Discovery Lecture Series – Hilton Head Island Land Trust and the History of Fort Howell

The Hilton Head Island Land Trust, founded in 1987, is a not-for-profit organization that preserves and protects over 300 acres of unique habitat and historical properties on Hilton Head.  One of these properties contains Civil War era Fort Howell, the best preserved earthern Civil War fort in South Carolina.  Built near the end of the war in 1864, its primary purpose was to protect the Freedman’s Village of Mitchelville from suspected Confederate raids to recapture former enslaved people who had sought refuge by escaping to the Union Army base on the island.

Join us to learn more about this piece of our island history.  Our speaker, George Banino, spent his career as a consulting geologist.  He has also had a long interest in history and since moving to Hilton Head in 2002, particularly in the Civil War.  Mr. Banino is the current president of the HHI Land Trust and is leading the way to improve the experience of visitors to Fort Howell.  The Land Trust is working to educate people about the fort, its history and role in protecting Mitchelville and more broadly, protecting the formerly enslaved as the war ended and the Reconstruction Era was developing.