Hilton Head's oldest structure to get second look for restoration (with video)
Students from Savannah College of Art and Design will be checking out Hilton Head Island's oldest-known structure Friday.
SCAD's historic-preservation class will be in the Zion Chapel of Ease cemetery at 10 a.m. to perform a condition study of the Baynard Mausoleum. The visit is a follow-up to a study SCAD did in May 2013 to evaluate the effects of remedial steps taken by the Heritage Library to shore up the historic site.
The mausoleum at the intersection of William Hilton Parkway and Mathews Drive was built more than 165 years ago. The Heritage Library Foundation has been trying to raise $175,000 to save it.
The 1,200- to 1,500-pound limestone slabs that make up the roof are cracked and in jeopardy of caving, according to Charleston masonry specialist Frank Genello.
Moisture has cracked the sandstone walls and rotted wood that supported the limestone slabs. The mausoleum's tile floors have deteriorated.
The Heritage Library Foundation put a tarp over the roof in March 2013 to keep out moisture. A local builder has done work to temporarily brace the slabs.
Built in 1846 by wealthy planter William Eddings Baynard, the mausoleum stands in the 2.8-acre cemetery where two Revolutionary War patriots are buried.
The cemetery was at the core of the settlements on Hilton Head in the days leading to the Civil War. It sits adjacent to the former Zion Chapel of Ease, a wood and brick building where services were regularly held until 1861, when Union troops invaded.
The cemetery's earliest grave dates to 1795.
One marker commemorates the life of Capt. John Stoney, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, planter on the island, founder of the Episcopal Church on Hilton Head and ancestor of the Stoneys of South Carolina.
As many as seven people, including Baynard, were buried in copper coffins in the mausoleum, according to a SCAD architectural analysis. Marble veneer covering the crypt's 21 burial chambers remains intact.
Sometime after the Civil War, grave robbers raided the building. One partial coffin remains at the Coastal Discovery Museum, according to the report.
This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Hilton Head's oldest structure to get second look for restoration (with video)."