Submitted by FHMaster on Sun, 03/28/2021 - 19:59

General Information - 

  • Location - bluff overlooking Calibogie Sound from Old House Creek to Buck Point
  • Called Mongin’s Buff in 1775 Sayre and Bennett Map

Owners - By 1790 the Mongins had sold this property, now Spanish Wells Plantation, to Thomas Baynard

Bibliography -         

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

Additional Information:

In 1725 David Mongin and his younger brother, Francis, at the behest of their French Huguenot father who later died of torture when he refused to renounce his faith, hired a fishing boat and fled across the English Channel from France and thence to London.  In Soho Square on September 4, 1726 David Mongin married Persille Dair who died August 6, 1747 and was buried in Westminster Abbey Cemetery beside four of their children.  The same month David Mongin and his two surviving children sailed from Liverpool, arriving in New Jersey November 10, proceeded to Princeton, then overland to South Carolina where David had a 680 acre grant for land at Purysburg in Granville County.  He chose instead to accept acreage north of Daufuskie Island which he named Walnut Grove Plantation and returned to Princeton to marry on December 23, 1749 Elizabeth, the 15 year old daughter of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758).  They had four children born at Walnut Grove Plantation (now part of Palmetto Bluff across the May River from Bluffton) before her death December 8, 1759.  David married a third time in 1765 in Charles Town where he died November 23, 1770 at the age of eighty, being buried in St. Michael’s Churchyard.

David’s eldest son, David John Mongin, born in London March 4, 1739, was a member of the Bloody Legion which avenged the death of Charles Davant in 1781, as was his son, John David Mongin (1763-1833) of Walnut Grove and Daufuskie.  The 1775 Sayer and Bennett Map shows the vast bluff overlooking Calibogie Sound from Old House Creek to Buck Point with the name Mongin’s Bluff.  By 1790 the Mongins had sold this property, now Spanish Wells Plantation, to Thomas Baynard.  However, Daniel Mongin and his bride settled elsewhere on Hilton Head in 1798 and were still planting here in 1820 according to the census.

  • Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names (Before the Contemporary Development), p. 28

 

Location
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
State
Status
Unknown