Mount Pleasant Magazine Jan/Feb 2020

34 www.ReadMPM.com | www.BestOfMP.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com feature sustenance for their daily lives as they ground acorns and nuts to make bread, hunted deer and dined on shellfish, using the shells to skin and scrape animal hides. Their oval-shaped huts were fashioned from local wood and covered with Spanish moss and palmetto fronds. In 1670, the Sewee spotted Carolina, the first English ship, sailing into Bull’s Bay. The ship had overshot its destination of Port Royal to the south, but the mistake was serendipitous. The Sewee and Kiawah welcomed them warmly and convinced them that they would be better off staying in this area. One English passenger wrote of being invited to Awendaw to the “Hutt Palace,” home of the Sewee leader, whereupon the English dignitary William Sayle was ceremoniously carried inside. Instead, the settlers put down roots west of the harbor on today’s site of Charles Towne Landing State Park. A decade later, the newcomers moved their settlement to the peninsula. Florentia O’Sullivan, one of the original passengers on the Carolina, was granted 2,340 acres of land east of the Cooper River at North Point, also called Oldwanus Point (later becoming Old Woman’s Point), near the current Patriots Point. He was commissioned the surveyor general of the colony, and his duties included monitoring the harbor for any signs of a Spanish or French invasion. Other Europeans came soon thereafter. Over 400 Huguenots arrived in the 1680s and settled on the east branch of the Cooper River, establishing a “French Quarter” there. Fifty-one Congregationalists from New England arrived at Sewee Bay in 1695 and established several large plantations at Wappetaw, the area between the Wando River and Sewee Bay. They also built a meeting house, which may have been the first building to be constructed as a place of worship east of the Cooper. The Hibben Street House was used as British headquarters during their occupation. 1670 Nearly 100 English set- tlers arrive at Bull’s Bay on the ship, Carolina. 1674 A cannon is positioned at the mouth of the harbor to protect from a French or Spanish invasion. 1695 Congregationalists build the first house of worship near Sewee Bay. 1686 Spanish ships on the attack are turned back by a hurricane. 1699 The shipbuilding industry begins at Shem Creek. 1706 Five French ships battle local militia at Shem Creek. 1706 The Church Act divides South Carolina into parishes for political and religious purposes. Mount Pleasant Timeline