Leamington Plantation

Fast Facts:

General Information - 

  • Location - Lots 24, 25, 26, 27, and 34 of Bayley’s Barony
  • Other names – Hill Place, Dillings’s

Owners -

  • Pope family, 1793
  • Joseph Pope, at confiscation
  • Later acquired by the Beaufort Gun Club which sold it to a group of North Carolina sportsmen who preserved it intact until its recent acquisition by Palmetto Dunes for development.

Land - 450 acres arable land, 984 acres of timber in 1866

Maps - 

    Mosse, "Hilton Head Island, 1783.  Lots 24, 25, 26, 27, and 34"
    Hack, "Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, before 1861"

Bibliography - 

    Holmgren, Research on Hilton Head Island
    Holmgren, Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle
    Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names
 

Additional Information:

Palmetto Dunes Plantation
(Also see Hilton Head Lighthouse)

In 1793 the Popes bought Lot No 4 of Bayley's Baroney and also owned Leamington....Both Joseph and James Pope are listed in the Thorne Loomis accounts as owners of Leamington.

  • Holmgren, Virginia C., Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle, p. 131

John Stoney inherited Leamington from his brother James in 1827.  James had purchased it around 1811.  John mortgaged the land to the Bank of Charleston to cover debts also inherited from his brother.  The Bank sold the land to individuals between 1841 and 1846. (I question this entire statement due to other sources showing Pope ownership in 1793 - perhaps confused with James and Joseph Pope, Joseph is listed as owner of Leamington in Thorne - Loomis accounts.  (Holmgren, p. 131)).

  • Chicora Foundation, Research Series #24, Preliminary Historical Research on the Baynard Plantation, H.H.I., B.C., S.C. (Source material listed in survey)

In the 1870s "a group of investors styling themselves "The Sea Island Company" bought.....and Leamington....

  • Holmgren, p. 108

"Hunters came from the mainland....Several of them banded together as the "Beaufort Club" and bought 1,000 acres of what had once been Leamington, buying the right to hunt where their fathers had once been welcome guests or generous host.  After some years they sold their preserve to a group of hunters from North Carolina, who bought additional land to double the acreage."

  • Holmgren, p. 118

"....a rustic retreat for a group of good friends to spend time together, hunt deer, tell tales, eat venison and stop shaving. The property's days as a hunt club began in the 1880s when the 1500 acres that had been James Pope's Leamington Plantation was sold to a Mr. Wallace of Beaufort.  Wallace and a group of hunting enthusiasts used the land as a preserve until 1917 when they sold the property in turn to the Hilton Head Agricultural Company. This group was commonly called the North Carolina Club, since many of its members were from the Gastonia, N.C. area....consisted of 44 members, all holding an equal share of stock in the company....these shares were sold or handed down to relatives or friends. Members... and their guests, who ranged from state governors to professional baseball players, came to the island from Beaufort or Savannah aboard the Clivedon, an impressive triple decker....For many years the camp consisted of three bunk houses which dated back to at least 1895. According to James M. Workman of Gastonia, graffiti on a wall of the original lodge read "Christmas, 1895, killed 15 deer".....Late in the 1930s two of the original buildings were destroyed by fire, and one new larger house was built.  This lodge still stands (1973) with several smaller out-buildings near Broad Creek....no surviving members of the original club...several gentlemen still recall the good hunting days on Hilton Head Island.  They remember Jake Brown, incomparable 'master of hounds' from 1913 to 1955; "Preacher Driesen's riding bull; venison feasts prepared by camp cooks Sam and Charlie....lodge's wood stove....hunt club sold all 44 shares to the Palmetto Dunes Development Corporation in 1968."

  • The Island Packet, September 3, 1972

Shows Leamington purchased by Freedman Dodd for $1,700 from the Federal government. 

  • Trinkley, Chicora Research Contribution 78, Archaeological Survey of a Portion of Indigo Run Plantation, Hilton Head Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina

With three miles of beautiful ocean beach and two miles of frontage on Broad Creek, vast 2000 acre Leamington Plantation was assembled from Lots 24, 25, 26, 27 and 34 of Bayley’s Barony, once chiefly Davant held property.  At confiscation it was owned by Joseph Pope.  It was not among the extensive island properties left by William Pope in his 1823 will.  Later it was acquired by the Beaufort Gun Club which sold it to a group of North Carolina sportsmen who preserved it intact until its recent acquisition by Palmetto Dunes for development.

  • Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names (Before the Contemporary Development), p.25