Page:Charleston • Irwin Faris • (1941).pdf/52

 To-day there is scarcely space wherein a vessel could ride.

In 1870, Warden Broad reported, “ground sluicing is fast filling up Charleston’s harbour with tailings, and will probably before long render it impossible for vessels to enter it.” Another report stated: “A difficulty in the mode of discharging tailings which, owing to the extensive nature of ground-sluicing operations carried on, are of very great quantity, and have already silted up the harbour to a very great extent, and in another place have covered the main road and threaten still further injury.” Also in 1870, the District Engineer reported, “the tailings running into the harbour have been filling it rapidly, especially raising the level of the beach at high-water mark; the rocks which were proposed to be removed last year are now nearly buried up.” Reference to the illustration of the bay, about 1924, will show how well-grounded these fears were.

No vessel has entered the bay since the Shepherdess in September, 1879, and for some time prior to that the port had failed to attract regular shipping; probably the only visitor being the Wild Wave, which narrowly escaped remaining there. Nevertheless, The Charleston Herald, loyal to the last, continued its shipping column:

In 1874 the Nile bridge was carried away by a flood, and the town was left dependent, or nearly so, upon such supplies as could be brought by road and be ferried across the river. Consideration was then given to the possibility of regular seaborne trade by way of the Nile, which was a shallow stream with a tidal basin. Its mouth was narrow, with a nasty bar and a bad approach, while the entrance to the basin was through a slit or cleft so narrow that the overhanging branches of trees were but a few yards apart. The Nelson Handbook of 1874 speaks of this river-port as being: “Immediately north of Point Robertson, with about six or seven feet of water at its mouth at Spring Tides. It is seldom used by vessels, although it is