Mount Pleasant Magazine July/August 2018

62 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.BestOfMP.com feature Y ou don’t get much more Mount Pleasant than John Royall , whose family has been here for nearly three centuries. There’s a seldom-noticed dirt road off of Mathis Ferry where he spent much of his life – fishing, swimming and crabbing, raising acres of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and corn in the summer and selling them “in town” (the Old Village) to make spending money as a kid. He remembers going to Coleman’s Grocery with his grandmother to order groceries, stopping by Dr. Ziegler’s at Pitt Street Pharmacy for an ice cream and walking back to her Old Village home where a man named Cheese would deliver the groceries and sit on the back porch and have a snack. “Those were good days,” he said. “We didn’t know how good we had it; that’s just what we did in a small town.” Royall bought a small hardware store from his former teacher in 1976 and grew it into Royall Ace Hardware – a bustling hub which exudes helpful service and that “small- town” feel that he grew up with – with the help of his wife and three boys. He built a house next to the home where he was raised. “To be able to walk down that old dirt road and enjoy the way it used to be is just perfect to me,” he said. Photo by Thomas Runion.