Mount Pleasant Magazine March/April 2016

home of Charleston’s primary defensive installation de-

pended for the ensuing two centuries on Charleston’s ferry

boat industry.

In 1674, standing where Fort Sullivan – later Fort

Moultrie – was eventually built, Florence O’Sullivan was

tasked to scout the island that would later bear his name

as a potential location for a defensive fortification. His

observation changed the history of the island – he pointed

out that from its easternmost point, it was possible to keep

watch on the expansive Atlantic Seaboard as well as the

innards of Charleston Harbor.

For a more than a century-and-a-half, a fleet of fer-

ryboats catered to those traversing Charleston Harbor, the

Cooper River, the equally powerful Ashley River, which

flanks peninsular Charleston’s western edge, and even the

Stono River. Even the Lowcountry’s famed tributaries and

marshes were fair game for the able ferry operators, and

development, particularly of Fort Moultrie, became an en-

gine that propelled ferries to the prominent position they

held in Charleston society for the next 150 years.

Crossing The harbor

At the dawn of the 19th century, the Hibben Fam-

ily Ferry was the area’s dominant ferryboat company.

In business from approximately 1798 to 1821, it made

round trips on most days from the back side of Sullivan’s

Island at Fisherman’s Wharf across the often choppy

Charleston Harbor to Adger’s Wharf, near the market in

downtown Charleston.

The Pressley and Mintz families operated another

prominent ferry at that time, the Hildegard, which made

daily voyages from the tip of Sullivan’s Island to Adger’s

Wharf. Ferries were a part of life on Sullivan’s Island,

and, to a lesser extent, Old Mount Pleasant; any trip to

acquire provisions required a trek across the harbor.

“The rise and fall of Fort Moultrie had a great effect

on the island. The island depended on being a fort and a

resort. Those two things … and the ferries were the life-

For more than a century-and-a-half, a fleet of ferryboats, including

the Mount Pleasant Ferry Company’s Sappho, catered to those

traversing Charleston Harbor and the Ashley, Cooper and Stono rivers.