Jenkins Island Plantation

Fast Facts: 

General Information - 

  • Location - between Skull Creek and Crooked Creek.
  • Other names - Hog Island, John’s Island, Talbird Island, Pope’s Island

Owners -

  • Isaac Rippen Jenkins
  • William Pope, Sr., Jenkins’ brother-in-law, purchased it circa 1803
  • Joseph Adams Pope, 1823, inherited from his father

See also Hogg Island Plantation.

Land - 315 acres

Slaves - 100 slaves per Federal census of 1800.

Maps - Hack, "Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, before 1861"

Bibliography - 

    Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names before 1861


Additional Information:

38BU871

Between Skull Creek and Jarvis Creek

"....this island between Skull and Crooked (Jarvis) Creeks was evidently in the original Bayley grant and bought by John Gascoigne in June 1729.  It was called John's Island on maps of 1777 and Pope's on the Navy  map of 1873.   Part of it has been called Hogg or Hog Island, and a Hogg family were residents of the parish in early days.  The Jenkins family owned land on St. Helena and Hilton Head, and the Daniel Jenkins who sold Drayton part of his pineland tract may also have been the owner of the island that bears his name.  Sherman's map of 1861 shows several buildings on it, but records no names of the residents.  Nothing else has been found to indicate owners prior to 1900."

  • Holmgren, Virginia C., Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle, p. 129

In the early 1800's Isaac Rippon Jenkins and Hannah Scott Jenkins lived on this plantation. She was of the Grasslawn Plantation family.

  • Peeples, Tales of Ante Bellum Hilton Head Families, p. 5

Records from the 1860's show 500 acres - 300 cultivated, 100 cleared, 100 in woodlands.  A double row of nine slave quarters, four barns or out buildings and a main or overseers house are recorded.  130 occupants are recorded living on the island in 1867. The site is recommended for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. This area represents a large plantation complex covering about eleven acres. Indications are of a high status plantation dwelling and a low status slave row.  References are few - it may have been a minor holding with a resident overseer or driver.  Further research is necessary.

  • Chicora Research Series 13, Archaeological Testing of Six Sites on Hilton Head Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina

In the 1920s Jenkins Island had a shrimp and oyster processing factory. 

  • Oral History Tapes Transcript, 1989

"A series of unusual land formations have prompted an intensive archaeological survey on  Jenkins Island, a tract of land owned by the Hilton Head Company....  Looking at the Island this week were Dr. Robert Stevenson and Miss Susan Jackson of the Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina."

  • The Island Packet, May 3, 1973

Denominated “Hogg Island” in 1733 and later “John’s Island”, on the 1783 Mosse Survey it is “Talbird Island” while the 1873 Navy Map marks it “Pope’s Island”.  The 315 acre plantation between Skull and Crooked Creeks was owned by Isaac Rippon Jenkins, son of Richard Jenkins and Martha Rippon Jenkins Hanahan, widow of Thomas Hanahan.  Isaac Rippon Jenkins married January 17, 1793 Hannah Scott (1777-1800), daughter of Joseph James Scott of Grass Lawn Plantation and his wife, Catherine, daughter of Joseph and Hannah Adams.  The 1800 census shows Isaac Jenkins planting Jenkins Island with the assistance of 100 slaves.  Isaac and Hannah were parents of two daughters: Sarah Jenkins who married Joseph James Pope and Catherine Adams Jenkins who married Dr. George Mosse Stoney of Otterburn.  Isaac Jenkins died around 1803 and Jenkins Island was bought by his brother-in-law, William Pope, Sr. who left it to his son, Joseph Adams Pope, in his will of March 18, 1823.  Jenkins Island it remains.

  • Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names (Before the Contemporary Development), p.22