History of Beaufort, South Carolina
Traces of the area’s first inhabitants, the Archaic Indians, date back 4,000 years. Europeans made their first appearance with Spanish galleons around 1521. In the early 1500s, Spain found a Port Royal anchorage ideal for explorations. When France’s Captain Jean Ribaut arrived in 1562, he felt he would find “no faurer or fytter place” than “Porte Royall”.
Adventurers from England, Spain and Scotland all attempted to claim the area for their crowns during the next two centuries. In the 1715 Yemassee War, Native Americans -- Yemassee and Tuscarora Indians -- also fought to regain the land. Pirates joined the fray, too.
Beaufort entered its golden era about 1800, when Sea Island cotton debuted, and many of Beaufort’s loveliest mansions were built by the wealthy owners of cotton, indigo, and rice plantations. By the 1800s, Port Royal -- the Town incorporated in 1874 -- also had found peace and prosperity. It even boasted a Navy yard, but an 1893 hurricane and economic calamities later brought hard times.
The entire downtown Beaufort area is designated a historic district. Architecture from many grand cultures and eras includes French, Colonial, Spanish-American, and Revolutionary origins. At least 90 significant homes, forts, churches, cemeteries, inns, and other buildings are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Port Royal showcases 40 historic homes and sites.
The Beaufort area history also recognizes the Reconstruction era when significant strides were made in originating the nation’s education of newly freed slaves. African American heritage is carefully preserved throughout the area and especially celebrated at Penn Center where a museum exhibits rare artifacts and crafts.
Museums are a beginning for an educational and interesting look at the history of the area. Beaufort's entire downtown is designated a national historical district.
John Mark Verdier House
801 Bay St.
Built circa 1805 for a wealthy merchant-planter, beautifully restored by the Historic Beaufort Foundation.
The Beaufort Museum
713 Craven St.
Housed in the 1795 Beaufort Arsenal. Exhibits tell the story of cotton, rice and indigo creating plantation life, then the wars which changed the character of the area along with that of the country
Beaufort’s history also reflects its involvement in the Civil War. Serving beside the Massachusetts 54th, made famous in the movie, "Glory," were the five Gullah regiments, all recruited in Beaufort. Among them was the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the earliest regiment of freed slaves in the South to be mustered into Union service. Not far from where these soldiers tented long ago, not far from where so many lie at honored rest in the Beaufort National Cemetery, the home of Civil War hero Robert Smalls still stands. Famous for escaping slavery by piloting a Confederate ship past rebel forces at Charleston Harbor and delivering it into Union hands in Beaufort, Smalls became the first African-American United States Congressman and a noted Gullah statesman.