Summerville's Famous Railroad Depots--They're Gone But Their Stories are not Forgotten

The train depots built by the South Carolina Railroad from Charleston to Hamburg represent the heyday of many small towns, some owing their prosperity to the commerce and economic development it brought. However, since their use has expired, many were abandoned and became liabilities. The railroad demolished some of them, while others survived to the present because the towns they served took steps to save them and are now restaurants, visitor centers, gift shops, and wedding venues. Unfortunately, the two that serviced Summerville suffered a more dire fate before any opportunity could present itself to preserve them.

The first famous Summerville depot was built in 1880. A unique feature of the depot was its ornate gingerbread-style trimmings. The small Victorian station survived the 1886 great earthquake, but not long after was moved to Ladson to make way for a bigger one in 1902 designed by Frank P. Hilton. It was a grand depot, 100 feet long and 25 feet wide, constructed from wood with wainscoting about halfway up and stuccoed the rest. Passenger train service between Charleston and Hamburg ended in the 1950s, and Summerville's railroad landmark vanished into a debris pile in the 1960s. The gingerbread station was dismantled long before that in 1935.

A photograph, said to be from the 1880s, shows a panorama of the town square with the gingerbread station on the north end, which would put it in the time period before the construction of the town hall on the south end. However, when looking at the photograph, the point from which it was taken required a position of elevation, a birds-eye view, which causes me to believe it was more likely taken around 1893, after the town hall's construction. The town hall belfry or one of the building's windows would have been an ideal place to take the picture. The angle lines up perfectly with the belfry. One source suggests the photographer climbed a tree to take the shot, but that would be no easy task, especially with the camera equipment available in the 1880s. The town hall is a more practical explanation.

Another point of interest is the trees planted on the grassy square. If you look at another photo of the town square and the Hilton railroad station taken in 1908 from almost the exact same vantage point, the trees are at the height you would expect them to be after 15 years of growth.

The gingerbread depot of 1880 was made famous during the great earthquake by the story of Frank Doar, the station master at the time, and it is a ghostly story. Frank recounted: “It was 9:45 pm. The inbound train had just passed Jedburg. Awaiting its arrival, I was peacefully sitting in my chair, drifting in and out of sleep, when I was suddenly startled by an elderly black man who appeared out of nowhere on the depot platform. He was filthy, sweaty, breathless, and agitated. The agitated old fellow excitedly told me he had just run several miles up the rail line from where the tracks were severely bent and that I should release warning flares immediately to alert the incoming train of the impending danger.

I knew everybody who worked the line and thought I knew everybody in the community, but I never saw this man before tonight. The moonlight glistened off his sweaty hair, giving the top of his head a halo effect. I would have ordinarily been apprehensive about such a demand. However, on this occasion, I sensed the stranger to be sincere. At his urging, I quickly deployed the torpedoes. As I finished putting out the devices, I turned to speak to the old man, but he was gone. It was as if he vanished into thin air.

I removed my pocket watch and glanced at it. The old man’s visit, the warning, and the emergency preparations had taken only five minutes. It was 9:50 pm. At that very moment, an eerie hissing sound enveloped the town, followed by a massive explosion. The ground began to shake violently. I could hear the walls and chimneys of nearby buildings collapsing and the swaying trees being torn out of the earth by their roots. A massive earthquake had struck Summerville.”

The 1902 train depot was probably the same one associated with the story of Harry Woodruff, who worked as a station master for the South Carolina Railroad. One evening, Harry had returned to town after completing business for the railroad. As usual, he was met at the Summerville train station by the family retainer with his horse and carriage. However, to Harry's bewilderment, they did not take their customary route home upon leaving the station. Puzzled, he asked the driver, "Where are you taking me?" Unknown to Mr. Woodruff, his home address had changed while he was away. Sara had purchased a new home on the corner of Richardson Ave and Palmetto Street. The house became known as White Gables.

President Theodore Roosevelt visited Summerville on May 20, 1902, the same year Hilton's railroad station is stated to have been built. The Victorian depot may have already been moved to Ladson, but maybe not. I cannot say with any certainty whether the new depot was finished by the time of Roosevelt's visit or whether it was in the process of construction. Pictures show Roosevelt arriving by way of the railroad and walking where there are two sets of tracks. Judging by the surrounding landscape, he did not disembark the train at the town square. No buildings are in the picture, just open space. There was another stop after a long whistle just outside of downtown Summerville called "West End" near Hickory Street, also called Hickory Hill. Businessmen who worked in Charleston used this stop. It was close to the location of the turntable, the place where the Summerville Short turned around to head back to downtown Charleston.

One thing is for sure the grand station of 1902 was present when Frederick Wagener of the Pine Forest Inn hosted a dinner for President-elect William Howard Taft in January 1909. President Taft and his wife Nellie were frequent weekend guests of Charleston's Mayor Rhett at his home on Broad Street. Mrs. Taft thought Southerners were "strange" for their irritating ritual of "always taking a half hour to get ready for everything." 

The South Carolina Railroad played a large part in the growth of Summerville. It is a shame the two famous depots that served the railway and the town were not preserved. Only their stories remain.

If you would like to get a glimpse of what Summerville's Hutchinson Square and the Hilton-designed railroad depot looked like in 1916, make the short day trip to The City of Aiken's Visitor Center and Train Museum. On display is a diorama depicting that scene. Interestingly, the train museum is a replica of Aiken's original railroad station demolished in 1954.

The 1850 South Carolina Railroad Tower Depot on John Street now serves as the Charleston Music Hall. On Ann Street, old train towers now house the Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry and the Best Friend of Charleston Museum. Best Friend was the South Carolina Railroad's first locomotive.

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Remember The Town Hall Bell And The Stories It Tells

The master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote in his onomatopoeic poem, The Bells, these beguiling words:

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

As Poe so elegantly conveys, there is meaning in the ringing of a bell. Their presence are always bound to a story. The following collection of gathered consonants and vowels is one such story of a southern town and its esteemed bell.

In 1888, a sweeping declaration was made about this quiet, summer village just outside of Charleston that would decidedly put it on the world map, and its town planners judiciously accommodated the acknowledgment. By 1891, the pine-forested community's era of the Golden Age of the Inns was in full swing. The crown jewel of accommodations, the Pine Forest Inn, was completed and its doors swung open to welcome the influx of anticipated arriving travelers. With the ensuing growth, time, if not necessity, called for a new town hall to be built. A corner plot was chosen where the streets of West Richardson and S. Main Street intersected. The cost to build it was set at $6,250.

The planned four story building would wisely face the town's main square, an idyllic vantage point. The first floor would house a high-end grocery store called the "Tea Pot". The second floor would contain the municipal offices. On the third floor, a multi-purpose room/auditorium space would be available for special town events such as dances, plays, parties and operas. The fourth story would shelter the structures most spellbinding and controversial feature, a bell, and it would prove to be not just any ordinary bell.

In Charleston, Summerville's need for a bell came to the attention of Doctor Anthony Toomer Porter, head of The Arsenal, also known at one time as the Porter Military Academy. The bell Doctor Porter would present to Summerville hung in The Arsenal's chapel tower, Holy Communion Church Institute, where it had a long history ringing out reveille, taps, mess call, and the summons to lessons and to prayers for those attending the academy. Interestingly, like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, it had a crack in it. It made the short journey to Summerville in 1893.

With the installing of the historical bell, the new Town Hall was complete. It would ring out the time to the town for the opening and closing of business hours, mark worker's noon time rest period and signal knock-off time for laborers. It rang in the new years. It also served as a fire alarm, indicating by a predetermined sequence of rings, which part of town was on fire, to direct the volunteer firefighters to the correct location.

During World War II, civilians were stationed in the Town Hall bell tower as lookouts. Their task was to watch the skies for enemy aircraft and when spotted, sound the alarm. Silhouettes of enemy aircraft were pinned on the interior walls to assist the lookouts in making proper identifications. One night, the town had a scare when out of the darkened skies a plane buzzed the tower. Combined with several other suspicious incidents that night, officials were convinced the town was under attack, but fortunately, it was all a false alarm. It turned out an impulsive local boy on a training flight just couldn't resist the urge to be playful. Maybe, he heard one of the town's unattached pretty girls was on duty that night.

Children were forbidden to go up into the Town Hall belfry for obvious safety reasons, not to leave unmentioned the easy temptation presented to an impetuous youth to playfully ring the bell. Although, stories tell of savvy youngsters secretly trudging their way up through the humid darkness of the steep, creaky belfry stairs. Being the tallest building on Hutchinson Square, the view the belfry offered was often the prize. Imagine the thrill one would experience at seeing from above President Roosevelt and his entourage ride by on Main Street as they made their way to the Pine Forest Inn.

Now, visualize the chaos a person could unleash on the town with an unauthorized ringing of the bell. There was a $200 fine for anyone foolish enough to do it. A popular story tells of a physician named Louis Miles ignoring the law and ringing the bell to announce the birth of his daughter to a confused crowd that gathered below. He happily paid the fine not once, but twice for the same reason.

Time passed and the wooden building began to succumb to its age. School commencements were held in the old Town Hall. At such an event one evening, in the middle of the ceremony, an announcement was made for the attendees to leave the building in an orderly and quiet manner. Later, it was reported some of the town's officials in attendance had felt an ominous swaying. The upper floors were declared unsafe for public gatherings, in part, due to the weight of the bell in the fourth floor tower. Shortly after, the entire building was condemned and in time, the bell was removed.

The bell was stored for a time at the Street Department Maintenance Building. When Watts School, Gaud School, and Porter Military Academy merged to form Porter-Gaud on the Ashley River in 1964, the public relations person for the school contracted to obtain the bell for the new school. A group called the Sons of the Bell was formed of the alumni to raise money for a special bell tower to be built to house the old bell. Ironically, the bell would be on its way back to the place where it unleashed its first tintinnabulations and to this day hangs in the school's WATCH Tower.

Void of its most cherished part, the rickety wooden Town Hall was torn down in 1963. Plans were drawn for the replacement. This one would be built with a more time tested material, bricks. For a while, its location was uncertain. Several sites were considered, but ultimately, the decision was made to keep it at the head of Town Square. The new Town Hall was dedicated on November 14, 1969. Unfortunately, it was missing a feature that was manifestly a Summerville tradition, the bell.

Due to the town's continued growth, an annex was built next to the new Town Hall with a much bigger auditorium to relieve overcrowding at council meetings along with a room with a TV monitor for overflow crowds, and a bell tower. In 2008, though not to the scale of the original, the traditional bell was restored to the Town and was hoisted to the top of the annex. It has become a nostalgic reminder of days gone by when the opening and closing of business hours was sounded by the town hall bell.

When next in town, listen for the toll of the new bell and then, remember the old town hall bell and the stories it tells.

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Source material: Summerville Sesquicentennial, Porch Rocker Collections, and other.

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