Mount Pleasant Magazine March/April 2020

44 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.BestofMP.com feature R emember the last time you were stuck in traffic on the Ravenel Bridge? How about when “tarpageddon” closed the Don Holt a few years ago? Or when cracks appeared on the I-526 Wando River Bridge and a cable later snapped, leaving the bridge closed for several weeks? Our daily lives rely on these bridges, but how did people get to and from East of the Cooper before they were constructed? The answer: ferries. From the earliest days of colonial settlement, ferrymen with boats or barges transported goods and people around the Lowcountry. They even brought city dwellers to uninhabited islands for recreational fishing and hunting. Beginning in the early 1700s, the Bonneau Ferry transported lumber and other products from plantations on the east branch of the Cooper River. The Strawberry Ferry ran across the Cooper from Childsbury Town in Berkeley County (near Strawberry Plantation). The Cainhoy Ferry crossed the Wando River from the hamlet of Cainhoy to Christ Church Parish. The Clements Ferry linked Daniel Island to the neck of peninsular Charleston, across the Cooper River. Nicknamed the Calais and Dover Ferry, the ferry’s moniker referred to the mostly French inhabitants on Daniel Island and the English residents in the city. In 1700, Captain Anthony Mathews (pronounced Mathis) ran a ferry linking Hog Island (near Patriots Point) with downtown Charleston. By 1765, the Hobcaw Ferry connected the city with Remley’s Point at William Watson’s Hobcaw Plantation. In 1770, Andrew Hibben established regularly scheduled ferry service from the Village of Mount Pleasant. The 20-minute ride across the harbor connected the Village with peninsular Charleston, docking downtown at the foot of Queen Street. Ferries to Georgetown also left from Shem Creek twice a week. In 1847, the Mount Pleasant and Sullivan’s Island Ferry Company began running multiple ferries (the Hibben, the Mount Pleasant, the Coffee, the Massasoit and the Governor Aiken) to the city and surrounding areas from Ferry Street in the Village. The Governor Aiken went to Cainhoy and the picnic grounds at Remley’s Point, and two boats went up the Cooper River to plantations on a regular schedule, thereby expanding transportation to rural areas. During the Civil War, the Hibben, which could hold 400 people, and the Coffee were used by the Confederacy and became blockade runners. BY MARY COY Navigating Local Waters For centuries, the Lowcountry’s geography provided a logical solution to transportation needs Photo courtesy of the Historic Charleston Foundation. The ferry boat Sappho carried people back and forth across the harbor. Photo circa 1910.