Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2020

31 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.VOICEofMPpodcast.com Greenwich Mill, built by landowner Jonathan Scott. In the mid-1800s, John Hamlin’s Mount Pleasant Bucket Factory was on the south side of the creek, in the area of present-day Live Oak Drive and Bennett Street. The factory supplied not only buckets but painted and unpainted pine, cypress, assorted lumber and lathes. WAR ON THE CREEK The Civil War touched Shem Creek, just as it did the rest of the Charleston area. In the early 1860s, workers at Jones Shipyard had built a steamer called The Planter that owner F.M. Jones intended for use by nearby plantations. The vessel was instead put into service as a blockade runner for the Confederacy because of its shallow draft and speed. On May 13, 1862, while the vessel’s white officers were ashore, The Planter’s Black quartermaster, Robert Smalls, and the rest of the Black crew saw their opportunity and seized it. Smalls and his fellow sailors steered the ship out to meet Union vessels at the mouth of the harbor and were later rewarded for their daring feat. At the time of the war, there was a grist mill on Shem Creek in the area that is now the Shemwood II subdivision. The Photo provided by the Town of Mount Pleasant. 1930s – Shrimping and boat-building are Shem Creek’s major industries. 1945 – A Shem Creek fixture, Mount Pleasant Seafood, is established by W.D. Toler. 1895 – Capt. Robert Holman Magwood buys the Mount Pleasant Boat Building Co., docking his boats there and also operating a turtle crawl that produces live diamondback terrapins for restaurants in Northeastern cities. history