Mount Pleasant Magazine March/April 2016

hen the first brave

European migrants arrived at Charles

Towne Landing in 1670 and estab-

lished the first city of Charleston,

carving out a life here was tough.

The quality of their existence depended on their smarts,

their sweat and their success in negotiating the swampy,

Lowcountry terrain and its many waterways. Those who

settled east of the Cooper River, particularly on the barrier

islands, exemplified that spirit even more, as the very habi-

tation of Sullivan’s Island and Long Island – later renamed

the Isle of Palms – depended to a large extent on seawor-

thy transportation.

The transformation from an uninhabited island to the

The heyday of The CharlesTon ferries

Ferrying an

Island Forward

By Charlie Morrison

Photos courtesy of Hal Coste