"I hardly know how to describe this place, I think God made it for the Garden of Eden..."a letter home from Sgt. Calvin Shedd, encamped near Dataw Island, S.C., Civil War, June 20th , 1862.

Having long been a fertile source of history and folklore these great barrier islands of South Carolina have seen many visitors. Dataw Island's first visitors arrived 2,000 years ago. Wandering Tribes of early Indians returned frequently to the island, drawn by the bountiful supplies of game and shellfish.

Dataw Island greeted the Spanish Europeans in the early 1500s. Captain Pedro de Salaza discovered the area in 1514, which establishes Beaufort county as the second landing in the new world by the Europeans, preceded only by Ponce de Leon's founding of St. Augustine, Florida, just one year earlier. Over the course of the next 200 years, the English gradually replaced the early Spanish settlers. In 1685, Caleb Westbrook, an entrepreneurial Scotsman, established a trading post on Dataw Island, trading with the Indians for deerskins, a valued commodity in England.

Steady settlement of the area continued through the pre-Revolutionary War years. With the beginning of the Plantation Age, the great sea islands of South Carolina became the "Newport of the South", with large, opulent homes financed by the enormous cash crops of indigo, used for cloth dying, and sea island cotton, the finest in the world. In the late 1700s, William Sams selected Dataw Island as the site for his indigo fields and the remains of the family's magnificent tabby home are a carefully preserved treasure today.

The Civil War heralded the end of a gracious and privileged lifestyle and for over 100 years Dataw Island was a quiet hunting preserve.