General Information --

• On 16 August 1698 John Bayley of Ballingclough, County Tipperary, Ireland, Landgrave and Caccique of Carolina, was granted by the Lords Proprietors a barony which included most of Hilton Head Island other than land fronting on Port Royal Sound and Skull Creek.  Neither he, nor any of his family, ever visited Hilton Head.
• His son and heir, John Bayley, early in the eighteenth century appointed Alexander Trench as his agent for selling the property.
• Trench did make several sales of plantations, notably to Captain John Gascoigne and to Roger Moore.  But the bulk of the Barony remained in the Bayley family until after the Revolutionary War. 
• Trench grazed cattle on Hilton Head, which became known locally as “Trench’s Island.”
• In 1783 Dr. George Mosse surveyed the Bayley holding which then consisted of 47 tracts totaling 14, 924 acres.

Land -- 14,924 acres

Maps -- Mosse, Hilton Head Island 1783.

Bibliography --
    Holmgren, Hilton Head, A Sea Island Chronicle
    Peeples, An Index to Hilton Head Island Names.
 

August 16, 1698 - Hilton Head part of a barony granted to John Bayley of Ballingclough in the county Kingdom of John Bayley, son of the original landgrave, appointed Alexander Trench as his agent to sell the land. Trench lived in Beaufort and grazed his cattle on Hilton Head giving the island its name of Trench’s Island.

Captain John Gascoigne bought land in Bayley’s Barony in 1729, from Trench - might have been Jenkin’s Island. Barony lands confiscated by State for taxes levied to pay for Revolutionary War were restored by State 1793 to Benjamin Bayley. Beaufort County records were destroyed during the Civil War in 1864 and again by fire in 1883 making it difficult to trace land dealings after the initial sales. Baroney records are in British files. A map from 1766, drawn by Joiner - a pilot, shows twenty-five families living on the island including the Wallis and Green(e) families along Skull Creek, the Mogin (Mungen) family on Spanish Wells and the Ash family.

Bayley’s Barony lot sales on Hilton Head Island include

• #4 - William Pope, 286 acres
• #11-  John Hanahan, 270 acres, 1792, became Graham and Honey Horn Plantations
• #12 - William Baynard, 265 acres known as Muddy Creek Place
• #13 #14 - John Stoney, 422 acres
• #15 #18 - John Stoney, became Gardner and Marshland Plantations
• #28 - Axtell Hutchinson, 326 acres for 155 pounds sterling
• #29 - John Hanahan, 1789, 445 acres formerly belonging to Dr. Powell and John Fenwick
• #33 - no records available
• #38 - James Duvant, 270 acres
• #40-#44 - Barksdale, became Calibogia/Lawton Plantation
• #45 - leased by John Gray; in 1782 purchased by John Mark Verdier, Beaufort merchant
• #46 - leased by John Gamble; in 1782 purchased by Thomas Ferguson
•  #47 - leased by John Gray; purchased in 1782 by Thomas Ferguson

Granted a barony (12,000) acres which included most of Hilton Head Island other than the land fronting on Port Royal Sound and on Skull Creek.  Neither he, nor any of his family, ever visited Hilton Head Island. Trench did make several sales of plantations, notably to Captain John Gascoigne and to Roger Moore, but the bulk of the Barony remained in the Bailey family until after the Revolutionary War.  In 1783 Dr. George Mosse surveyed the Bailey holdings which then consisted of 47 tracts totaling 14,924 acres.

• Peeples, Robert E.H., An Index to Hilton Head Island Names (Before the Contemporary Development). p.2