Hilton Head, SC – Paranormal Activity at the Stoney-Baynard Ruins
Legend has it that “Saucy Jack” Stoney lost Braddock’s Point Plantation to William Eddings Baynard in a late-night poker game in Hilton Head SC. It was the year 1838.
The 1,000-acre plantation had been in the Stoney family since the American Revolution when Captain John Stoney, Saucy Jack’s grandfather, bought it. It was a fourth generation heirloom when Saucy Jack received it from his father, Dr. George Mosse Stoney.
The winner of the poker game was William Eddings Baynard. That explains the name by which it is known today: Stoney-Baynard Plantation. Some records indicate that Saucy Jack simply went bankrupt and Baynard got the property at auction. But that version obviously has much less dramatic appeal. Baynard died here in the “Big House” in 1849 after he and his wife Catherine raised four children.
During the Civil War, Baynard and other plantation owners on Hilton Head SC were driven off the island. The Casa Grande became the headquarters of the Union officers. That made it the target of a Confederate raiding party, which burned and destroyed it.
The Baynards never returned to the island after the war, although they legally claimed the land. Thus, the property was left in its current state of disrepair, another sad monument to the devastation of the American Civil War.
The front of the house is easily located by large square holes that once housed the posts that supported a wide porch. At the rear are the remains of a chimney and an outer wall.
In their beautiful setting at the highest point of the island, these haunted places evoke happy family scenes of children and domestic servants playing together. A cloud covers the sun and they are swept away by a violent conflagration. If held very still, the imagination can catch the echo of the high-booted invader pacing the grand wraparound porch of this haunted house.
Sometimes the haunting scenes of this idyllic setting are more apparent to the senses. In life and in death, luck has deserted Baynard and the shadows of his grim funeral procession can still be seen filing past his grave.
Legend has it that the rumor of jewels, gold and riches motivated the union soldiers to break into the family mausoleum. Since then, in the gray and rainy days, Baynard’s ghost has been wandering the scene of his earthly existence. This is one of the true scare stories associated with paranormal activity in Hilton Head SC.
