On Hilton Head Island: 38BUl162

General Information -

• Location – Lots 40-44 of Bayley’s Barony, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to Broad Creek. 
• Other names – Calibogue, Lawton’s

Owners -

• George and Ann Barksdale
• Thomas Henry Barksdale
• Martha Sarah Stoney Barksdale Lawton.  Martha Lawton also inherited Skull Creek Plantation and Baldwin Plantation.  The combined holdings were known as Lawton’s.
• Joseph Lawton, her husband
• Samuel George Lawton, their son, inherited and was forced to mortgage it in order to redeem it under the Redemption Act.
• Harriet Brooks Lawton, his wife, bought the property in 1889 when he sold it at public auction to satisfy its mortgage holder.
• William Clyde purchased it from her March 1889 for $4,000.
• Ray Rainey
• Thorne and Loomis, 1931

Land - 1820 acres

Slaves - 156 slaves

Maps - 
Hack, "Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, before 1861"
Mosse, "Hilton Head Island 1783, Lots 40-44"

Bibliography -

 Holmgren, Research on Hilton Head Island, 1956-ca. 1975
 Holmgren, Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle
 Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names

Additional Information:

38BU1162

Sea Pines Plantation

The Lawton's Calibogia Plantation consisted of 1,820 acres and stretched from Broad Creek to the Atlantic Ocean. "Calibogia", which consisted of Lots #40-44 of Bayley's Baroney, was inherited by Martha Sarah Stoney Barksdale at the death of her husband Thomas Henry Barksdale in 1832.  Mrs. Barksdale married her first cousin, Reverend Joseph Alexander Lawton, in 1836.  It was about this time that they built a house and Baptist chapel on this plantation.

In 1889 the Lawton's daughter-in-law, Harriet Brooks Lawton, bought Calibogia Plantation at public auction.

• S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology initial listing

Reverend Joseph Lawton and Martha, using funds generated from the operation of Martha's Calibogia Plantation, bought 1205 acres in Barnwell District (near present Allendale)...and built Rose Lawn Plantation.  Then they built a home and a Baptist Church on Calibogia...to convert his wife's slaves with the aid of his uncle, Reverend Winborn Asa Lawton.   Their son, Samuel, inherited the plantation now known as Lawton's.   It was seized by William Henry Brisbane's Direct Tax Commission but Samuel was able to borrow the money to redeem it.  When he was forced to sell it at public auction in 1889 to satisfy the mortgage holder his wife, Harriet Brooks Lawton, bought it.  She eventually sold it to William Clyde at a profit.

Then in1951 Jane Lawton's husband, Olin T. McIntosh, became one of the principals of the Hilton Head Company...A decade or so later, Alene Lawton Wyman's granddaughter, Mary, married Charles Fraser, (then) president of Sea Pines Company, Inc. which includes all of Martha Lawton's Calibogia Plantation.

• Peeples, Tales of Anti Bellum Hilton Head Island Families, p. 10, 14

"Joseph Lawton married Martha Sarah Stoney Barksdale, widow of Thomas H. Barksdale, in 1836 and thereby acquired rights for himself and his heirs to both Barksdale and Stoney property in the marriage settlement.   The heirs were Samuel Lawton, son of Martha and Joseph, and an adopted daughter Josephine Pohill, and they were able to regain the land under the Redemption Act.   Samuel was forced to sell it, however, to pay the mortgage, and Harriet B. Lawton bought it at public auction in 1889.   She sold it to Clyde for a small profit, and Thorne and Loomis became owners in 1931.   The land included a marshy wooded area that has been marked "Sanctuary" on maps of Colonial times and is still a wildlife refuge."

(Part of this is now the Nature Preserve on Sea Pines. The lakes in the preserve mark the area of rice fields and their water retention ponds.  This was the only plantation on Hilton Head to grow rice.)

• Holmgren, Virginia C., Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle, p. 130

"Lawton Plantation was redeemed upon payment of $600.47 in back taxes." Julia Benedict and Eliza Ann Summers, teachers assigned to Hilton Head by the American Missionary Association, lived and taught at Lawton Plantation in 1867.   Their homes were in Woodbury, Connecticut.

• Martin, Josephine, editor, "Dear Sister" Letters Written on Hilton Head Island, 1867, p. 102

"The house itself is a story and a half as most of the plantation houses are in this country.   It has four rooms on the first floor, all large and pleasant, with a hall running through the center of it and stairs going up out of it.   Two rooms upstairs and a wide piazza extends across the front.   This house also is built up on posts like the rest of them.   A very nice cistern of water is just back of the house."   She states that about fifty 'quarters' surround the house.

• Martin, p. 10

"In February 1867 Lawton Plantation was still in U.S. Government hands...Sunday School in the Praise House...The Praise House at Lawton was also used as the school house...The first Lawton School was established by the American Missionary Society in the fall of 1862 and a school had continued there... January 1867... out of a total of 76 pupils were classified as learning their alphabet or reading in primers...average attendance of 40 children in the Sunday School."

• Martin, p. xxii

The Lawton Place adjacent to Baynard to the east separated by drainage ditch.  About four miles from Braddock's Point.

• Trinkley, Chicora Foundation Research Series #24, Preliminary Historical Research on the Baynard Plantation, Hilton Head Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina, p. 15
  (Source material listed in survey)

Braddock's Point (Baynard) bounded by ....land late of Lawton known as "The Sister's Place"

• Trinkley, p. 17

When James Stoney died February 10, 1827 his brother, John acquired the land.

• Trinkley, p. 10-11

After the fall of Hilton Head Samuel G. Lawton filed claim for a Dwelling house of six rooms, kitchen, corn house 22' x 50', stable 25' x 30', gin house 35' x 40', servants house, store room, smoke house, boat house, two good barns, two old barns, sixteen negro houses, blacksmith shop, total value of $4,000.  Live stock and other goods listed on page 17 of Survey.  (There is no mention of the chapel Joseph Lawton built or of an overseers house although this was not the Lawton's primary residence.) 

• Trinkley, Chicora Research Series 17, Archaeological Survey of the Barker Field Expansion Project, Hilton Head Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina
  (Source material listed in survey)

The name used by Martha Sarah Stoney Barksdale Lawton for her 1820 acre plantation, composed of Lots 40-44 of Bayley’s Baroney, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to Broad Creek, was Calibogia Plantation.  There she and her second husband (and first cousin), Rev. Joseph Alexander Lawton, built a home as well as a short-lived Baptist Church.  Details of the plantation’s operations may be found in The Lawton Papers in the South Caroliniana Library.  It was inherited by their son, Samuel George Lawton, who was forced to mortgage it in order to redeem it under the Redemption Act.  In 1889 when he sold it at public auction to satisfy  its mortgage holder, his wife, Harriet Brooks Lawton, bought it, eventually selling it to William Clyde at a profit.

• Peeples, Robert E.H., An Index to Hilton Head Island Names (Before the Contemporary Development), p. 6