Mount Pleasant Magazine Nov/Dec 2020

32 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.VOICEofMPpodcast.com mill ground rice and corn grown on local plantations. In February 1865, Mount Pleasant’s intendant, Henry Slade Tew, wrote a letter to his daughter telling her of the ill fate that befell the mill: “I heard that orders had been given to burn the mill and contents … the destruction of the mill itself would deprive the people of a means of having any rice beat or corn ground, and must cause great suffering.” Tew went to the mill to try to stop the burning, appealing personally to Capt. C.P. Bolton and his cavalry as they approached, bearing torches. He wrote, “He [Bolton] admitted the cruelty of the act … but his orders compelled him to destroy it, and fire was accordingly applied, and the devilish act, I must call it, accomplished.” TERRAPINS AND TRAWLERS More than two decades after the war ended, the modern seafood and boat building industries on Shem Creek were born. In 1890, William Hale was operating an oyster factory on the creek, and in 1895, Capt. Robert Holman Magwood bought the Mount Pleasant Boat Building Co., docking his boats there 2002 – The Town of Mount Pleasant forms the Shem Creek Management Committee to“determine a vision and outline issues of importance to the future of Shem Creek.” 2009 - A 3.4-acre tract at the headwaters of Shem Creek, near James B. Edwards Elementary School, is donated to the Mount Pleasant Open Space Foundation by the East Bay Company. The land will be protected from development and will provide an outdoor classroom setting for students. 2011 – Shem Creek Park opens in October 2011. A 2,200-foot-long boardwalk stretches from just beyond the Shem Creek Bridge on Coleman to the mouth of the Charleston Harbor. history