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Explorers from throughout Europe came to South Carolina on their oceanic travels to discover new lands to claim for their royal crowns. The French briefly interrupted the early Spanish occupation, then returned in 1680 when 45 Huguenots immigrated to the new colony.

In 1663, the abundant, untamed island was surveyed by William Hilton, an English sea captain, sailing from Barbados in search of tropical lands on which to establish profitable English plantations. Hilton then claimed it for the British crown, establishing the legacy with his own name...Hilton's Headland.

Hilton touted the island's beauty, encouraging settlement there. English settlers waited for the threat of both Spaniards and Native Americans to dispel before colonizing in 1670 to found South Carolina 's first permanent settlement at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, then called Charlestowne, now Charleston . Immigrants from Switzerland and lowland Scots from Northern Ireland settled the early townships. In the early 1700s, the current town of Beaufort was chartered, becoming the second English settlement in South Carolina .

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