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When you motor down Pope Avenue toward Coligny Beach, you might catch a quick glimpse — a long-winged wading bird gliding into the shadowy dark of low-hanging trees, ragged Spanish moss, knotted vines and still, black water. On the bike path bridge you are closer and can see more. Is that something swimming in there? Where does that chorus of frogs come from? Did you hear that scream!? What is this place?
Thousands of islanders and visitors may experience this brief view and these sounds. Sadly, few have the opportunity to see the source: the island’s most prehistoric landscape, Boggy Gut. Let’s visit. This month we’ll discover a nearly forgotten secret about Hilton Head Island’s shoreline, how the first people inhabited the shores of the Gut, that early development strangled its wetland ecology, and why this secret place is now internationally famous.
The Ancient
Inland Waterway
To understand the where and why of Boggy Gut, you have to peruse centuries-old maps. The most accurate is a section of the 1825 Mills’ Atlas of the Beaufort District. It provides a very accurate depiction of Hilton Head Island roads and wetlands. One map shows that Folly Creek (in present-day Folly Field) cut across the beach, turned south, and flowed southwest for six miles, parallel to the Atlantic Ocean, and emptied into the sea through a second channel cutting across the shore now named South Beach in Sea Pines. Mills Atlas named the second inlet “Old Woman’s Folly.”
This inland stream was a remnant of an ancient shoreline that was partially isolated several thousand years ago as rising sea level deposited sand onshore, forming the core of the island’s modern beach. But strong tidal currents and drainage kept the flow circulating in and out of the twin inlets from one end of the seashore to the other. This waterway would have been navigable. At least 4,000 years ago, Archaic Indians would have hunted and fished in this broad, marsh channel. Here they harvested oysters and other shellfish, which they used to construct the Sea Pines Shell Ring. No one knows exactly what happened to the builders of the ring — perhaps climate change or competition from other native groups forced their emigration.
But from colonial-era maps we do know that the inland waterway became known as “Boggy Gut” — meaning a muddy (boggy), long channel (gut or “cut”). We also know what fate befell this prehistoric wetland.
When Rice was King
In the 1840s, island planter Joseph Lawton attempted to cultivate rice in Boggy Gut, which trickled through the heart of his 1,820-acre Calibogue Plantation. “Carolina Gold” rice enriched planters on the South Carolina and Georgia coastal plain from the early 1700s until the Civil War. Using slave labor, mules and hand tools, Lawton excavated 50-100 acres of Boggy Gut, and impounded the area with extensive hand-built dikes (levees). He irrigated the rice fields from a reservoir of surface water impounded by other dikes upstream. Ironically, soon after completing this Herculean construction project, Lawton abandoned the fields when the worldwide market price for rice plummeted. The Civil War and the end of slave labor were the final nails in the coffin of Lowcounty rice culture.
The dikes, fallow fields and remnants of the original reservoir are still there. But you’d have to wade and bushwhack in some very remote territory to find them. The easiest — and safest — way to see the Lawton fields is to follow the well-maintained trails on top the dikes on the west side of the Sea Pines Forest Preserve. A narrow boardwalk also crosses the middle of the field, now an emerging willow swamp.
Bring in
the ‘Dozers
In the late 1950s, Charles Fraser and Sea Pines Plantation Company correctly forecasted the rise of the golfing market in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, Fraser planned the Ocean Golf Course, the island’s first, in Sea Pines. The company chose the Old Woman’s Folly as the site for the 15th tee, fairway and green of the new course, knowing it would provide a grand signature view suitable for magazine advertisements and postcards. The stream and its productive salt marsh was filled, and the desired green was elevated so that golfers could putt in the sea breeze and marvel at the ocean view. Meanwhile the company excavated and channelized most of the remains of Boggy Gut to better control drainage.
This was half a century ago. There were no controls or protections for wetlands and inlets, no matter how productive. New developments — Port Royal Plantation, Folly Field, Palmetto Dunes and Shipyard — arose and continued the Big Dig of the Gut. The wetland was dammed, ditched, dredged, diverted and drained. It became “lagoons” and “water hazards.” Gone were the trees, the marshes, the wildlife, and a tremendous historical heritage.
Except in one place.
Boggy Gut’s
Last Stand
In the 1980s two conservation actions assured the permanent preservation of the last vestiges of this ancient wetland. First, in 1983, Sea Pines Public Service District (now South Island PSD) initiated the first “reclaimed water” project in America. The program recycles advanced-treated domestic wastewater (this is substantially higher quality than “gray water”) through Boggy Gut. The wetland absorbs nutrients and millions of gallons of water per year. In turn, the reclaimed water restores the native wetland. The beautiful irony is that humans caused the near death of Boggy Gut in the past; and now humans generate the water that again breathes life into this ecosystem. Six restorative reclaimed water projects are now in operation on Hilton Head Island, and the technology is spreading to other countries.
The second good news is that Boggy Gut is now legally protected against further development. As part of the later 1980s reorganization of Sea Pines Company, a long overdue master plan for the Sea Pines Forest Preserve was adopted. Legal covenants now protect this wetland as a permanent preservation zone. In addition, the PSD holds a binding water management easement for reclaimed water application and restoration in the meandering swamp.
I have spent 40 years exploring and learning from Boggy Gut. Her dark stream still trickles. Resident barred owls hoot as rain approaches. Showy songbirds migrate through. Endangered wood storks come to feed in former rice fields. Alligators guard their nests by the nearly forgotten rice dikes. In spite of humanity’s grand schemes, the Gut prevails.
Todd Ballantine is an award-winning writer, popular public speaker, educator, environmental scientist, artist, and musician. He has written and illustrated three books in addition to the best-selling Tideland Treasure, newspaper columns, and dozens of nature and history publications. Todd and Marianne Ballantine own Ballantine Environmental Resources, Inc., a national consulting firm based in Boulder, Co. He lived on Hilton Head Island for more than 30 years and frequently visits the Lowcountry for environmental consulting. Learn more at www.toddballantine.com.
