By Walter Bonner 

Welcome to McClellanville, a tiny coastal fishing village nestled in the heart of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Known to locals simply as “The Village,” McClellanville is the epitome of southern charm. Refreshingly simple and unspoiled, The Village has managed to remain an intimate community and to preserve its traditional way of life for more than 150 years. By delicately weaving candid reminiscences and humorous anecdotes into a descriptive history of McClellanville, South Carolina, Dr. Walter Bonner provides an intimate, firsthand account of life in a unique, small town. With a well-crafted blend of history and nostalgia, Dr. Bonner creates a warm and loving memoir of The Village he loves, while capturing the essence of a highly endangered species in the United States – the rural coastal fishing village.

Home in the Village follows several of McClellanville’s first families, especially the Loftons, throughout their existence in the community and in the surrounding areas comprising old St. James Santee Parish. These early settlers were influenced by the mystique of their predecessors in the parish: the Huguenot settlers and the Anglican rice planters. Small, isolated, and poor, but rich in natural beauty, “The Village” was much loved by its residents. When cotton failed in the 1920s and the Great Depression followed, the town was essentially frozen in time and preserved as a unique and special place. Only in the 1980s, especially after Hurricane Hugo in 1989, did the town begin to wake up and grow, and see its individuality threatened.

Home in the Village describes the economic, political, religious, and social forces that the residents contended with and believed in as they built their community and shows how these resilient people were influenced by the qualities – the elemental spirits – of the place in which they lived.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born in McClellanville, Dr. Walter Bonner was a part-time resident of The Village during his youth and a frequent visitor thereafter. After graduating from Erskine College, Dr. Bonner attended the Medical University of South Carolina. Following his service in the United States Navy, he joined the faculty of the Medical University as South Carolina’s first rheumatologist. He is currently in private practice. Dr. Bonner and Beverly, his wife of 45 years, now have a permanent home in The Village that they both love. Their sons, Rick, Michael, and David, all reside in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

AN EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 1:

“You want to live there? … McClellanville? … make our home in McClellanville?”

“Well, yes. Yes … it’s where I’ve always wanted to be.”

In the 1930’s and 1940’s, I always loved family visits to McClellanville. We were free to roam around the little coastal village, doing exciting things like climbing oak trees, skipping oyster shells across Jeremy Creek, and playing kick the can. We could build a raft, put up a tree house, and go crabbing. If we ever grew bored, we could seek out and pester our older cousins. We could go out to the farm, sample Aunt Margie’s sugar cookies, pick scuppernong grapes from the arbor, and flick the hulls at each other. As we grew older, we could walk from the farm to the landing on Doe Hall Creek, stop along the way to pelt the girls with ripe tomatoes, catch a catfish or a stingray, take a swim, and find that the girls had hidden our clothes. Yet a few more years and we might go flounder-gigging, or join a mixed party on a moonlight cruise to Cape Romain. I was convinced that someone had created McClellanville solely for my entertainment.