Our Tour WIth Jon Sharp

Jon Sharp came to the East Coast and bought a sailboat at the age of 50. Without ever having been on a boat in his life, he proceeded to set out into the Atlantic in February, during a Nor’easter. Realizing that he suffered from acute seasickness, he called the coast guard to air lift him out of the boat and to the Beaufort hospital. He fell in love with the area, and has made Beaufort his home, giving walking tours of the historic district. Jon’s quite a character, but he’s a wealth of knowledge on local history. We learned so much, that our heads were spinning with information. Here are some highlights of Beaufort history. I've included more in my picture captions:

Located in the Low Country of South Carolina, the area around Beaufort is made up of 360 islands.

Beaufort was fought over by the Indians, Spanish, French and English. As a result, the city was burned down several times.

Over its history, Beaufort has reinvented itself many times, finding great wealth by growing/harvesting indigo, cotton, and phosphorous.

During the Revolutionary War, the Carolina Colony saw more battles than in all of the other colonies combined!

Most of the houses in the historic district were built in the 1840’s and 50’s, the city’s most prosperous period. The large houses were built as summer homes for local plantation owners. The verandas of these houses always face south, taking advantage of the breezes from the water in town. This offered much relief during Beaufort’s hot and humid summers. At that time, South Carolina had more millionaires than any other state. There were over 800 plantations surrounding the city of Beaufort. Unfortunately, when Sherman came through, he burned every plantation in a 60 mile radius of Beaufort. This took only two days.

South Carolina was the first state to secede from the union.

Early in the Civil War, there were 6,000 white residents in the Beaufort area, overseeing 30,000 blacks. When the news came that Yankee warships were headed toward Beaufort, all but two of the white residents took off, in what is referred to as “the great skedaddle”. Instead of burning the city when they landed, the Yankees used the opportunity to claim Beaufort as the headquarters for their naval blockade. Most of the city’s large houses and churches were used as hospitals.

Jon's tour is a MUST DO if you visit Beaufort. The walk takes a full three hours and is both interesting and informative. His love for the town and it's history really shows during his tour. Here are some pictures from the tour, along with more history info. in the captions.