People and Occupations On Hilton Head Island

The research of the Reconstruction Era would not be complete without identifying the people who were here and how they survived.

Our Hilton Head Island Census and Census Substitutes are transcriptions of many public documents naming residents on Hilton Head Island from 1850 - 1940.

After the army departed in 1868, there were very few white people who remained or settled on the island. We wondered who they were and why they came when history tells us that after the war, the economy was devastated and there were no markets for goods. We know that some of the people were soldiers who served here and returned with their families or married while here and stayed. The attached file shows those who were here and the years they stayed on Hilton Head Island. In this document, the ‘x’ designates the years they lived here, and a number after the ‘x’ is the age recorded on that census record. The names highlighted in red are those for which family records were found by volunteer Rick Bart. Those records can be found at the Heritage Library or in Hilton Head Island People family tree on ancestry.com.

The military hospital treated civilians on the island, mainly after the war was over, from 1865 to 1867. The Register of Civilian Patients lists patients treated, and separates births and blind patients.

Another valuable source for tracking ancestors is the Freedman’s Bank Records.
“Freedman's Savings and Trust Company was incorporated in 1865 by an act signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The purpose of the company was to create an institution where former slaves and their dependents could place and save their money. The original bank was first headquartered in New York and later moved to Washington, D.C. Shortly thereafter branch offices opened in other cities, primarily in ones in the south where there was a larger population of African Americans. Eventually there were 37 branch offices in 17 states with approximately 70,000 depositors (over the banks lifetime) and deposits of more than $57 million. In 1874, as a result of mismanagement, fraud, and other events and situations, Freedman's Bank closed.”
—-ancestry.com
The Heritage Library has extracted the records for people with connections to Hilton Head Island.

A Compilation of Hilton Head Census Records from 1860 to 1900 gives a broad picture of the number of people, their occupations, and their places of birth. Since the names and numbers of slaves were not specific to Hilton Head in 1860, we did not include those numbers then. Formerly enslaved individuals and their occupations are counted starting in 1870.

Comparing the occupations outlined on the Quartermaster Records during the Civil War to the census records after the war give us some idea of the occupations and how they changed post-Army occupation in 1868.