A Step Back to the Tranquil Halcyon Inn--An Enduring Icon of Summerville's Prosperous Golden Age

Halcyon isn’t a word you hear every day. Unless you happen to be of Greek descent or have spent time studying mythology, it’s likely unfamiliar—except, perhaps, to a few longtime residents of Summerville and the observant souls who’ve glimpsed it from their car windows while driving down South Main Street.

To those older Summervillians, Halcyon stirs a memory. It was once the name of one of the grand resort inns that graced the town during its most prosperous era—the Golden Age. And if you’ve ever traveled Highway 17-A on your way to work or errands, you’ve probably passed the once-upon-a-time inn without realizing the history that lies just beyond its tall trees, black iron gates, and white columns.

No one knows exactly when the house was built. The Colleton County records—its original county—were lost when Sherman’s troops burned Columbia in 1865. The earliest surviving reference suggests the house rose sometime between 1830 and 1840, known then as Duke’s House, after its first owner, John R. Duke. It was a classic Southern home, with a broad two-story porch stretching fifty feet across and twelve feet deep, its columns greeting visitors with quiet grandeur. On that porch sat a joggling board—a piece of Charleston tradition—added by one owner who said it “completed the porch.”

Inside, the first floor opened into a thirty-three-by-twenty-foot living room with thirteen-foot ceilings, a generous dining room, two dens, and a bedroom. Upstairs were four bedrooms and a hall, along with one curious feature—a door that led to nowhere. No stairs, no landing, just empty space. Mrs. Dion, one of its owners, liked to call it “the door for invisible inhabitants.”

A 1909 plat shows Halcyon once covered eight acres, including a pear orchard. Scattered across the grounds were outbuildings, service quarters, and a gazebo. When the Weeds owned the property, they transformed these structures into guest cottages for their resort inn. One was called Magruder’s House, named for a man who had lived there as a slave until the 1930s. Another, the Pink Cottage, had once been a stable—its barn doors still intact. The octagonal gazebo, set beside a bricked-in spring, became a beloved landmark.

Unlike the Pine Forest Inn or the Carolina Inn, Halcyon wasn’t known for celebrity guests. Its fame came instead from its hospitality. Mrs. Caroline Parameter, daughter of Mrs. Weed, was celebrated for her menus—she once ran the Tea Room at Middleton Place. To Northern visitors escaping harsh winters, Halcyon was a sanctuary of calm, a place where the air was soft and the days unhurried. Many stayed from late October through April, savoring the quiet rhythm of Summerville life.

It was the autumn of 1909. The air in Summerville carried that familiar mix of pine and cool promise. A Northern visitor named Mr. Edwin Harrow stepped down from the carriage that had brought him from the train depot. He paused at the gate of Halcyon Place, taking in the sweep of the grounds—the old oaks draped in moss, the pear trees still clinging to their last fruit, and the white columns rising like quiet sentinels against the afternoon light.

He had heard of Summerville’s inns, of course. Travelers spoke of the Pine Forest Inn with its grand halls and bustling winter crowd. But it was Halcyon Place that had been recommended to him by a friend who said, “If you want peace, go there. It’s where the world slows down.” Edwin felt that truth the moment he stepped through the black iron gates.

Mrs. Weed herself greeted him on the porch; her apron dusted with flour from the afternoon’s baking. She had a way of making guests feel as though she had been expecting them for years. “You must be Mr. Harrow,” she said, offering a smile that softened the long journey behind him. “We’ve put you in the Pink Cottage. It’s quiet there. The garden keeps good company.”

As she led him along the path, Edwin noticed the outbuildings—some old, some lovingly restored—each with its own story tucked beneath the shingles. The Pink Cottage still had its barn doors, a reminder of its former life. He ran his hand along the wood, feeling the grooves worn by decades of use.

Inside, the room was simple but welcoming: a quilt folded neatly at the foot of the bed, a pitcher of cool water on the washstand, and a small vase of pear blossoms that must have been gathered that morning. Through the open window drifted the sound of the spring near the gazebo, its gentle trickle blending with the rustle of leaves.

That evening, Edwin joined the other guests for supper. Mrs. Caroline Parameter had prepared a meal that tasted like comfort itself—roasted chicken, warm bread, and a pear tart that made him close his eyes for a moment just to savor it. Conversation was easy, unhurried, as though everyone had silently agreed to leave the outside world at the gate.

Later, as he walked back to the Pink Cottage, lantern in hand, Edwin paused to look at the main house. The windows glowed softly, and the porch seemed to breathe with the warmth of the day’s last light. He felt something settle in him then—a quietness he hadn’t known he needed.

He would stay through April, returning home with stories of moss-draped oaks, gentle evenings, and a place where time moved differently. And for the rest of his life, whenever he smelled pear blossoms or heard the soft creak of old wood, he thought of Halcyon Inn—its kindness, its calm, and the way it welcomed him as though he had always belonged there.

Today, the once-upon-a-time Halcyon Inn still rests beneath its ancient oaks, serene and dignified behind its black gates. Its name, drawn from myth and memory, feels perfectly chosen—a reminder of Summerville’s own “halcyon days,” when life moved at a gentler pace and beauty was measured in shade and stillness.

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Edingsville Beach: The Lost Riviera of the Charleston Lowcountry

Edingsville Beach across from Botany Bay

As the legend tells, in the hazy cast of a summer’s blood moon—when the ocean air hangs heavy with salty mist—you may glimpse the glazed shadow of dim lunar light dancing its somber waltz across the windowpanes of the once‑upon‑a‑time sea‑island planters’ homes. They stood an oyster toss from Botany Bay, along a stretch of deserted island sand where the Atlantic still broods. And if you listen carefully to the tempestuous breeze sweeping over the beach and through the scattered relics washed ashore by the agitated surf, you may hear faint laughter, decadent chatter, and the ghostly echoes of those who passed their idle summer months here, fleeing the malarial heat of inland Edisto. But do not linger. For out of the translucent shadows, you may find yourself conscripted by an illusory woman walking the shoreline—mournfully searching for a husband long overdue from a distant land.

Today, this hauntingly seductive shoreline is a windswept, sea‑shelled ribbon of solitary sand between Edisto Beach and Botany Bay Beach. You would be looking from Botany Bay for a glimpse, because there is no public access. The beach lies behind a salt marsh and is reached only by a private causeway used by residents of Jeremy Cay—a gated community tucked at the end of Edingsville Beach Road. That moss‑draped, oak‑lined road is the very same path once traveled by the aristocratic planter families of Edisto as they made their summer pilgrimage to their beachside resort, then known as Edingsville. And that is where the story begins.

Edingsville Beach Road

As the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth, Edisto’s planters were becoming the wealthiest agricultural elite in the South. Their prosperity rested on Sea Island cotton—silky, lustrous, and coveted worldwide for its extra‑long fibers. The crop’s extraordinary value created an aristocracy fortified by bloodlines, marriage alliances, and staggering wealth.

They built grand plantation houses, purchased elegant townhomes in Charleston, and entertained lavishly. But summer brought oppressive heat, swarms of mosquitoes, and the dreaded “country fever”—malaria. Seeking refuge, they discovered that the barrier‑island beaches offered cooling ocean breezes that kept the scourge at bay. With that revelation, Edingsville Beach was born.

Edingsville Beach lots and owners

The island was accessible only by water until around 1800, when Benjamin Edings constructed a causeway from Edisto Island and began selling or leasing beachfront lots to planter families. By 1820, Edingsville Beach had blossomed into a refined resort of sixty stately, two‑story brick houses wrapped in terraces with sweeping views. Each home boasted gardens, carriage houses, and servant quarters. They stood in two rows—one facing the ocean, the other the marsh. Two churches tended to their spiritual needs, while an academy kept the boys educated. Locals called it the “Riviera of the Lowcountry.”

Every May, the largest concentration of plantation nobility between Charleston and Savannah packed their furnishings, servants, and children into wagons and carriages and made the sandy trek to their oceanfront haven. Summers unfolded in a whirl of elegant parties, boat races, horse races, elaborate banquets, and leisurely dips in the Atlantic. They stayed until the first frost of autumn. It was a life of ease, privilege, and indulgence—until destiny intervened.

An illustration of Edingsville Beach

Long before the Civil War’s first mortars lit the skies over Fort Sumter, Edingsville Beach's protective dunes began to surrender to the Atlantic’s relentless appetite. Around twenty houses were claimed by the surf. Then came the war, followed by the boll‑weevil infestations of 1917, which decimated the Sea Island cotton industry. The royal crop of the sea islands vanished almost overnight—never to return.

After the war, the ocean that once brought relief became Edingsville Beach's undoing. A series of hurricanes beginning in 1874 gnawed away at the golden‑era resort. The final blow came with the hurricane of 1893, which erased all physical evidence of its splendor, leaving only a tabby‑brick fireplace and scattered fragments. Even today, the occasional piece of china or brick appears on the beach, delivered by a passing wave—a fleeting reminder of the vanished aristocracy.

And as for the illusory woman who wanders the shoreline under the blood moon—her name is Mary Clark. She was the daughter of one of Edingsville Beach's wealthy planters, spending her summers in their waterfront home. Her story, like the resort itself, is a blend of history and haunting legend—an echo of a world swept away by time, tide, and the unforgiving Atlantic.

Edingsville Beach's Mary Clark: Love and Loss

The Lovers, the Pirates, and the Vanished Gardens of Pierates Cruze on Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant’s history is full of quiet corners and whispered stories, but few are as haunting—or as strangely persistent—as the tale that drifts through the moss‑draped oaks of the Old Village. It is a story of forbidden love, feuding families, and a pirate’s treachery, woven into the early fabric of the Lowcountry like a local echo of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. And like all enduring legends, it leaves just enough truth behind to make you wonder.

The legend begins in the early 1700s, when two prominent landowners—each holding vast acreage across the Cooper River in the area once known as North Point—found themselves locked in a bitter feud. Their children, a young man and woman whose names have been lost to time, met in secret beneath an oak grove overlooking Charleston Harbor. For months they carried on their clandestine romance, slipping away from their families’ watchful eyes. When the lovers secretly married, the discovery ignited the feud into open fury. Fearing retribution, the couple fled to Sullivan’s Island and joined a band of pirates. It was a desperate choice—and a fatal one.

According to the tale, the pirate captain soon became infatuated with the young bride. He ordered his crew to kill her husband, hoping to claim her for himself. Believing her lover dead, she fled to the grove where their romance had begun. The captain followed. Overcome with despair, she plunged a knife into her own chest. Moments later, her husband—having escaped the murderous plot—arrived and confronted the captain. The duel ended with the young man dying in his wife’s arms. Their grieving fathers, the story says, erected a stone pillar in their memory.

The story obviously mentions no names. However, after examining Mount Pleasant's history and matching various components of the story to specific names and places, I propose the following conclusion: George Haddrell and William Hort fit the bill of the feuding landowners and parents of the two doomed lovers of this tragic tale.

Haddrell, a major figure in the town’s early development, owned roughly 500 acres stretching from Shem Creek toward what is now Highway 703. Hort, an early settler from Barbados, held waterfront land beginning near today’s Alhambra Hall and extending to Cove Inlet. In 1775, Hort recorded in his diary that his daughter, Elizabeth Haddrell Hort, was born in a house owned by none other than George Haddrell.

Elizabeth carried both surnames—Haddrell and Hort—just as the legend describes. And the lovers’ secret meeting place? A grove of oaks on Hort’s land that locals later called Hort’s Grove. A stone marker known as Hort’s Pillar once stood near the present‑day neighborhood of Pierates Cruze.

Even the pirate connection has historical footing. Charleston was a favored haunt of notorious captains like Charles Vane and Calico Jack Rackham, both active in the region during the era the story suggests. Whether either man played a role in the tragedy is impossible to know, but the timing—and the temperament—fit.

Fast‑forward two centuries. On the very land once owned by William Hort, a new chapter unfolded—one that would give the area its most unusual name. In the late 1920s, Massachusetts transplants Dana and Laird Osgood purchased a five‑acre parcel overlooking the harbor. They built a home encircled by a moat and imitation drawbridge, giving the property a whimsical, pirate‑themed character. The name they chose for their estate—Pierates Cruze—was a playful twist on “pirates’ cruise,” a nod to Charleston’s swashbuckling past.

The Osgoods didn’t stop at theatrics. During the 1930s, they transformed the grounds into seven elaborate gardens, each with its own personality: The Sea Garden, Wind’ll Blow, Little Wheel, Twyfy’s Garden, Eight Bells, Wiggins Walk, and Amalfi. Thousands of camellias and azaleas bloomed beneath the oaks. Spanish bayonet plants lined a harbor‑side walkway that ended at a Spanish mission‑style bell wall. Visitors paid $2 in winter and $1 in summer to wander the grounds, and advertisements invited them to “See the spires of Charleston against the sunset across the wine‑dark sea.” In 1947, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society awarded Mrs. Osgood its prestigious Gold Medal for her hybrid camellias. Pierates Cruze had become one of the Lowcountry’s most enchanting attractions.

By 1959, the gardens closed. The land was subdivided, with lots selling for $10,000 each. The original house and moat disappeared, and the gardens were lost to time—except for a few surviving columns from the Amalfi garden, still standing along the seawall like quiet sentinels of a vanished world. Hurricane Hugo destroyed the bell wall in 1989, but homeowners rebuilt it using the original bricks, replacing the bells with ship bells in homage to the estate’s playful past.

Today, Pierates Cruze is a peaceful residential enclave. Children ride bicycles beneath the oaks. Neighbors chat along the sidewalks. The pirate moat is gone, the gardens erased, the pillar vanished. And yet, something lingers. Perhaps it is the echo of the Osgoods’ whimsical vision. Perhaps it is the memory of the gardens that once drew visitors from across the country. Or perhaps it is something older—the whisper of a tragic love story carried on the harbor breeze.