St. Luke’s Parish Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery
National Register Listing
Street Address:
574 William Hilton Parkway, Hilton Head Island, SC (Beaufort County)
Alternate Name:
Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery and Baynard Mausoleum, 38BU1158
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817707075
Description and Narrative:
The 2.43-acre site of the Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery is located at the corner of Mathews Drive and William Hilton Parkway on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery is significant at the local level under Criterion C for its distinctive funerary art from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Criterion D (Archeology) applies because of the site’s potential to yield significant information about the Hilton Head planter elite through the study of their mortuary practices, and for the potential to locate and study the remains of St. Luke’s Parish Zion Chapel of Ease, which was destroyed in the 1860s. The Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery is an extremely rare piece of physical above-ground evidence of the colonial and antebellum history of the island. Indeed, the Baynard Mausoleum located within the cemetery, and constructed in 1846, is believed to be the oldest intact structure on Hilton Head Island. The cemetery contains thirty-four markers, including the Baynard Mausoleum, and two cast-iron fences. Many of the markers are marble tympanum headstones with a willow and urn design and some of these gravesites also include a footstone. Five of the gravestones within the cemetery are marked by the carver’s name or initials. Three of these stones were carved by members of the White and Walker families, who were prevalent stone carvers in Charleston from the 1790s to the 1870s. Listed in the National Register October 5, 2017.
Period of Significance:
1788 – 1861;1788;1795;1833;1846
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Art;Archeology: Historic - Non-Aboriginal
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
October 5 2017
