There is a new park on the site of Mitchelville. You can see the signs on Beach City Road, Hilton Head. There are model houses and buildings and a lot of information plaques.

The marker is on Beach City Road.

Mitchelville Site

In 1862, after Hilton Head’s fall to the Union forces in 1861, this town, planned for the area’s former slaves and named for General Ormsby M. Mitchel, began.

The sign for the new park is very easy to find.

There is a boardwalk out into the tidal area around (I think) Fish Haul Creek.

We saw an alligator and a lot of birds.

There is also a bench.

It is a beautiful walk.

There are models of the sort of homes people lived in. They are used in reenactments.

The path winds through a natural setting with many informative plaques.

Reconnecting with Family

There are a lot of educational signs on a trail.

Reconnecting with Family

Reuniting with family was one of the first concerns of African slaves who escaped to Hilton Head Island. Slavery split up families. Owners could sell family members for profit or punishment. On Hilton Head Island, and places where freedom seekers gathered, relatives found each other. Immediate and extended families moved into Mitchelville and began creating a community in 1862. Adults walked to their jobs in the town or at nearby forts. Children went to school and shared what they learned with their parents. Elders helped watching children and tending gardens. Mitchelville families dreamed and worked for a better future.

Less than a month after the Battle of Port Royal a reporter for the New York Times on Hilton Head Island wrote; They are constantly arriving, families together, in dug-outs from the islands on Broad River, bringing all their household effects, and finding shelter at the plantation on the island we occupy.

The San Francisco Bulletin, January 18, 1862 on Hilton Head Island; A man named David, from Savannah… arms firmly clasped around the neck of a colored woman, she was clasping him just as firmly, a little boy of about eight… hanging onto both, David had found his wife Lucinda, and his boy Frank, who had been sold away from him, and from which he had not seen in eight long years.

Mitchelville Building Sites

Mitchelville Building Sites

Mitchelville about 1865, showing different kinds of houses and how the freedmen used the yard area for different activities.

The Maps and Pictures below identify the approximate locations of roads and buildings that were in Mitchelville circa 1862 – 1868.

The Town of Mitchelville had praise houses, stores, schools and numerous homes. Unfortunately no physical remains of Mitchelville building sites exist today. Recent archeological information and field surveys suggest the following;

This surveyed area outlines a building site approximately 22’ x 18’.

By 1865 Mitchelville contained “about 1500 souls.” The houses were often simply built: the freed slaves themselves provided the labor; the military saw mill provided free lumber; and each family had about a quarter of an acre for planting gardens.

A Mitchelville House

In September of 1862, General Ormsby Mitchel set aside some land on General Drayton’s Fish Haul Plantation for a village for the contrabands (former slaves) who were working at Fort Walker. He asked some Army engineers to build a log cabin as a sample. He also asked the contrabands to build a cabin after their own ideas. After the models were completed General Mitchel selected the one that had been built by the contrabands. He then provided the contraband families with boards, nails, and tools and instructed them to build on the lots which had been marked off. You are looking at an example of a Mitchelville house which also would have included a garden plot for raising vegetables.

There are way more plaques and things. This is just a few of them.