IT may have begun as a case of mistaken identity. Or perhaps it was a tribute to an early Carolina settler's island home 700 miles away across the Atlantic.

Little is known about how a tiny island in coastal Beaufort County, South Carolina came to be named Bermuda Island. But archives and anecdotes offer a few tantalising clues in a mystery that dates back at least 400 years.

When the Renaissance Marketing Group began developing Bermuda Bluff Island as a residential community more than a decade ago, it named all the streets after those on the Atlantic island of Bermuda: Front Street, Bermuda Downs, and Salt Kettle Court. The community's web site claims "Rumour has it that the island bears that name from some early explorers who were lost and called it Bermuda."

Though it's difficult to find any evidence to substantiate this claim, it's not difficult to believe that seafarers lost in big storms at sea probably did play some role in the formation of the Bermuda Island on St. Helena, just as it did in the formation of the "first" Bermuda in the Atlantic.

The most likely, though perhaps least colourful, explanation is, according to The History of South Carolina, Vol. 1, that "Bermuda Island commemorated the far-famed group of islands in the Atlantic from which some of the planters on St. Helena's had migrated to SC".

Some Beaufort County families trace their roots back to the first North American colonial settlements, such as Jamestown, Virginia. In 1609, a flotilla of eight vessels conveying new settlers to Jamestown was struck by a hurricane. The flagship Sea Venture was wrecked in Bermuda and was lodged on a reef. None of the 150 people aboard died in the wreck, and as boat after boat unloaded passengers onto the shore, Bermuda was born. The account of the wreck inspired William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

So Bermuda was accidentally colonised in 1609 and, according to The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina interest in the South Carolina coast was first stirred about 20 years later.

The first of these emigrations began in 1670. The Albemarle, the Port Royal, and the Carolina sailed from The Downs with 93 English passengers aboard the Carolina. Of the approximately 148 emigrants some were wealthy and a few were described as "active men of affairs, well able to turn opportunity to their advantage, on whom the development of the Colony must largely depend . . . most, however, were servants" or at least said to be so; it's possible they were friends and family listed as servants to increase the allotment of available land to which the wealthy man would be entitled.

The three ships arrived in Barbados in late October. A storm on November 2 wrecked the Albemarle and damaged the other vessels, but no lives were lost. In mid-November, they sailed for Port Royal, but were separated by a storm. The ship Port Royal wandered for six weeks and was wrecked on January 12 in the Bahamas with water supplies long-exhausted. The 36 passengers and crew of eight got to shore, but many died before a new boat was built. The survivors were sent to Bermuda, where the Carolina had already taken refuge.

William Sayle of Bermuda commanded the Carolina and a second vessel obtained in Bermuda on a voyage to the colonies that recommenced on February 1670. By March 15, they sighted the South Carolina coast at Bull's Bay. The Native Americans in the area welcomed the landing party, perhaps recognising the English flag, so the Governor and others landed on March 17, moving from Port Royal Sound to St. Helena Sound.

Sir John Yeomans, at the time Governor of what is now coastal South Carolina, had to commission Sayle in his stead because of the long delayed voyage and unexpected stop in Bermuda, as well as Yeomans' preoccupation with a land conflict between the French and the English. He was apparently somewhat loath to give Sayle the appointment, describing him as "a man of no great sufficiency, yet the best I could get".

Strong connections can be made between the South Carolina Lowcountry and the Bahamas since the 17th century, mostly in terms of trade and slavery with the West Indies, Africa and the Caribbean. But as it turns out, mid-Atlantic Bermuda played a part in those connections as well.

The opportunity to purchase large tracts of land in Bermuda were exhausted, so many early Bermuda settlers, especially religious Non-Conformists, wanted to emigrate to the Bahamas.

Sayle, originally from the Isle of Man, had settled in Bermuda in the 1630s. He and a group of his fellow Dissenters dreamed of a Bahamian settlement as a haven for independent Congregationalists.

At the time of his commission as Governor of South Carolina in 1670, Sayle was 79 or 80 and considered a "dissenting zealot" by New England Puritans because he had attempted to form the first permanent settlement of a Puritan colony in the Bahamas in 1647-48 "with complete liberty of conscience and separation of church and state". He was unsuccessful, so he had returned to the Bermudas in 1657 where he was appointed Governor again in 1658 (after an on-again, off-again stint as Governor in the 1640s) "but was soon accused of seeking to break up the Bermudas colony" for the sake of his religious interests in the Bahamas "and in 1662 was removed at the urgency of his religious enemies".

With the establishment of the colony at St. Helena Sound, provisions were sent from Bermuda and Virginia, but attacks by Spanish and Indians and malarial disease made life difficult. Colonists remained largely content, however, in spite of the hardships; they were unsatisfied with Governor Sayle, though. In November 1670, Captain Brayne wrote of Sayle "being a person verie anchant or aged and verie feeble, having gon threw a great deale of sickness of late . . . what small reason he had is about taken from him . . . He is one of the onfittest men in the world for . . . being Governor".

Sayle died in 1671, appointing on his death bed Joseph West as his successor, a man historians universally praise. Historians also tend to cut Sayle more slack than his colonists did, and he's said to have been a man of "sound judgment" and character, even if he were "verie feeble".

Another early Bermudian who might have been instrumental in naming "the Other Bermuda" in South Carolina was Edward Wigg. His family hailed from Bermuda and owned property in downtown Beaufort and plantations on Port Royal Island and St. Helena Island, which is connected to what is now Bermuda Bluff Island by a causeway.

Wigg's father Richard came to Carolina before 1706 and settled in Charles Town (now Charleston). Richard was granted a lot in Beaufort in 1717; when he died ten years later, his six children continued to live in Beaufort.

Edward Wigg was active in St. Helena's Anglican Church. Though no documents name Wigg as the owner of Bermuda Plantation on Bermuda Island, historians have speculated that he may have been instrumental in its naming, owing to his origins there and his fondness for Bermuda. In fact, at age 40, Wigg left the Beaufort County area and returned to Bermuda in 1755. Settling in St. George's in the hope of restoring his poor health, he died shortly after his arrival. His tomb can still be seen in St. Peter's church yard.

A deed for 25 acres, dated October 3, 1699, is the earliest mention of Bermuda Town. It was presumably a fairly sizeable settlement, since provision was made for a school. In 1716, the school house land was given to the parish; when it burnt down in 1728, another school wasn't built.

There is no record of how or when the name Bermuda Town was given. The "town" was probably little more than a name, but Bermuda continued on as the name of a plantation.

During the American Civil War, Bermuda Island was sold to N.S. English for $400. English built a large house, a barn, a sugar cane mill, a seed house, a brick chicken house, and a smoke house in the 1870s.

During the remainder of the 19th century and throughout the 20th, until its relatively recent development, Bermuda Island has changed hands many times. Current resident Joe Dennis has found archaeological evidence of structures on his lot while digging around doing landscaping. He believes English's structures covered four or five of the currently configured lots and says he and a neighbor have found Confederate memorabilia, old cisterns from the 1800s or before, and evidence of an Indian campground which the Historical Society has said may be three or four thousand years old.

Bermuda Bluff Island today comprises about 179 acres. With a potential total buildout of 98 lots, there are about 26 houses there now.

Mr. Dennis offers a final parallel between Beaufort Bluff Island and its namesake: Like Bermudians, residents of Beaufort County and the coastal islands are usually fortunate in that hurricanes and other severe weather often bypass the area, owing to a fortuitous configuration of land. Dennis says that a very serious hurricane did significant damage to the Sea Islands of South Carolina in 1893 as did Hurricane Hugo in 1989 but that otherwise severe weather has had less impact on the are than might be expected. Seems the coastal island first settled by the once sea-swept settlers of Bermuda shares both a name and a common charm against further "tempests".

With special thanks to Grace Cordial of the Beaufort County Public Library's District Collection.