Memories: A Look Back At Hilton Head In Earlier Days, Part 2

By Collins Doughtie CONTRIBUTOR

If you missed my column in the last issue, I talked about what it was like growing up here in the Lowcountry way before development changed everything. So why am I taking this bumpy ride down the dirt road called memory lane? I would have to say it’s because whenever someone learns that I have lived here for over sixty-plus years they almost always bombard me with questions about what it was like and almost without exception, they get this glazed look as I describe a place that has little resemblance to what they now see every day. With that said, I’ll keep on going.

In this chapter I want to tell you about the people that lived here as well as the places they lived. For instance, what prompted my father and mother to gather up their five kids and move us to some unknown island off the South Carolina coast? My dad was a very successful fixture in the New York City advertising scene and to make such a move had to have been downright scary. I asked him that question before he passed away and his reasoning is not much different than what brought many of you here. It was all about quality of life. I can relate to that because during my long career in advertising and design, I passed up numerous offers to move to the big city for big money all in favor of that very lifestyle my father chose. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and I have never regretted the decision to stay here and live a charmed lifestyle, one that visitors pay big money to experience for just a few days out of the year.

There were so few people around, you pretty much knew everyone. There was one grocery store, the Piggly Wiggly at Coligny Plaza which is still there but with a name change to the Red & White. For more specific items it took a trip to Savannah. The only courier service around belonged to Charlie Simmons, an elderly black man who drove an old, rickety school bus. The amusing part of Charlie’s delivery service was he toted everything from fine furniture to boxes of fish and shrimp. My folks opened the first shop on the island, The Island Shop, and I can remember my dad and mom having to leave that fine furniture outside for days so that the fish smell could be aired out. It was just the way it was.

Hunting was big back then and most everybody carried a shotgun around in his or her car. Sea Pines and Port Royal Plantation were the only two developments on Hilton Head and the majority of the land in both of these places was undeveloped. I would hunt ducks and wild turkeys in Sea Pines and there was no shortage of either. Where Colleton River Plantation now sits was called Foot Point Plantation, owned by the Cram family and it was one of my favorite places to explore. Long, winding dirt roads snaked through this huge piece of property and during a whole day of walking the only living thing you might encounter was a deer, pig, turkey or an occasional rattlesnake basking in the sun on one of the sandy roads. It was magical. As a matter of fact, the first duck I ever shot was in one of ponds at Foot Point. It was a cold winter morning, and I was woefully underdressed for the occasion. I shot a black duck with my dad’s old twenty-gauge shotgun, but the duck dropped way out in the pond and having no dog to retrieve it and no waders, I swam out to retrieve that damn duck. Needless to say, I spent the next five days in bed with a cold, but it was worth it!

Alligators were everywhere and one of my favorite childhood activities was catching baby gators. I learned how to mouth call the momma gator away from her babies and then run over to the where the babies were hidden and using a crab net, try and catch as many as I could before she came after me. In addition, angry gators regularly chased me as I tried to drag a fish out of the water before the gator could get it. It was a great form of entertainment.

Old South Golf Links was nothing but tomato fields owned by the Ulmer family, Palmetto Dunes on Hilton Head was the Pope Hunting Club and Honey Horn Plantation was a working farm. Pinckney Colony Road had a working dairy farm, a pig farm and was the site of a monkey farm that burned down, and all the monkeys escapedthough in all my years I never did see one. This whole area was meant for exploring and for the relatively small group of kids around my age, that was pretty much all we did. It was paradise pure and simple. Maybe I’ll tell you about catching rattlesnakes, hanging out at the Golden Rose Park and getting our vegetables off an ox drawn cart as an old black fellow sang old Gullah songs but that will have to wait. I will tell you this, all of these things happened long ago but for me right here, right now, it was just yesterday.

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