Mount Pleasant Magazine March/April 2016

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From Fort to resort
The ever-present cool ocean breezes blowing across Sul-
livan’s Island from the Atlantic provided the impetus for the
next stage in the transformation of the economy of Sullivan’s
Island and Long Island. While other barrier islands were
dominated by agriculture and plantation farming, Sullivan’s
Island was known not for the bounty of its environment but
for the exclusivity it offered Charleston’s elite.
Once dependent upon the fort, the many service in-
dustries supporting Sullivan’s Island, including the opera-
tors of the cross-harbor ferries, turned their entrepreneur-
ial goals to establishing both Sullivan’s Island and, later,
the Isle of Palms, into tourist destinations. Beginning
at the end of the 18th century, Charleston’s movers and
shakers went about securing the island’s prime real estate
for the purpose of building summer homes. And ready to
serve the needs of the new vacationers were, without fail,
the ferryboats.
the heyday oF the Charleston Ferries
As the 19th century progressed, the Civil War ended
and Reconstruction ruled, the ferry industry in Charles-
ton thrived. Ferries carried Sullivan’s Island resident Dr.
Joseph Lawrence, president of the Charleston and Seashore
Railroad Company. His firm eventually connected the
barrier islands with the cross-island trolley system, but not
before reaping financial rewards from the company’s ferry.
Commodore Perry, which catered to Charleston’s affluent,
transported both family and furniture across the waters
of Charleston Harbor. The ferry boarded at the foot of
Cumberland Street in downtown Charleston and traveled
to Mount Pleasant.
Meanwhile, the Mount Pleasant Ferry Company’s
Sappho ran from 1876 to 1929, when the erection of the
first Cooper River Bridge, the Grace Memorial, slowed
seaborne transportation. And the Lawrence, a former Con-
federate blockade runner, also made a name for itself fol-
lowing the War Between the States. Like the Sappho, this
boat catered to myriad customers, from day-trippers and
summer vacationers to folks moving to the exclusive little
island by the sea. The Lawrence made the journey from
downtown Charleston to Mount Pleasant, then ultimately
to Sullivan’s Island before returning to port to refuel for
another venture.
Helen Coste Moore, whose family has been on Sul-
livan’s Island for generations, also experienced transpor-
tation by boat, as she was the daughter of a federal em-
ployee. During Moore’s youth in the 1920s – prior to the
Grace Memorial – even a car that regularly drove around
the island arrived by ferryboat.
“The automobile, a yellow Buick owned by Fritz Wer-
ner, came from Charleston aboard the ferry that landed at
Mount Pleasant,” said Moore in an interview with Thomas
R. Waring of The Post and Courier.
the end oF an era
Telling the story of Sullivan’s Island, the Isle of Palms
and even Mount Pleasant is impossible without referencing
the industrious ferryboat industry. The visual image of the
ferry crossing the harbor with a family, their furniture and
even the family cow onboard is retained as an idyllic sym-
bol of a bygone era – yet it still resonates with us today.
The ferry
industry took a
big hit with the
construction
of the Grace
Memorial
Bridge in 1929.