1880 Leamington Lighthouse and the Blue Lady Legend
Leamington at Palmetto Dunes Resort, Hilton Head Island, SC 29928
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to view from public golf-course trails at Palmetto Dunes; resort access may require a paid pass.
Access
Limited Access
Skeletal tower on the Arthur Hills Golf Course; viewing from cart paths and adjacent trails. Tower itself is not climb-accessible to the public.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1880 · Hilton Head Island Navigational History · Skeletal-Tower Range-Light Construction · Leamington Lighthouse
The Hilton Head Rear Range Light, also called the Leamington Lighthouse, was established in 1880 as the rear range light of a paired navigational aid. Its skeletal iron-frame tower is one of the surviving examples of late-nineteenth-century range-light construction on the South Carolina coast.
The lighthouse is preserved at Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort and overlooks the Arthur Hills Golf Course. It is Hilton Head Island's only true working-era lighthouse — the much-photographed Harbour Town Lighthouse at the south end of the island is a 1969 marina-marker construction rather than a historic working lighthouse.
The Rear Range Light has received recent renovation work, with Palmetto Dunes coordinating preservation efforts. The structure can be viewed from public-access points within the resort. Local-history reference works at the Coastal Discovery Museum and at Lighthousefriends.com provide structural and operational documentation.
Sources
The Hilton Head Rear Range Light is most commonly associated in Lowcountry tradition with the Blue Lady, often called Caroline. In the legend a keeper named Adam Fripp climbed the tower during a fierce hurricane in 1898; the strain of the climb and the shock of a wind-shattered lantern-room pane brought on a fatal heart attack. His daughter Caroline is said to have continued tending the light through the storm in hip-deep water and to have died shortly thereafter from sorrow and exhaustion.
Sightings of a young woman in a long blue dress near the skeletal tower are reported in regional retellings, most often on rainy nights and during the hurricane season. The Blue Lady appears in Lowcountry ghost-tour writing and in the susandiamondriley.com Hilton Head folklore coverage.
A historiographical note: lighthouse-service records do not show a Keeper Fripp as having served at the Rear Range Light, suggesting the Caroline story is local folklore rather than confirmed history. The legend remains an integral part of the island's tourism storytelling.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
View Hilton Head's only true working-era lighthouse from public-access cart paths at Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort. The skeletal-framed tower dates to 1880, and recent renovations have preserved the structure.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Gatlinburg, TN
Great Smoky Mountains National Park preserves 522,427 acres of southern Appalachian terrain across Tennessee and North Carolina. The land was the heart of the Cherokee Nation before forced removal in 1838 along what became the Trail of Tears, and home to Appalachian Scots-Irish and English settler communities through the early twentieth century. Congress authorized the park in 1926; it was formally dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 2, 1940.
Travelers Rest, SC
Constructed in 1820, Poinsett Bridge is the oldest surviving stone bridge in South Carolina and potentially the oldest in the southeastern United States. The 130-foot Gothic-arch span over Little Gap Creek was built as part of the State Road connecting Columbia to the North Carolina mountains, named for Joel Roberts Poinsett, then-president of the state Board of Public Works. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, it is now the centerpiece of the 400-acre Poinsett Bridge Heritage Preserve managed by SC DNR.
Grand Canyon Village, AZ
Grand Canyon National Park encompasses 1,217,262 acres of canyon, plateau, and Colorado River corridor in northern Arizona. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon a national monument in 1908; Congress established the national park on February 26, 1919. The park's South Rim Grand Canyon Village Historic District and North Rim Grand Canyon Lodge are landmarks of early National Park Service architecture.