Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2020

30 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.VOICEofMPpodcast.com Shipbuilding made Shem Creek a working creek, but that was far from the only enterprise there. Peter Villepontoux ran a lime kiln on the creek in the 1740s to supply the growing number of brickyards in the Lowcountry. Between 1745 and the start of the Civil War in 1861, more than 50 brickyards had operations on the Wando and Cooper rivers. Ferry service made Shem Creek a hub of business as well. In 1770, Englishman Andrew Hibben bought a charter to run a ferry from the south side of Shem Creek to Charleston. Hibben’s Ferry was the first to connect Haddrell’s Point — the name given to the Old Village area, after colonist George Haddrell — with the city of Charleston; other ferries had run from Hobcaw Creek. Hibben charged 33 cents for passengers, 21 cents for horned cattle, 75 cents for two-wheeled carriages and $1.75 for four-wheeled carriages. In 1795, millwright and inventor Jonathan Lucas built a combination rice mill/sawmill on Shem Creek — the first water-driven rice mill in the area. The man and his work live on in the names of thoroughfares along the creek — Mill Street and Lucas Street, specifically. Lucas’ mill was on the site of an earlier mill called 1862 – The Plantar, a steamer intended for use by nearby plantations, is built at Jones Shipyard on Shem Creek. The vessel is instead pressed into service as a blockade runner for the Confederacy. On May 16, while the steamer’s white officers are ashore, Black quartermaster Robert Smalls and an all-Black crew steer the ship out to join up with Union vessels at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. 1865 – Confederate troops burn the Lucas buildings and Greenwich Mill to prevent supplies from falling into the hands of the approaching Union army. All that remains of the once-thriving business are what’s left of the brick and timber foundations of the mill, wooden posts that once reinforced the dikes and a small cemetery. 1890 – William Hale launches the modern seafood industry on Shem Creek, operating an oyster factory. history