private in the 21st Regiment, USCT.

His most remarkable day as an infantryman was likely February 18, 1865. After Confederate forces abandoned Charleston, soldiers from the 21st Regiment were first to enter the city, along with black troops of the 54th Massachusetts. The USCT troops landed at docks located only a few hundred yards from a slave pen where G. V. Ancker had purchased Mitchell and his children five years previously.

Return to Spring Island

April 25, 1866 John Fripp/Collins Mitchell was mustered out of the U.S. Army and returned to Spring Island with Bella and three daughters. They leased and farmed fifteen acres of land, owning horses, livestock and farm equipment. For over 40 years the family home was a cabin in the old quarters that stood close by the "Old House." Once their children were grown the Mitchell household sometimes saw the presence of grandchildren. Collins Mitchell never owned any land. In 1892 he was awarded a Union veterans pension of $12 per month. Bella applied for a widow pension in 1911.

Slave Settlements

Dozens of buildings on sea island plantations housed enslaved workers and their children. These were organized into "slave rows," or quarters, often located in close proximity to the planter's home. One such settlement lay to the east of this sign.

In the early 1990s archeologists studying a quarters located in the Bonny Shore area of Spring Island discovered Colonware pottery artifacts from the 18th and 19th centuries. These were crafted from local clays. Some artists' incised geometric designs on their vessels. These may be Bakongo-inspired cosmograms reflecting a continuation of West African religious beliefs.

Access to potable drinking water factored into the location of the "Old House" quarters. Artesian-fed springs running in a line from the oak allée behind the tabby ruins to Betsy's Pond would likely have supplied cisterns with fresh water.

Slave houses were usually constructed of locally harvested wood and hand-made bricks, possibly resting on tabby foundations. Buildings usually housed one to two family units. Interiors comprised single or double rooms, with fireplaces and sometimes a loft.

An Emerging Culture

Enslaved laborers worked Monday through Saturday. Sundays offered a day of rest from exhausting labor and some time for family or community activities—gardening, fishing, craft making, storytelling, singing and worshiping. Most all these pursuits occurred in the quarters or at praise houses.

Folkways in the quarters were drawn from West African cultures, over time becoming part of Gullah traditions. Tales of Brer Rabbit are thought to come from various West African stories, including "Lapin (rabbit) and Bouki (stupid hyena)" from Senegal. They reflect a worldview where good and evil are not absolutes, a belief expressed by the wise trickster-hero, "Ananse (spider)" of Ghanaian folklore. Here's part of a story recounted by Peter McQueen of Wilmington Island, GA:

Bruh Rabbit and Bruh Wolf wuz alluz tyin tuh git duh best uh one anudduh. Now Bruh Wolf he own a hoe an it work fuh crop all by itsef. Bruh Wolf jis say, 'Swish,' tuh it. Den he sit down in duh fiel an duh hoe do all duh work.

Bruh Rabbit he wahn dat hoe. He hide behine bush an watch how duh wolf make it wuk. One day wen duh wolf away, bruh Rabbit he steal duh hoe. He go tuh he own fiel an he stan duh hoe up an he say, 'Swish.' Duh hoe start to wuk. It wuk and it wuk. Fo long duh crop is done finish. Den rabbit want hoe tuh stop, an he cal out and he call out, but hoe keep right on wukin…

"The Old Plantation" Painting

This historic painting is the only known depiction of plantation life actually dating from the 18th century. Very recent research has revealed that John Rose was the painter. He owned a plantation on the Coosaw River near Beaufort. The exceptional level of detail in the painting tells us something of plantation life in the 1700s. Such moments are described in contemporary diaries and letters.

The work brings to mind the eye of a keen observer. The narrative reflects the artist's point of view, as do his choice of subject matter, composition and colors. Its subtext signifies the power of a plantation owner and his authority over human beings held in bondage.

Early Farming

Spring Island's first inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, foraging seasonally between coastal and inland areas. At some stage in pre-history Native Americans began arable farming. Tribes within the Low Country practiced intercropping on fields adjacent to their villages.

In 1570 Le Jau observed a coastal chief, "labors and fares with the rest," tilling soil. One of Le Moyne's drawings confirms that local tribes maintained granaries where they held seed over for planting. Cultivated crops included pulses, maize, watermelons and musk-melons. William Hilton wrote, "The Indians plant in the worst land because they cannot cut down the timber in the best, and yet have plenty of corn."

Colonial Entrepreneurs

When the French settled Port Royal Sound, logging was highly profitable; native lumber supplied architectural and shipbuilding industries. Spring Island saw cattle farming during John Cochran's tenure. Animals roamed free, without fencing; meat was sold locally or exported to the Caribbean.

In the 18th century plantation economies proliferated. Commerce was driven by national and international demand for rice, indigo, sugar cane and cotton. Desire for profit and availability of large land parcels helped fuel settlement.

The Rise of King Cotton

In the late 18th century Low Country planters developed a unique variety of cotton from seeds of West Indian Gossypium barbadense. In 1793, with the invention of the cotton gin in Savannah, 'Sea island' or 'long staple' cotton became the region's main cash crop. Spring Island's climate and soils were uniquely suited for the cultivation of this 'market class' cotton, which was woven into textiles by industrial mills as far away as Liverpool, England and southern France.

Cotton production is labor-intensive—from soil preparation, planting, harvesting and processing, to packing and transportation. Plantation agriculture facilitated mass production; slavery was key to success. At the peak of its productivity, just before the Civil War, over 300 slaves worked on Spring Island, making its owner George Edwards one of the Low Country's wealthiest planters.

Post-Reconstruction

With the end of slavery Spring Island's plantation economy declined. In the 1880s records suggest upward of 200 tenants survived by sharecropping—cultivating cash crops and fishing commercially.

From 1902 to 1912 Spring Island was owned by the Barony Club—with members hunting, fishing and boating. New ownership in the 1920s saw land use shift to truck farming. At the height of business fifty percent of the land was given over to production of crops such as lettuce and sweet potatoes. In the 1930s cattle and hog-raising supplanted truck farming.

Architectural History

Archeological surveys in the 1990s revealed an earlier habitation stood here in the 1700s, most likely positioned on this spot to catch cool breezes coming off the Atlantic and Port Royal Sound. None of this original structure is visible today; the architecture comprising the surviving ruins was completed in two phases. Erected before 1800, the main house or "Old House" had the basic shape of a rectangular prism.

In the early 19th century George Edwards' redesigned the building into a tripartite form by adding double-height flanking wings, connected to the existing structure with screen walls and a "U-shaped" covered porch. The remodeled home had 1400 square-feet of living space—sufficient for the Edwards family but impractical to host any number of houseguests.

The large tabby outbuilding to the northwest most likely housed domestic slaves. The two smaller structures adjacent to the flanking wings possibly served as kitchens or storerooms.

Construction Methods

The Edwards house is one of the Low Country's outstanding examples of tabby construction. Tabby is a mix of lime, water, sand and oyster shells "quarried" from Native American shell-middens. Shells were burned in oak kilns making lime and used whole in the mix.

Tabby walls are cast in layered sections pouring wet mix into wooden molds. In 1796 the Duc de La Rochefaucauld observed, "The mortar is pounded in with force, and, when they are brim full left for two or three days."

House and Grounds

The oil painting Rosehill-on-the-Combahee depicts a landscape thought to closely resemble the Edwards house in its heyday. A more detailed picture of the mansion on Spring Island, with its terraced gardens and oak allées bordered by cotton fields, comes from the pages of Federal Sgt. Frederick Holohan's diary.

February 5, 1862, he wrote, "…Magnificent avenues of live oaks led away in three directions at least for half a mile, and the immediate grounds were enclosed by a fence of ossage, orange, trimmed as rectangular as a stone wall and ornamental shrubbery adorned the grounds. Flowers grew every-where in profusion and everything about us was calculated to delight the eye and overpower the senses with beauty and fragrance!"

Artisans and Builders

George Edwards' slaves would have done basic construction work on the main house. In addition highly skilled bondsmen such as masons and plasterers were needed to build fireplaces, fabricate plaster moldings. Men were 'hired out' from neighboring plantations to complete construction work requiring special expertise. This system was one of the few ways a slave could earn money and in some cases, purchase freedom.

Artifacts (eg. chinaware) reflecting European design tastes have been recovered at the Edwards house. Such products were not necessarily imported. Wealthy Charlestonians might purchase house-ware from Europe, but South Carolina was a regional center for ideas and fashions, supporting its own craft industry.