Beaufort, South Carolina

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“Beaufort, S. C.” from Sketches of South Carolina by Gustavus Memminger Middleton, 1908.

To the coast region belongs the credit of introducing civilization to the hitherto unknown but now populous districts of the interior of the State. Of the three points from which the new influences radiated, Beaufort, Charleston and Georgetown, the first named was the pioneer. More than a century before the settlement of "Old Town" on the Ashley River the French Huguenots effected a landing in the neighborhood of Port Royal, probably on the island recently utilized by the United States as a Naval Station, judging by the remains of old landmarks there.

This attempt, like that of Sir Walter Raleigh at Roanoke Island near the coast of North Carolina, about twenty years later, resulted disastrously, so that beyond the distinction of being the first landing of European colonists on the soil of South Carolina, the page of history is silent even as to their fate, but in the ferocious hostility that everywhere actuated the religious wars of that period, it is supposed that they perished at the hands of merciless Spaniards further South.

The settlement of Jamestown in Virginia, having preceded all attempts at English colonization, was the focus of a considerable distribution of population, the general trend of which was to the South; from thence came an accession to the plantations of the Albemarle and Cape Fear communities. Of course most of the communication between the inhabited points of the coast was by the easy transit of the ocean, and about 1664 the diary of Robert Sandford's voyage from Cape Fear to Port Royal gives a very interesting description of the country and water courses, especially of what was then called St. George's Bay, now Charleston harbor, and of the friendly Indians with whom he sojourned in the neighborhood of Port Royal.

It would appear from many circumstances that Beaufort should have been the chief port of entry of the State; its elevation, like Savannah, is many feet above the highest tide which rises and falls in navigable streams extending in its rear and forming almost a complete inland route for many miles north and south. From the residential part of Bay street, which is some fifteen feet above high tide, the view is a striking one for the low country. The Beaufort River, though curving here from right to left, forming a peninsula of the town behind which it disappears to join the Coosaw or Whale Branch, where the main land begins, presents an unobstructed vista for seven miles to Parris Island, beyond which its waters expand into the immensity of ocean, several miles further still.

On the right bank halfway between Beaufort and the picturesque hamlet of Port Royal, which occupies the point of land lying between Beaufort River and its branch called Battery Creek, is one of those beautiful oak groves which adorn the low country; from its extent and irregular growth it appears to have been the work of nature and is conspicuous for many miles around from its elevated ground and its never failing verdure.

Still more interesting as the work of unknown hands, on the sandy stretches of the beach below the grove lie the remains of a tabby fort about a hundred and fifty feet square, one only of its sides resting on the main, the rest slanting with the beach and one of its lower angles submerged at high tide, the gradual encroachment thereof telling a tale of unrecorded time. Its modern name is the "Old Spanish Fort," and the supposition, according to a local authority, is that it was a construction of Governor Sayle of "Old Town" on the Ashley, in order to protect the inland settlers from the Spaniards, for the site is admirably suited to check marine invasion, commanding the channel of the river crosswise where it is quite narrow and also lengthwise, in its approaches from the South.

The Town of Beaufort, laid out in 1717 is never lost sight of from any point on the river, curving like Naples and showing its fine old mansions when lost to the eye by the aid of glasses from the lower stretches of the river. It seems a reasonable conjecture that the more land-locked harbor of Charleston and its greater distance from the Spanish settlements of Florida must have prevailed over the many attractive features of the Port Royal region, in transferring the energies of the first comers and finally concentrating greater numbers on the peninsula formed by the Kiawah and Etiwan. Beaufort, therefore, early withdrew from the race for commercial supremacy, and pursued the more quiet career of a rural community, unsurpassed in the character of its society by any in the State and adorned by some of the most distinguished citizens and professional men. The crops for many miles around being entirely of the highland varieties and girdled by salt water inlets, excluding rice culture, the healthfulness exceeds that of places adjacent to swamps and fresh water.

Beaufort claims, on its historic side, the only Secretary of the Navy ever contributed by South Carolina to the National Cabinet in the person of Paul Hamilton in the early part of the last century. Some very substantial houses of great antiquity stand along the eastern and lower section of the water front, protected by strong sea walls enclosing gardens and lawns shaded by mammoth specimens of still more ancient oaks.

Middleton, Gustavus Memminger.* Sketches of South Carolina.* Walker, Evans, and Cogswell, 1908.

Gustavus Middleton

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