The Original Pawleys Island Rope Hammock

Driving the main road into Pawleys Island, South Carolina, in either direction, you see proof of local pride immediately, right there on the welcome signs: a picture of a rope hammock. Because this beautiful live-oak seaside town, where the Original Pawleys Island Rope Hammock® started out in business more than a century ago, is to the American style of hammock what Hershey, Pennsylvania, is to the chocolate bar. Pawleys Island reset the standard.

To this day, Pawleys Island, the place, is intimately interwoven with Pawleys Island, the brand. Because at the Original Pawleys Island Rope Hammock, we hold tradition to a level of esteem rivaled only by how greately we value craftsmanship and quality.

When South Carolina riverboat captain and brand founder Joshua John "Cap'n Josh" Ward set out in 1889 to create a comfortable, secure rope hammock for sleeping, he focused on quality materials and heightened craftsmanship as keys to his eventual success. Instead of using the rough, thinly wound hemp and manila rope common to his day, Cap'n Josh opted for heavier rope made out of skin-comfy cotton. Then, instead of tying his rope strands together – the bulky manner in which rope hammocks were then made – Cap'n Josh devised a knotless double-latch weaving style that used gravity and tension to produce a lattice-like design.

The enterprising riverboat captain's greatest contribution to the art of hammock-making, however, has to be his invention of the spreader bar, a wooden slat drilled with rope holes and fitted to each end of the hammock bed to hold the hammock ropes apart. Used in tandem with Cap'n Josh's double-latch weaving style, the spreader bar eliminated the need for uncomfortable knots within the hammock bed.

Cap'n Josh's new rope-and-wood creation was not only a pleasure to recline in, but was infinitely stronger, and safer, than the knobby old-style hammocks of his time as well. Today, other than a few improvements to the materials we use, our basic rope-hammock design remains little changed from back in those bygone days of Cap'n Josh.

We don't call ourselves The Original for nothing!

At The Original Pawleys Island Rope Hammock, we're unapologetically proud to be anything but new-fangled. Now 120 years old and counting, we continue to offer the very best of our past in hopes it may help our devoted customers to better enjoy their futures.