The River

Daufuskie was and remains very much an island. It has no bridge and only limited public ferries from the mainland. Surrounded by deep water and wide marshes, we had to make the best of our situation.

And when you get right down to it, our situation wasn’t so bad. The tidal waters around Daufuskie are filled with seafood. The nearby May River and New River marshes are among the most productive in the United States. However, there was a problem with these waters: the Savannah River, as it emptied into the Atlantic just over a mile to our south, carried pollution from industrial plants upriver. This pollution cost Daufuskie our only industry, a world-famous oyster cannery, which public health officials shut down in the 1950s.