A Trip to the Country Store

Country stores defined centers of activity in rural and early suburban areas in America. Often on the corners of major thoroughfares or positioned along major roads, they were the opportunity to add a few staples to the home, run into a neighbor, or exchange some local news. In early West Ashley, there were 25 grocery stores scattered throughout St. Andrew’s Parish, according to the 1948 Charleston City Directory.
In the greater “Dupont” area there were five listed: Alexander’s Grocery, Dupont’s Grocery, Limehouse Mercantile Store, Morgan’s Grocery, and Richter’s Grocery. All are gone today and most of the buildings that housed them are also gone from the landscape.
In the 1955 Charleston City Directory Carrigg’s Super Market is listed on the left side of Wappoo Road going north from Savannah Highway and Richter’s Grocery is listed on the right side. Today the building that once housed Carrigg’s Super Market is all that remains.
The story of Carrigg’s Super Market begins in Cope, S.C. — the small agrarian town situated in the middle of South Carolina near Orangeburg, Bamberg, Norway, and Denmark — where William Hubert Carrigg was born in 1916. Carrigg’s father died early and his mother opened a small store in the area to support the family. Carrigg left 2nd grade and took small odd jobs even running a paper route to earn extra money for the family. Carrigg left Cope when he was a teenager to seek work in the Charleston area. He had met Mattie Celeste “Lester” Garrick and was told by Lester’s father that he needed a job if he had any intentions toward his daughter.
At the corner of Spring and President streets in Charleston he found work at Mr. Brown’s Meat Market. He started out sweeping the floor and soon Mr. Brown taught him the art of butchery. He had satisfied the job requirement for the proposal, but it was still quite a shock to the Garrick family when he rode up on a mule with Lester and announced that they were married. Carrigg soon moved on to a job as a welder at the Charleston Navy Shipyard where the high paying job opportunities were plentiful.
Now he was making good money. He purchased a car and drove everyday from Orangeburg to the Shipyard with 5 other workers until he decided to move his family to Charleston. He acquired a store at the corner of South and America Streets on the Eastside where the family lived above the store. He juggled the shipyard job and the store until he was drafted into the Army in 1941. He spent his service time as a butcher at Fort Jackson.
During World War II, food was rationed and it was difficult to obtain even the staples including grits. While home briefly due to a family medical leave, Carrigg had an idea about how to solve the grits shortage problem. He knew the man with a grits mill in the greater Denmark area. He drove to the area, bought the corn, had the grits milled and returned to Charleston to a long line of people wanting grits. The police were called in to manage the crowd during the delivery and distribution. He had to limit the sale to two pounds per person.
AFTER THE WAR
He returned to the Army until the end of World War II. Butchery and mercantile were becoming Carrigg’s forte. After the war, he moved his enterprise to a store at the corner of Calhoun and Anson, then to a store at Spruill and Joppa. He was always the sole proprietor of his establishments, but Lester was encouraging him to buy land and expand. She had found a house and land on Mills Avenue, now known as Belgrade Avenue and the family moved from the North Area to the home on Mills Avenue.
In 1951, they purchased seven acres on Wappoo Road with the goal to build an abattoir. This was an expensive adventure for them and was also met with resistance from the surrounding neighbors so they decided to build a store instead. An uncle from Orangeburg supplied the brick and soon Carrigg’s Super Market was supplying groceries to the Dupont area, and steaks to Marcus Bloom at the Cavallero. Next to the store they also built a small building that housed a weekend BBQ restaurant. Carrigg’s sold this Super Market business to open Carrigg’s Seafood and Poultry on Spring Street in the location where he began his Charleston career at Brown’s Meat Market. By 1954 Carrigg had come full circle.
The family sold six of the acres on Wappoo Road where the business park is today, but the one-acre and former Super Market building remain in the family and currently houses Fabulon Center For Art and education, located at 1017 Wappoo Road.
Interesting stories about West Ashley’s history? Contact Donna Jacobs at westashleybook@gmail.com.