Mount Pleasant Magazine Jan/Feb 2019

56 www.ReadMPM.com | www.BestOfMP.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com area found remnants of the “First Stone Fleet” and Confederate blockade runners. Here’s how the website described the final days of the fleet: “The First Stone Fleet, a series of New England whaling and merchant vessels filled with stone and intentionally sunk by Union forces to prevent Confederate blockade runners from entering the harbor. Research looked at 16 wrecks in the area, 13 of which were blockade runners. Remains of the blockade runners were reportedly in two clusters with two “outliers,” all wrecked along Maffitt’s Channel in attempts to elude Union blockaders.” A wreck well-known to local divers is the Fredrick W. Day, a wooden schooner built in 1901 that sunk off the coast of Charleston on Sept. 17, 1914, loaded with bags of cement. When the ship sank, it turned upside down and now lies on her deck, keel toward the sky. Divers have found that after a century of tidal flow, there is nothing left on the wreck but hundreds of burlap bagged cement ballasts that were used to counterweight the ship’s sails. All this and more await, although it may take a little effort to view what lies off Mount Pleasant, Charleston Harbor and the neighboring islands’ coastlines. Who knows what else the ceaseless waves and major storms will records include daily logs, accounts and employee accounts concerning salvage operations on wrecks in the Charleston Harbor, such as the USS Housatonic – which was sunk by the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley – the USS Keokuk and USS Weehauken. She added that the Historical Society fields numerous questions about shipwrecks off the Carolina coast. “Our collection holds primary and secondary sources from personal accounts of wrecks to log books and ships’ journals,” she said. It was with great fanfare that the H.L. Hunley was finally located and pulled in 2000 from the depths in the outer Charleston Harbor and later placed on display. At least three U.S. ironclads sunk off the coast of Charleston during the Civil War – the aforementioned Keokuk and Weehauken, and the Patapsco. The Patapsco met its fate by a torpedo obstruction near Fort Sumter; the Weehawken went down south of Battery Wagner in the main shipping channel; and the Keokuk was an ironclad of experimental design that was destroyed at the entrance of the main shipping channel after being shelled by Confederate artillery on April 7, 1863. According to sciencedaily.com , research of the Charleston Harbor The USS Housatonic was sunk by the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley. Photo courtesy of historynet.com. Wholefoods Shopping Center 893 Houston Northcutt Blvd, Mt Pleasant, SC 29464 10-7 weekdays | 10-5 Sat. | 12-5 Sunday 843-442-4445 cryoevolution.com Cryo EVOLUTION Next Generation Recovery feature