Serving Greater Bluffton Since 1987

The Bluffton Eccentric was the first and only newspaper the town of Bluffton has had in fifty years. We felt such a kinship with them that we asked Graham Bullock, publisher of The Bluffton Eccentric, if we could resurrect articles from previous issues and republish them. Graham graciously gave his permission and loaned us volumes of old papers. It has been a treat for me to read them and it is with great honor that I get to share them with everyone again. So, kick back, relax and get ready for a blast from the past.

The Bluffton Vignette by Betsy Thayer

Mr. Hugh O’Quinn

sat on Mr. Hugh O’Quinn’s front porch on a hot afternoon in July and looked out through the azaleas that almost reached the roof line. What had once been a wide shaded yard that faced the glaring pavement of the much traveled Highway 46. “Bluffton didn’t need a big road when I built the house in 1933,” the soft spoken Mr. Hugh said. “There might be two, maybe three, cars a day that passed by the house.” He smiled and added,” It didn’t seem as hot back then either, though I suspect that it was. I always think that each summer is hotter than the one before.”

Mr. O’Quinn’s family had a large farm in the Pritchardville area and raised cotton. He remembers, as a child, the yearly trip to Savannah on the steamboat “Louise” to take their cash crop to one of the big warehouses on River Street. Each cotton bale would be reduced to half it’s size by a huge compress and then loaded onto one of the ships in the port. They would spend the night with relatives in Savannah and go shopping before returning by boat to the dock at the end of Calhoun Street. “There weren’t any of the big bridges back then and Bluffton was totally dependent on boats to bring us anything that we couldn’t raise or grow ourselves.”

“Everybody had a vegetable garden, but we had one of the few farms that grew rice. Corn was my favorite crop and the mill in Pritchardville was open on Saturdays during the season. The grits you buy in the store don’t taste like the grits we used to eat, and that cornmeal made the best cornbread you’ve ever put in your mouth. Just thinking about it, makes me wish I had some now.” He looked wistful and said, “We used to churn our own sweet butter, too.”

“The only fences were around our gardens and houses. The rest of the land was ‘free grass’ for the cattle, except for the milk cows that we kept near the barns. We’d put our mark, two notches in the right ear and one on the left, so we’d know which ones were ours. Then later, when we got automobiles in the area, the government passed the Stock Law and we had to keep the cattle off the roads.”

“When I was growing up, the only dancing that we knew how to do was the square dance. Mr. Gee White or Bawlly Brewing would play his violin and call the dances. I’d go to parties in the Bull Hill area and at Rose Hill at the Wilson house.”

Hugh O’Quinn became a logger in 1924 at the age of twenty three, and cut timber in the Bluffton area until 1966. There were several big sawmills nearby, including one that wanted only hardwood for wooden coathangers and another that specialized in making veneers. “We cut the trees down with a two man crosscut saw and used oxen to pull the big trunks out of the boggy swamps to a road. I was one of the first people in Bluffton to buy a truck and was able to take my logs longer distances than those who used mules or horse carts.”

“Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve always worn a felt hat out in the sun. When people have tried to tease me about my hat, I tell them that’s why I still have a full head of hair at eighty six and not baldheaded,” he said and smiled. When asked to sum up why he had chosen to live his life in Bluffton, his eyes twinkled as he said, “Why, I’ve lived here like a millionaire, without having to have the money.