Driving down William Hilton Parkway, just as you pass where Mathews Drive comes back out on the right, you can find an old graveyard and the Baynard Mausoleum. The graves date to the Revolutionary War.

The sign says Historic Zion Cemetery and the Baynard Mausoleum. The chapel has been gone since 1868. Just the cemetery is left.

Charles Davant Grave Marker

One of the graves is of Charles Davant. Hilton Head joined the revolution. Nearby Daufuskie Island stayed loyal to England. The two islands carried on their own war, with small boats going on raids between the islands.

Charles Davant
Pvt. S.C. Militia
1750 – 1781

On 22 October 1781, returning from a patrol with the Patriot Militia, Charles Davant was mortally wounded from ambush near here by Captain Martinangel’s Royal Militia from Daufuskie Island. He managed to ride his horse to his nearby plantation, Two Oaks, where he died. Captain John Leacraft’s Bloody Legion avenged his death.

Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery

The structure is the Baynard Mausoleum built in 1846. This is the same Baynard as in the Stoney-Baynard Plantation Ruins in Sea Pines. The Baynard Mausoleum is the oldest undamaged structure on Hilton Head.  In 1893, the Sea Islands Hurricane wiped every other structure off  Hilton Head. The sixteen foot storm surge completely submerged the Sea Islands. There was not a more destructive hurricane season until 1998.

Zion Chapel of Ease and Cemetery Marker

Zion Chapel of Ease and Cemetery

A Chapel of St. Luke’s Parish, established May 23, 1767, built of wood shortly after 1786 under the direction of Captain John Stoney and Isaac Fripp, was consecrated in 1833. Members of the Barksdale, Baynard, Chaplin, Davant, Fripp, Kirk, Mathews, Pope, Stoney, and Webb families worshipped here. By 1868 the chapel was destroyed.

In 2017, anthropologists found more headstones that were buried.