In the morning we have a flood tide to float us out of the Magic Kingdom. It’s even high enough to squirt us through a local shortcut and shave 10 miles off our last leg, saving roughly two hours. By late afternoon we will be docked in downtown Beaufort, SC, where Doug’s circumnavigation will pause until the summer hurricane season is over.
Up Calibogue Sound we go and out Skull Creek past Webb’s pier and condo, then out into Port Royal Sound. The tide has turned and carried us past Hilton Head, but that means it’s now rushing out of creeks, marshes, into two big rivers and out of Port Royal, headlong into a fresh breeze coming in off the Atlantic. Port Royal Inlet has a reputation for much unpleasantness with unwary boaters. In truth, we find the roughest passage of the past three weeks right here, coming down the home stretch.
We swing across the mouth with the ocean over our shoulder and make the turn to head up the Beaufort River. At the turn, I can just make out Fripp Island to the north where my parents still live, where I spent many summer days since elementary school.
At least we aren’t beating INTO the wind. With the main furled, the jib flying, and help from the motor against the current, if feels like we’re galloping along with a herd of horses. White caps are everywhere, waves rolling, but they’re going the same direction we are. A trawler we’ve seen before runs alongside us, snaps a photo and sends it to Doug, with another taken when they passed us back in Georgia.
We pass Parris Island, then the funky old seaport village of Port Royal, turn under the “new bridge”, and just like that we’re docked in Beaufort on the waterfront.
There’s so much going on here, in Shelter Cove. I’m still trying to get my head around it.
Before I get into all the weirdness, let me first say Shelter Cove is a really nice place. All the staff are pleasant, everything is clean, and everything you need or want is clustered around the harbor. In some ways, that’s part of what makes it so . . . strange.
Wiggling through the narrow, muddy gap in the bank to get there, I expected a small outpost type marina like we found on St. Simons Island. The entrance is inconspicuous and very shallow at low tide, after all. But the obscure little creek is a trap door into a boat-themed Secret Garden.
Entrance creek at ebb tide.
We suddenly find ourselves in a harbor walled in by towering pink hotels. There’s live music bouncing off the walls coming from two bands in competing tiki bars. And the harbor is full of boats. BIG boats. Some so big I can’t imagine how they got here through that skinny entrance.
It’s flat calm when we shove off from Skidaway Island. Back home in the Chesapeake, watermen called this a “Slick Ca’m” – a slick calm. The front has blown itself out. Beautiful weather is behind it, but the sails will stay furled all day.
We glide past the marine science center where I spent that summer digging in pluff mud, and enter a tangled patchwork of tidal rivers and marsh islands that scribble in the margins between ocean and land. We turn into Moon River, made famous in the song by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer. I once had a toddler from the Creek tribe hold my hand at dusk and walk me to the bluff along this river. There he pointed excitedly at the sky to show me the object of the only word he knew – “Moon” – which he repeated over and over until he was sure I understood. We wondered at it together, a full moon rising through a curtain of Spanish Moss from a silver tray of salt marsh, until dark fell and the dinner bell rang.
I first came to Skidaway Island around 1972. Through a 6th grade science competition, I won a summer of studying oceanography here through University of Georgia. There’s still a marine science center, bigger now, but back then the rest of the island was wilderness. Now the whole island is settled, with six golf courses, several private marinas, and nine themed clubhouses, all surrounded by landscaped gated communities. Quite a change.
Our little marina is the only public water access on an otherwise private island. There’s a tall observation tower with 360 degree views over the marshes, laundry, and showers. We make use of them all. There’s also a fleet of golf carts available to mariners, which are needed to get to the shopping area miles away at the north end of the island. We decide there’s enough time to take one and get supplies before dinner. I ask Doug if he wants to drive, to which he replies with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
Two days of storms swept the world clean. Everything sparkles. The sky is so deep and blue you can almost see stars, the water is a galaxy of tiny suns. I break out a gator for both the chill and the bright burn. By the time we motor out of Wahoo River into a rising sun, a southwest wind comes up from the Atlantic. We raise canvas, cut the motor, and will sail all day long.
Beyond the dividings of St. Catherines Island, the marshes open up wide. Tight creeks relax into broad flat sounds and bays with clear air and easy tacking in the few places we need to. It’s glorious easy cruising. All day we slide through a vast watery wilderness – no docks, no marinas, no hotels or houses. Just sawgrass prairies, palmetto hammocks, and pine forests. We even have the tide with us, riding the current from one island to the next like a magic carpet.
The destination is a small marina on the south end of Skidaway Island. Late morning I get a text message from Saudi Arabia. It’s from my daughter and son-in-law, both teachers there. They have friends in Amsterdam, who happen to be sailors, who happen to be following our progress, and happen to have family on Skidaway Island. The message includes a phone number and says to send our ETA to it. A short time later we have an invitation for dinner at “the club”, from perfect strangers who are several degrees of separation from anyone we know. Marvelous! Now we have something else to look forward to, if we get there in time.
Name: Bruce’s Drug Store Date: ca. 1908 Image Number: SD18cdSD1
T.E. Bruce, ca. 1906
Bruce’s Drug Store began on November 1, 1908, under the name of Scottsville Drug Company. Dr. Luther R. Stinson and Dr. Benjamin L. Dillard, practicing physicians in Scottsville, maintained a small medicine shop in the town’s old apothecary shop on Valley Street (now 510 Valley Street). Finding it inconvenient to keep their shop open as much as the public demanded, the two doctors advertised for a full-time pharmacist in a Richmond newspaper. Thomas Ellison Bruce was working as a pharmacist in Newport News and answered their ad. Ellison and the two doctors formed a partnership in a pharmacy business called the Scottsville Drug Company. In the 1908 photo above, Ellison is shown standing behind the pharmacy counter of this drug store. The medicine bottles behind him held the medicinal supplies Ellison used to fill prescriptions.
First site of Scottsville Drug Company, 1908-1912
Although only twenty years old, Ellison realized the two doctors greatly needed a pharmacist to help them. He drew up a partnership agreement in which each doctor assumed the financial responsibility for his patient’s medicinal charge accounts. If the business operated at a loss, the partnership agreement required the two doctors to personally pay Ellison a salary. Dr. Stinson stated, “After conducting business under this arrangement for one year, we realized Bruce was the only one making any money!” The two doctors soon sold their interests to Ellison, making him the sole owner of the Scottsville Drug Company. The photo above shows the building that first housed Ellison’s drug store at 510 Valley Street; this old apothecary building was built ca. 1832.
About 1911 or 1912, Ellison moved his store to the Pitts Building on Valley Street (now 330 Valley Street). The photo below at left shows Lee Bruce, Ellison’s brother and store clerk, in white shirt and leaning casually against the Scottsville Drug Company’s front display window. At right, Lee and Ellison pose for a 1913 Kodak snapshot on the drug store’s front steps. In the store’s early days in Scottsville, Lee helped his brother cover their long hours of daily operation for several years. The drug store opened seven days a week, although Sunday sales were for medicinal purposes only. In the early 1920’s, Ellison changed his store’s name to Bruce’s Drug Store.
Scottsville Drug Company at 330 Valley Street, 1912
Lee Bruce and Ellison Bruce, 1913
In late 1927, Ellison purchased the old Carlton House hotel, which was the building next door at the corner of Valley and West Main Street. After extensive renovations, Bruce’s Drug Store moved into this building in 1928 and continued in operation at that location until November 22, 2003. Shown below is a 1928 Burgess post card of Valley Street, which shows the newly renovated Bruce’s Drug Store in the red brick building at photo left. The photo at right below shows an interior view of the drug store during its September 1928 grand opening.
Bruce’s Drug Store at corner of Valley and Main Streets,1928
Interior of Bruce’s Drug Store on Opening Day, 1929
In his store’s early days in Scottsville, Ellison ordered his drug store merchandise through a wholesale ‘drummer.’ Drummers were salesmen, who traveled about the area, ‘drumming up business for their companies. A drummer would arrive in Scottsville by train, spend the night at the Traveler’s Rest Hotel on Main Street, and leave by train the next day with Ellison’s handwritten order. On the weekend, all of the drummer’s orders were turned in to the wholesaler, who packed and shipped each order during the next week via railroad freight. Such freight shipments arrived at Bruce’s Drug Store roughly seven to ten days after the order was placed. By the 1930’s, the automobile expedited this procedure so that orders could be delivered in two or three days. In today’s world (2004), computers handle orders with next day delivery via truck.
From its early days, Bruce’s Drug Store began to fill the medicinal needs of the town’s citizens and the country population of south Albemarle, Buckingham, and Fluvanna Counties. Ellison Bruce, and later his son, Tom Bruce, served the needs of the community with a generosity in time and account payments. During the 1930s when money was a scarcity in this predominantly farming area, payments on account to Bruce were sometimes made by barter. When customers were unable to pick up prescriptions, the pharmacists themselves delivered them.
Prescription for beer during Prohibition
In the 1930’s, the State of Virginia allowed the sale of alcohol only for medicinal purposes. At Bruce’s Drug Store, this sale went on with the required prescriptions. However, the sale of medicinal alcohol became too frequent, and ABC officials withdrew the pharmacy’s right for alcohol sales.
When Ellison became sole owner of Scottsville Drug Company, he added a small soda fountain. A revolving, hand-turned drum produced carbonated water for soda drinks, and Ellison made ice cream in a hand-turned freezer. Photos of his first storefront show ‘Bruce’s Ice Cream Parlor’ and ‘Drink Coca Cola’ stenciled on the store’s front window. About 1920, Ellison installed an electric-operated soda fountain and ordered his ice cream from a commercial dairy. When Bruce’s Drug Store moved to the corner of West Main and Valley Streets in 1928, Ellison installed a modern soda fountain with counter stools and tables with ice cream chairs (shown in grand opening photo above). Later Ellison installed two booths, which were popular with Scottsville High School students. From 1930 – 1951, Bruce’s Drug Store made its own ice cream, which is remembered by many as the best treat ever. The soda fountain business, however, gradually became unprofitable and was removed from the store in April 1958.
Amanda Payne Hall remembers free ice cream.
Memories of Bruce’s Drug Store include its important place in the community for medicines and prescriptions. Citizens of all ages fondly remember ‘going to Bruce’s’ for a soda, ice cream, or just plain good conversation. Druggist Bruce, slight in build, large in friendliness and smiles, would cram a mountain of ice cream into a nickel cone, much to the delight of his customers. As one soda fountain regular fondly recalls, “A great Scottsville memory is going to Bruce’s Drug Store for lunch. Some days I forgot about the real food and just got my favorite ice cream cone, a black raspberry triple dip. I have not had such good ice cream since then!”
George Howard remembers buying a milkshake with his first paycheck.
Ellison Bruce operated Bruce’s Drug Store until his death in November 1947. His son, Thomas Ellison Bruce, Jr., took over management of the drug store after his father’s death. Although educated as an accountant, Tom, Jr., went back to school in pursuit of a pharmacy degree at the Medical College of Virginia. He completely remodeled the drug store in 1953, installing new fixtures and air conditioning. In 1969, Hurricane Camille flooded Bruce’s Drug Store with 8.5 feet of water and James River mud, destroying its interior. Tom again remodeled the drug store and reopened in 1970. Two years later in June 1972, Tropical Storm Agnes flooded Bruce’s Drug Store with 12 feet of water. Again Tom remodeled and reopened his drug store.
Tom Bruce continued to operate Bruce’s Drug Store after the floods and employed another pharmacist, G. Richard Sago, in October 1974. Tom retired in April 1977, when he sold his drug store to Richard Sago and his wife, Ann, who is also a pharmacist. The Sagos operated Bruce’s Drug Store at the corner of Valley and West Main Street until November 22, 2003, when they moved the store to its fourth and current location in the old Maxwell Furniture building across from Scottsville Museum on Main Street.
This marina is the smallest yet, more like a trading post stuck out here on the tip of St. Simons Island. But we can get diesel and ice, use the facilities. Get some local knowledge from the clerk. And a weather report.
As we fuel up, a young entrepreneur pulls up in a skiff. He’s a fellow son of the South. I recognize him immediately. He swaggers up, all animated in camo and a Skoal cap, and launches into conversation without a greeting, just “Hey, you guys know sailboats, right?” He’s local. I speak his language.
Islands in the marsh called “hammocks”
He has noticed all the wrecks scattered around his watery neighborhood. They’re like Easter Eggs dropped in the tall grass of his lawn. Though he’s not familiar with these seafaring craft from distant lands, he perceives (correctly) they represent significant reservoirs of capital. Seems a shame for them to go to waste, just abandoned by their owners, folks who can afford insurance policies, from northern corporations with no interest in retrieving their investment.
“Come to think of it, nobody owns them! The captains sold their boats to insurance companies, and got paid! So they don’t own them anymore! The insurance companies don’t want boats, they just pay good money to leave them out there and rot! Maybe what they’re REALLY buying is Captains, not boats! That would explain it, right?. Think about it!”
