Editing Bluffton, South Carolina (section)

===Antebellum era (1785–1861)===
[[File:ChurchOfTheCross.JPG|thumb|Church of the Cross]]
[[File:SecessionOak.jpg|thumb|right|upright|This 350- to 400-year-old [[live oak]] tree at Stock Farm in Bluffton, known as the "Secession Oak", is where in 1844 US Representative [[Robert Barnwell Rhett]] of South Carolina called for the South to withdraw from the Union.<ref>{{cite web | last = Wile | first = Rob | title = Secession Oak Draws Crowd on 166th Anniversary of Bluffton Speech Under its Bows | publisher = The Island Packet | date = July 31, 2010 | url = http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/07/31/1324331/secession-oak-draws-crowd-on-116th.html | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140319090023/http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/07/31/1324331/secession-oak-draws-crowd-on-116th.html | archive-date = March 19, 2014 }}</ref>]]
The town of Bluffton was eventually built on two adjoining parcels in the Devil's Elbow Barony purchased by Benjamin Walls and James Kirk. The first homes were constructed during the early 1800s by area plantation owners seeking the high ground and cool river breezes as an escape from the unhealthy conditions present on Lowcountry rice and cotton plantations. Easy access by water provided more incentive for expansion, and the many tidal coves afforded excellent locations for residences. The community was originally known as "Kirk's Landing" or "Kirk's Bluff" as shown in Mill's Atlas of 1825. The first streets were formally laid out during the 1830s and the name of Bluffton decided upon in the early 1840s as a compromise between the Kirk and Pope families.

The first South Carolina secession movement began under what is now known as the Secession Oak tree, led by [[Robert Barnwell Rhett]] on July 31, 1844. In the 1850s, a steamboat landing was built at the end of Calhoun Street, and Bluffton became the commercial center of southern Beaufort County as a stopover for travelers between [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]] and Beaufort. In 1852, the town was officially incorporated by an act of the South Carolina General Assembly and comprised approximately one square mile.<ref name="scency"/> The iconic [[Church of the Cross]] was designed by architect [[Edward Brickell White]] to seat up to 600 parishioners at a cost of $5,000, and construction began in 1854. On July 17, 1857, the first services were held at the Church of the Cross.<ref name="historic">Historic District Inventory [http://www.townofbluffton.sc.gov/departments/growthmanagement/Documents/HistoricDistrict_InventoryBoard.pdf townofbluffton.sc.gov]{{dead link|date=November 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>