The modern era for Martins Point began in 1989 when five partners purchased the 900 acres to create a waterfront retreat for their families and friends where water quality, open space and wildlife habitat are protected.

The early history of Martins Point began in 1699 when the Lord Proprietors of the Carolina colony granted 200 acres on the North Edisto and Wadmalaw Rivers to John Jones, a gunsmith. In 1700, Landgrave Joseph Morton, the son of the first Royal Governor of Carolina, added the Jones tract to his 2,700 acre plantation known as Bears Bluff. The plantation has since been called Ladinwah, Bear-Bluff, Morton Town, and Point of Pines.

In 1866, Daniel F. Towles, a Georgia farmer, purchased 1,200 acres of planting and marsh land that is now Martins Point. For more than 100 years, Martins Point was the center of agricultural commerce on Wadmalaw with its own currency, store and school. The Wadmalaw Island telephone system and post office were located at the plantation house. Crops and people were ferried to the mainland from the private Martins Point landing.