“Remembering The Way It Was ”

From cooking ‘coon and ‘possum to recalling the heyday of Melrose Plantation, Fran shares the heartwarming stories of Hilton Head, Bluffton and Daufuskie before, as the
Gullahs might say, “it all change up.”

n this second volume of personal memories collected by Lowcountry journalis, Fran Heyward Marscher, area old-timers tell of the adventures, the industry and the heart of the Lowcountry itself. Just like the Lowcountry players profiled in the first volume of this series, the characters here are as real as the live oaks that dominate the region. They came of age in a golden age in a golden place. With no gasoline engines, they had no traffic troubles. A fellow could ride his horse from Bluffton to the Buckingham Landing to catch a bateau to Hilton Head Island without seeing another person along the way. Without jet skis, he could travel silently through the creeks and sounds, relying on the tide and the wind to help power his oars or sails. He could hear the mullet jumping.

With no theaters or other forms of entertainment, the men and women in this book, calling on their imaginations to amuse themselves and amuse one another, became skilled storytellers. Crab were so plentiful, they said, on a summer afternoon, even a child could walk along the creek’s edge with one stout stick, throw dozens of them onto the bank and then hook them with their back fins around a second stout stick and so bring Mama enough crab for supper. They told other stories—how Hilton Head Island became famous for butter beans, how Daufuskie built its reputation on its liquor stills, and how the oyster shell streets of Bluffton filled up with people three times a week when the important passenger and cargo steamers tied up to the dock at the end of Calhoun Street.

In 1900 all of Beaufort County had a population of only 35,000. By 1940, the population had dropped to 22,000 as blacks migrated to New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Boston to look for wage-paying jobs nowhere to be found in South Carolina. By the 1960s, Beaufort County and Jasper County together were described as the heart of the nation’s “poverty pocket.”

Then along came the beachfront resorts, the golf courses, tennis courts, retirement communities and with them dollars whipping through the local economy. Now, after half a century of developers marketing the area internationally the trappings of population growth have replaced much of the natural landscape. Everything is, as the Gullahs might say, “all change up.”

And yet, it still is possible from certain vantages to watch the tide slosh in and out twice a day, still possible to hear the squawk of blue herons and the rattle of wind in the palmettos. And it still is possible to go back to a slower and quieter era through the memories of the men and women in this book.

I interviewed most of these characters in the early 1980s when I was a reporter for The Island Packet, Hilton Head Island’s daily newspaper. The Packet gave its permission for the use of its photographs. My husband, Bill Marscher, who prodded me to polish these old tales and make them accessible for current and future generations, helped immensely in the process, especially with the pictures.

To request a copy visit www.historypress.com or call (843)577-5971