On Hilton Head Island: 38BUl165
Graham Plantation
General Information - See Also Honey Horn Plantation
Owners -
- Stoney family, 1805
- William J. Graham, owner of a large estate at Grahamville, bought Honey Horn from the Stoneys.
- Confiscated during the Civil War.
Maps - "Hack, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, before 1861"
Bibliography -
Holmgren, Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle
Additional Information:
This is Honey Horn Plantation. "William J. Graham, already owner of a large estate on the mainland at Grahamville, bought Honey Horn from the Stoneys, who had acquired it....in 1805.........The Graham house on the old Bayley Barony lot No. 11 was only partly finished when Fort Walker fell....the Grahams evidently never lived there. The 1861 map prepared for Sherman shows the name Graham beside a house on Skull Creek north of Widow Stoney's. Perhaps it was their temporary home while waiting for the new house to be completed. Freedman Dodd bought Honey Horn from the government in 1863 for $2600.....Therefore the land was unredeemable by Graham heirs."
- Holmgren , Virginia C., Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle, p. 128
General Information -
- Location – Lots 11, 19 of Bayley’s Barony
- Origin of name – name derived from mispronunciation and misspelling of “Hanahan”
Owners -
- Dr. Powell and John Fenwick (Lot 29) and Benjamin Guerard
- John Hanahan
- Stoney Family in 1805
- William J. Graham
- Freeman Dodd bought from the government in Dec. 2, 1863 for $2600
- Ramon de Rivas purchased for $10,000 Feb. 20, 1864
- Thomas Quinters and Rafael Alvarez purchase ½ for $2500 each on Mar 1, 1864
- Ana and Robustrand Hergues buy ½ from Rivas for $$9725 on Aug. 5, 1865 and buy out Quinters and Alvarez on Jan. 3, 1866 for $8500 each.
- Edward and Eugenia Valentine buy whole property on Nov. 19, 1870 for $7800.
- F.R. Klem purchased after Valentine mortgage was foreclosed in 1884.
- Klem sold some small plots to Negroes and the rest to Will Clyde in 1894.
- Roy Rainey
- Thorne and Loomis
See also Graham Plantation and Hanahan Holdings.
Land - 270 acres (Lot 11) and another 850 acres between Broad Creek and the Atlantic
Maps -
Mosse, "Hilton Head Island, 1783. Lots 29, 11"
Hack, "Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, before 1861"
Bibliography -
Holmgren, Research on Hilton Head Island, 1956-ca. 1975
Holmgren, Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle.
Additional Information:
38BU1165
Planter John Hanahan of Edisto Island began acquiring Hilton Head property in 1789, buying Lot #29 of Dr. Mosse's Survey of Bayley's Baroney, a 445 acre plantation formerly held by Dr. Powell and John Fenwick. To this he added 403 acres owned by the late Benjamin Guerard. In 1792 he bought Lot #11 of Bayley's Baroney, the 270 acre Garden's Plantation between Old House and Crooked Creeks, which was afterward known as Honey Horn, possibly a corruption of his surname. The property fell into the hands of William John Graham and his wife Anne Barnwell Stoney, around 1854. They built the one story frame plantation house just before the Civil War. In 1863, 1000 acres of Honey Horn was bought by Freeman Dodd for $2600. Three months later he sold the plantation for $10,000. In 1931 the plantation was bought for use as a hunting preserve, and at that time a wing and two bedrooms were added to the house.
- South Carolina Institute of A & A original listing
"In 1789 a widely-known planter, John Hanahan of Edisto, began acquiring land on Hilton Head, although he did not give up his Edisto property. He began with the purchase of 445 acres in the middle of the south shore, between Broad Creek and the Atlantic, and soon added 403 acres adjacent to the northeast, the land of the late Benjamin Guerard. In 1792 he added 270 acres between Crooked (Jarvis) Creek and Muddy Creek."
- Holmgren, Virginia C., Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle, p. 64-65
"William J. Graham, already the owner of a large estate on the mainland at Grahamville, bought Honey Horn from the Stoneys, who had acquired it from the estate of John Hanahan in 1805. The plantation properly included Lot No. 11, 270 acres bounded by Muddy and Crooked (Jarvis) Creeks, as well as 850 acres between Broad Creek and the Atlantic, bounded north by Leamington and south by Shipyard." (These last two boundaries are confusing.)
- Holmgren, p. 128
"On December 2, 1863 Freeman Dodd bought the one thousand acres of Graham's Honey Horn for $2600. On the following February 20 he sold it to Ramon Rivas for $10,000. Who Dodd was or what he did with his booty is not recorded. But it is known that Rivas sold half the land quickly for its purchase price and that he held onto the remaining 500 acres for over a year, selling it for a profit of $4,725 above its cost. The couple who paid him this fancy price, Ana and Robustrand Hergues, then paid nearly twice as much for the other half of Honey Horn."
- Holmgren, p.107
"....when the Valentines bought it in 1870 they asked Graham for a quit-claim, thus acknowledging his prewar title. No such recognition was given by previous purchasers, as Thomas Quinteres and Rafael Alvarez bought half the land from Rivas and all sold out to Ana and Robustrand Hergues.... Valentines lost Honey Horn in 1884 when the Witte Brothers foreclosed their mortgage and sold off some small plots to Negroes and the rest to Clyde in 1889. From Clyde ownership went to Rainey and then to Thorne and Loomis. Somewhere along the line the 850 acres on the ocean front were sold separately from lot No 11 and apparently were known as Dilling's or the Hill Place. Later they were mistakenly considered part of Leamington."
- Holmgren, p. 128-129
In 1874, the Rev. Charles Pinckney returned to visit Hilton Head. "Only one door opened to a familiar face.... the familiar face was surely that of Eugenia Valentine, then mistress of Honey Horn. (The home was bought by a New Yorker for his southern bride.) ....the home was lost to a foreclosed mortgage....When the Valentines lost their home in 1884, the new owner was a land-hungry Northern speculator, the merchant F.R. Klem, whose name was on many another deed of sale."
- Holmgren, p. 116, 117
"....shortly before 1890 a New Englander named W.P. Clyde began acquiring land on Hilton Head, piece by piece, ‘til he owned 9,000 acres. He kept this island domain for hunting and sun-lazy vacations, making the house at Honey Horn his headquarters, for that was the only one of the antebellum houses still standing and useable....J.E. Lawrence as superintendent and .... Henry Padgett as game keeper."
- Holmgren, p. 119
"In May of 1951 another company was formed by O.T. McIntosh, C.C. Stebbins and Fred C. Hack to purchase land on the northern end of the island. Their corporation was named Honey Horn Plantation and it continues to operate as such." (1959)
- Holmgren, p. 135
Brief description of some of the records about the property and the island to be found at Honey Horn. "Since 1950 Fred Hack and his entire family have made the island their permanent home, remodeling and enlarging one of the houses at Honey Horn."
- Holmgren, p. 124, 137
Honey Horn "in 1951 consisted of over 11,000 acres, purchased by Fred C. Hack." The original 'big house' was built before the Civil War, a one story wooden structure with 14 foot ceilings and roomy concealed areas between the walls.
- The Island Packet, November 25, 1992
Thorne and Loomis lived in the Big House when here for hunting. The manager had the house next door. The house that the Hacks rented in 1950 and lived in was built for the manager's daughter when she married Mr. Lawrence the assistant manager.
- Oral History Tapes, 1990, 1991 - Billie Hack
The Thornes would not hear of Miss Beatrice Milley (the postmaster) living alone at Otter Hole and fixed up a cottage for her near the Big House on Honey Horn.
- Islander Magazine, July 1970
In the 1950s, Mr. Haynesworth, the Episcopal minister at Bluffton came every Sunday to conduct services in the chapel at Honey Horn.
- Oral History Tapes, 1989 - ‘Miss Billie’ Hack