Stoney-Baynard Ruins Ghost Legend on Hilton Head

THE LEGEND: A man who lost the property he worked to own allegedly returned to Braddock’s Point to reclaim it

Local tradition holds that Isaiah Stoney was born into slavery on Hilton Head Island and later pursued something once unimaginable: ownership of land connected to the plantation where he had been enslaved. In the turbulent years surrounding the Civil War and Reconstruction, land across the Sea Islands changed hands through confiscation, tax sales and government programs. Records involving formerly enslaved landowners are incomplete, and generations of oral history have filled some of the gaps. One such tradition holds that Isaiah purchased a portion of land at Braddock’s Point, only to lose it when members of the Baynard family reclaimed property after the war. The loss, the story says, embittered him for the rest of his life.

Later versions of the tale place Isaiah in the phosphate industry along the Coosaw River and say he died around the time as the devastating Charleston earthquake of 1886. By then, members of the Baynard family had returned to Braddock’s Point. The original plantation house burned, and a later generation is said to have built again on the property. Then, according to the legend, the voices began. One evening, someone drawing water from a well near the house reportedly heard a faint voice rising from below:

“Get off my land.”

Soon the warning grew more ominous. Strange noises were heard around the property. Animals and crops suffered unexplained misfortune. Eventually that later house, too, vanished from the landscape, and the ruins of Braddock’s Point were reclaimed by forest. Decades later, as Sea Pines was being developed, stories of strange occurrences around the ruins surfaced again. Workers spoke of unexplained sounds and an uneasy feeling around the old site.

Today visitors still report unsettling experiences at the Stoney-Baynard Ruins. Some hear faint sounds carried on the evening breeze. Others describe an overwhelming feeling that they are not alone. Wind through the trees can sound like many things. According to this old island story, one of them is a warning.

“Get off my land.”

The Stoney-Baynard Ruins stand beneath a canopy of live oaks and Spanish moss in Sea Pines. Once part of Braddock’s Point Plantation, the site became the setting for a Hilton Head legend about Isaiah Stoney, whose restless spirit is said to have returned to reclaim the land he lost.