Before the Bridges: A Time of Ferries and Trolleys

By Sandy L. Quick

When Wilfred Patjens Tiencken was a boy, he loved to leave his Mount Pleasant home each day to go to school in Charleston. Not just for the classroom lesson, but for the trips to and from school, on a ferry boat. Tiencken, 83, grew up in a time when there were no enormous bridges lofting above the Cooper River. Instead, a coal-powered ferry boat chugged across on 20 to 25-minute trips.

"We learned a lot riding the ferry," the retired engineer and lawyer said. "Porpoises would swim beside the boat and jump and kind of look at you. We'd all run to the side to see it.

"Tiencken's favorite ferry memories come from World War I, when as many as 50 warships dotted the harbor, creating a maze for the ferry to weave through. Tiencken said he and the other boys would talk about the guns and other equipment they saw on the destroyers, and the girls would wave at the soldiers.

As with most other remnants of the olden days, Cooper River ferries are nothing but memories now.

Ferries linking Mount Pleasant to Charleston haven't run regularly in Charleston Harbor since 1939, when automobiles and bridges finally put them out of business. Every once in a while, entrepreneurs talk about bringing ferries back for commuters and tourists, but such a project has yet to be embraced by today's car-dependent society.

Before bridges, travel East of the Cooper was tricky. Water barriers, like Shem Creek, Cove Inlet and the Cooper River surrounded Mount Pleasant, and roads of dirt, sand or crushed oyster shells were the only options for road travel.

"Mount Pleasant streets were sand until they were eventually replaced by crushed oyster shells," Tiencken said. "Some people had difficulty with shells cutting their tires, but that was a part of life.

"Since Mount Pleasant was first settled, there has always been some sort of boat traffic to Charleston. Barges manned by 10 to 12 oarsmen were used at Hibben's Ferry, which began service in 1770 where Shem Creek meets the harbor. Historians say that George Washington was ferried across the harbor this way in 1791.

Later, mule boats were used, on which mules walked around a central pole attached to a propeller. In 1858, the Mount Pleasant and Charleston Ferry Line was crossing the Cooper River seven times a day between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. Fares were 12 ½ cents each way. At this time, Mount Pleasant was becoming a summer retreat for Charlestonians. An 1858 article in the Charleston Daily Courier described the serenity of a visit to Mount Pleasant. "The steamer takes her time to come over leisurely giving you a chance to cool off, and so on your arrival you walk slowly and quietly on the long bridge to the hotel or wherever you are going, perfectly independent of railroad trains, which cannot run over you as you walk along. I cannot say that there is any great room here for the descriptive powers except such as out beautiful groves and woodlands afford to the eyes of the lover of the beautiful in nature."

In 1870, five steamboats began ferry operations, some going up the Cooper River to pick up planters who traded in Charleston. The steamboats could hold as many as 400 passengers.

Various ferries operated until 1898, when Dr. Joseph Lawrence began organization of the Charleston Seashore Railway. The ferryboat Commodore Perry was purchased, terminal wharves and trestles over Cove and Breach inlets were constructed, and an electric trolley system was built. Dr. Lawrence also built a dancing pavilion and a small amusement park on the Isle of Palms, which was opened for the first time as a seaside resort.

People came by the thousands to enjoy the island beaches. For Charlestonians, a beach outing as an all day affair. In a 1955 article in the News and Courier, J. V. Nielson, Jr. described a typical beach trip in about 1915:

"The family of that day, armed with buckets and shovels for each child and a large basket of lunch for the family, usually had to ride on a least two street car lines in the city before getting to the ferry wharf at the foot of Gaillard Street, now called Cumberland Street.

"If a large crowd was making the trip, and the larger and faster ferryboat was in working order, the trip across the harbor was made on the Lawrence. The thrill of this voyage as to get a seat on the upper deck and watch the huge green walking beam go up and down like a giant man, turning the sidewheels of the ferryboat.

"Never to be forgotten sounds which went with a ferryboat voyage across the harbor were the rattling of the chains they were wound by when the ferryboat docked, the drop of the heavy gangplanks, and the music of the Italian band which often played on the deck of the Lawrence."

"At the Mount Pleasant dock it was a mad rush to get into the first trolley cars. The first cars were the express trains to the Isle of Palms, while those farther down the line were locals, which made stops in Mount Pleasant and Sullivan's."

"Often the trip was delayed by the opening of the Cove Inlet drawbridge between Mount Pleasant and Sullivan's."

"The big thrill of the trolley car trip was over the bridge between Sullivan's Island and the Isle of Palms. The sides of the cars extended over the sides of the trestle, so it appeared to the passengers that they were flying through the air."

Wilfred Tiencken has his own boyhood memories of beach trips by trolley. The 17 or 18 trolleys, he said, ran by electric current from overhead wires. From Mount Pleasant, overcrowded trolleys with "people hanging off the platform" crossed Cove Inlet at the end of Pitt Street. To this day the pilings from the trestle, and the paved road that later replaced it, still span about two-thirds of the inlet.

Tiencken also remembers the dances at the open-air pavilion on the Isle of Palms. "Big local orchestras would play, and the crowds were immense," he said. Young women wore dresses and men wore blue blazers and crème-colored flannel pants and ties. The pavilion was a clean place, he said, and no liquor was served at the large soda fountain. Dances were a nickel a piece, and dancers had to walk through a turnstile before each song. "You didn't dance with the same person all the time, so it was kind of wild in that respect," Tiencken said.

Sadly, the day long beach trips and weekend dances came to end in 1923, when disaster struck twice. The pavilion burned down and a hurricane damaged the trolley trestles. Damage was so extensive that the owners decided repairs would be too costly and closed down the whole operation.

With the trolleys gone, there was a complete void in transportation, Tiencken remembers, except for small private boats. So, in March, 1924, the Cooper River Ferry Commission was created by the S.C. General Assembly to take over the operation of the ferries. A diesel ferry boat, the Palmetto, was built in Charleston to replace the coal-burning Sappho, and a new terminal was built at Hog Island (Patriots Point). Also, Charleston County replaced the narrow trestle and drawbridge at Pitt Street with a wide paved roadway for cars.

The greatest change in East Cooper transportation, though, came in 1929 when work was completed on the Grace Memorial Bridge over the Cooper River, which operated as a toll bridge until World War II. When the bridge opened, the ferry commission soon abandoned its service.

From 1930 to 1939, ferry service from Mount Pleasant to Charleston was continued as a private business, run by Captain Shain E. Baitary. He ran five boats to Mount Pleasant and Fort Sumter, including the Nansemond, which could carry automobiles.

Baitary was forced to end the ferry service on Dec. 31, 1939 because of a lack of passengers, but kept up his profitable Fort Sumter tours. Tour boats to Fort Sumter still operate from the Battery today.

In 1945, the Ben Sawyer Bridge was opened to accommodate increased traffic to Sullivan's Island. The old Cove Inlet bridge was no longer used, and the drawbridge was eventually removed so boats could pass easily. But closing the bridge didn't mean the end for what's left of the trestle and roadway. The old bridge, with the marsh on one side and the Charleston Harbor on the other, soon became a popular fishing and birdwatching spot. For Mount Pleasant residents, the bridge at the end of Pitt Street is still a quiet out-of-the-way spot for fishing, shrimping and crabbing.

As the 20th century comes to close, much of the old modes of transportation are gone, except in faded newspaper articles, history books, and in the memories of old-timers. And our only knowledge of what it was like to be a traveler in yesteryear comes from what we read and hear.

A glimpse of those days gone by is captured in a poem written by a novelist and columnist who lived in the Old Village, C. L. Edson. The poem was published in "History of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina" a 1960 book by Petrona Royall McKiver:

Ferries

For all the time you tarry on the ferry you are free.
All the burdens others carry you can bury in the sea,
You are sailing on the Rhine, you are sailing on the Seine,
You are sailing on a pirate ship across the Mighty Main.
And you're building castles airy, and it's all so very merry
That you wouldn't want to live in any town that didn't have a ferry.

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