Selected Extracts From:

Archaeological Survey and Testing of the Cram Tract 
Beaufort County, South Carolina
Prepared For Calibogue River Partnership Hilton Head Island, SC
By Tina M. Rust Archaeologist, Bruce G. Harvey Historian, 
and Todd McMakin Archaeologist
Under the Direction of Eric C. Poplin, Ph.D. Principal Investigator
Copyright July 1997

[118 pages plus preface and appendices]

Brockington and Associates, Inc. 
1051 Johnnie Dodds Blvd., Suite F
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464  
843-881-3128

This copy made with permission of Eric Poplin, Brockington and Associates,
Inc.

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What is now the Cram Tract lies at the farthest tip of Colleton Neck, the thin
point of land surrounded by the Colleton River on the northwest, the
Chechessee River on the northeast, and Mackey's Creek on the south and east.
Once a part of a larger Barony, by the mid-nineteenth century the smaller
tract was known as Foot Point Plantation. This tract reflects a broad
historical process that took place throughout Beaufort District and Beaufort
County, and indeed throughout the South Carolina Low Country from the
eighteenth into the twentieth century.

The original owners of agricultural land in the Low Country only rarely were
the original inhabitants; the owners, instead, resided either in Charleston or
London. Later in the eighteenth century, as rice and other staple crops became
increasingly dominant throughout the Low Country, the plantations gained more
elaborate residences and structures to house and supply the owners and the
owners' numerous slaves. While the original plantations often were divided
during the antebellum era, they continued primarily as agricultural sites with
an emphasis on rice, cotton, and occasional subsistence crops. The Civil War
heavily damaged the plantations on the Sea Islands and the immediate
surroundings, such as Foot Point. With the loss of crops, machinery, slave
labor, and human life, the basis for the antebellum plantation economy and
society collapsed. New land management systems and new methods of financing
the crops emerged to replace the older plantation system. Northern speculators
arrived at the end of the Civil War, hoping to take advantage of the
inexpensive land. Few of these new individual investors survived, and during
the late nineteenth century the land passed into the hands of northern and
southern companies dedicated to developing the land for timber or recreation.

The course of ownership at Foot Point Plantation was not unlike those of many
other tracts in Beaufort County. It was originally part of a large Barony
given to a Lords Proprietor in the early eighteenth century. After leaving the
hands of the original family in the early nineteenth century, the original
Barony was divided and Foot Point Plantation passed into the hands of local
large landowners in the first heyday of plantation society in antebellum South
Carolina. In the wake of the Civil War, the Plantation was broken down further
and owned in rapid succession by a series of speculator owners, some of them
From New England. Foot Point Plantation along with several other tracts in the
original Barony were then recombined by locally-based companies during the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a process that continued
through the twentieth century.

The project tract lies within the original Devil's Elbow Barony, sometimes
called the Okatee Barony. The 12,000 acre signiory was granted to Sir John
Colleton in 1718. Colleton was the grandson of Sir John Colleton, one of the
original Lords Proprietors (Smith 1988:86). Mile staying in the Colleton
family throughout the eighteenth century, it passed through an alternating
series of John and Peter Colletons. Table 2 outlines the record of ownership
of the project tract.

Table 2. Record of Land Ownership of the Cram Tract.

   Date  Purchaser                         Reference
   1718  Sir John Colleton Smith           1988:86
   1726  Peter Colleton Smith              1988:87
   1747  Honorable John Colleton Smith     1988:87
   1750  Peter Colleton Smith              1988:88
   1756  Sir John Colleton Smith           1998:88
   1777  Louisa C. C. Graves Smith         1988:89
c. 1818  Samuel Colleton Graves            CCDB V9:511
c. 1829  Master in Equity                  CCDB V9:511
   1829  John Stoney                       CCDB V9:511
   ?     Bank of Charleston, SC            CCDB T1 1:257
   1845  Daniel Joye                       CCDB T 11:257
   1853  John A. Seabrook                  SCHS:35-1853-5 Jan.
   1864  Henry Seabrook and Thomas Colcock CCDB T-14#5:119
   1866  Foot Point Land Company           CCDB A-14#7:181
   ?     James M. Eason                    CCDB G15:659
   1879  Charles T. Lowndes                BCDB 11:634
   1882  John C. Phillips                  BCDB 12:542
   1888  Edward Gibbs and John Mitchell    BCDB 16:86
   1890  Willis Sparks                     BCDB 17:104
   1896  Hunting Island Company            BCDB 19:625
   ?     Cram Family Kennedy et al.        1994:35

Sir John transferred title to the barony to his second son, Peter, in 1726.
Both Sir John and peter were very influential landowners in South Carolina,
with extensive holdings in Barbados and Carolina during the late seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries. However, neither resided at or developed the
Devil's Elbow Barony. Peter Colleton died before 1748 and the barony
transferred to his brother, the Honorable John Colleton. The Honorable John
Colleton was the first to plan for the development of the barony (Smith
1988:87-88).

The Honorable John Colleton died about 1750. He passed title to the barony to
his eldest son, Peter. Peter Colleton, however, died about 1756, and the
barony passed to his son, Sir John Colleton. While Sir John Colleton was sent
to England as a child, it was under his ownership that the barony was
developed and improved (Smith 1988:88).

By the Revolutionary War, according to Smith (1988:88), the Barony was growing
indigo and raising cattle. While the family never resided at the Barony, there
was a force of slaves at the property. Figure 2 provides a view of Devil's
Elbow Barony in 1786. By this time the northernmost point of Colleton Neck,
now including the project tract, was already known as Foot Point.
Archaeologists working on the project tract discovered evidence of slave
occupations at this principal settlement site along the Colleton River.

The last Sir John Colleton died in 1777, and in his will left Devil's Elbow
Barony to his only daughter, Louisa Carolina Colleton. She married Richard
Graves, an Admiral with the British Navy. Together they also owned Fairlawn,
the Colleton family's homestead in Berkeley County. They sold the Barony to
their son Samuel in 1817, though it is possible that Samuel had actual control
of the property before then, as he purchased a total of 116 slaves in 1817 and
1818 (Kennedy et al. 1994:31).

Samuel Graves had mortgaged the Barony in 1818. When he died, sometime before
1829, his heirs were forced to sell the Barony to pay off the debts. At this
point the Barony was divided into several parcels and offered for sale by the
Master in Equity. John Stoney purchased the following two tracts at public
auction in February 1829: the Ferry tract (942 acres), and the Foot Point
tract (805 acres) (Smith 1988:89; Charleston County Deed Book [CCDB]
V-9:510-512). The Stoney family had been active in purchasing land in Beaufort
District throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
especially on Hilton Head Island (Holmgren 1959:132-133). The deeds do not
indicate any improvements on the land. At the same time, Mills' 1825 Atlas
(Figure 3) shows Colleton Neck without any improvements.

Available evidence does not allow for a precise date when John Stoney sold the
property. It must have been before 1842, however, for in that year the Bank of
Charleston purchased the Foot Point Tract from the Master in Equity. In 1845,
the Bank of Charleston in turn sold the 805 acre tract to Daniel Joye for
$12,050 (CCDB T-1 1:257). Again, the deed noted no improvements to the land.
Daniel Joye died in about 1852. In early 1853 his widow Elvira, as Executrix,
along with William Bee and William Lloyd, sold Foot Point Plantation to John
A. Seabrook for $15,400 (South Carolina Historical Society [SCHS] 35-1853-5
Jan.). At this point, the Plantation included 805 acres along with a detached
250-acre tract of pine land.

The Seabrook family retained interest in Foot Point Plantation for more than a
decade. In 1864, John Seabrook sold Foot Point Plantation, now containing only
525 acres, to Henry Seabrook of Edisto Island and Thomas H. Colcock of
Charleston for $100,000 (CCDB T-14 #5:119). On the same day in March 1864,
Henry Seabrook and Thomas Colcock also purchased from Charles J. Colcock the
adjacent 344-acre tract that is now known as Victoria Bluff. This tract
included 179 acres of land that had once been a part of Foot Point Plantation
and 165 acres of land that had once been a part of Camp Plantation (CCDB, T-14
#5:123). Figure 4 shows the location of the Foot Point Plantation
"Settlement."

According to a later deed (CCDB A-14 #7:181-184), Henry Seabrook and Thomas H.
Colcock purchased these two tracts as trustees for a group of investors who
were awaiting formal notification from the State of South Carolina of their
incorporation as the Foot Point Land Company. A number of significant
Charleston businessmen were interested in this new company. These individuals
included William Gregg, the entrepreneur and manufacturing promoter; W.
Ravenel, presumably William Ravenel, who was a merchant and shipping agent and
a partner with William Bee, an executor for the estate of Daniel Joye, in a
blockade-running shipping firm; James M. Eason, a successful foundry owner and
politician; R.B. Rhett, the outspoken leader of secession in 1830; Roswell
Ripley, a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army who assisted Beauregard in
the defense of Charleston in the Civil War; and William Whaley, a Columbia
industrialist (CCDB A-14 #7:181-182; CCDB U-14 #1:296-299). The Foot Point
Land Company received its charter in December 1864, and in late March 1866
Seabrook and Colcock deeded the property to the Company.

The Foot Point Land Company held the property for no more than two years. The
historical record does not provide the precise date when the Foot Point Land
Company sold the land. In 1868, however, James M. Eason owned the land (CCDB
G-15:659). It is unclear how Eason acquired the land. While he was a partner
in the Foot Point Land Company, there are no available records to indicate the
dissolution of the Company. By 1868, Eason was having financial difficulties
and was forced to mortgage his properties to Charles Lowndes, a Charleston
merchant. These properties included Foot Point Plantation and numerous lots in
the City of Charleston (CCDB G-15:659).

The years of Reconstruction after the Civil War (1865-1877) were difficult
ones in the South Carolina Low Country. Land was cheap, but the fact that it
was a time of transition between slave labor and free labor, that much of the
infrastructure in Beaufort District had been damaged or destroyed, and that
markets were volatile, made it difficult to capitalize on the inexpensive
land. James Eason apparently found this to be the case, for in 1879 he proved
incapable of meeting his mortgage to Charles Lowndes. On 1 December 1879
Eason, having failed to pay the mortgage, delivered the deed to Lowndes in
order "to avoid the expenses of foreclosure" (Beaufort County Deed Book [BCDB]
11:634).

From Lowndes, Foot Point Plantation passed through the hands of two different
New England investors. In 1882, Lowndes sold Foot Point Plantation to John C.
Phillips, a resident of Boston (BCDB 12:542). Phillips, however, died in 1885,
and the executors of his estate sold Foot Point Plantation to Edward Gibbs and
John Mitchell, both of Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1888 (BCDB 16:86). Gibbs and
Mitchell then turned the plantation over to Willis B. Sparks in 1890 (BCDB
17:104). By this time Foot Point Plantation encompassed 575 acres; the deed
also refers to marshlands appertaining to the plantation, "supposed to be
about one thousand acres." Sparks, a resident of Macon, Georgia, was the
President of the Macon & Savannah Construction Company, and apparently held an
interest in the Macon & Atlantic Railway Company (BCDB 19:625).

Sparks had apparently been buying several properties in the Colleton Neck
vicinity, totaling over 5,000 acres. In 1891, the firm of J.S. McTighe and
Company sued Sparks, the Macon & Atlantic Railway, and the Macon & Savannah
Construction Company in Beaufort County's Court of Common Pleas. As a result,
Sparks relinquished control of the land, and it went into the hands of a
court-appointed receiver. In 1896, the receiver then sold all of the lands,
including Oak Forest Plantation, Camp Plantation, Trimbleston/Haskell
Plantation, Buckingham Plantation, Toppin Plantation, and the Pope Plantation
that included Foot Point Plantation, to the Hunting Island Company for $15,000
(BCDB 19:625). The Cram family then purchased properties in the Colleton Neck
area, including the Camp Plantation and presumably Foot Point Plantation, in
the late 1920s (Kennedy et al. 1994:35).

The Colleton Neck was an area of great promise through the eighteenth century
and beyond. At this time, the Colleton River was deep and formed a good
harbor. Indeed, according to Smith (1988:86), "Such were its natural
advantages in this respect that the extreme northeastern point of the Barony
on deep water called 'Foot Point' was at quite an early period in the last
[nineteenth] century regarded as the coming site of a great commercial city."
While this dream obviously never came true, many investors throughout the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continued to pursue the dream. They
were, however, nearly all investors from afar, absentee landlords. The one
settlement site as noted on the 1786 and 1864 plats seems to have been a slave
or tenant occupation, and this before the Civil War. There is no written
evidence of more significant occupation on Foot Point Plantation throughout
the historical period.

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[The 13 page bibliograpy has been omitted in this extract.]

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