All Roads Lead Back To Pineview Road

James Rhon Williams, or Mr. Jimmy to his friends, has traveled the world and has the stories to match. However, some of his favorites are based right off Wappoo Road on Pineview Road where he grew up and resides today.
Williams was born in 1942 at Baker Hospital in downtown Charleston. His parents were from the Carolinas but had met in Washington D.C. prior to making their way to the Dupont Crossing area of St. Andrew’s Parish. World War II was the reason behind the first of Mr. Jimmy’s travel stories. Williams’ father was an Ammunitions Inspector during the war and his mother chose to live in Concord, NC with her family while he was away. When his father returned from the war they moved briefly to Jessamine Street in Pinecrest before spending a year in Dovesville, SC.
Upon the family’s return to St. Andrew’s Parish Williams’ father purchased 2.5 acres of land from Williams’ uncle, Boyton Ransome Williams. Boyton Ransome Williams farmed land that would ultimately become the neighborhood of Sherwood Forest.
In addition to farming Boyton Ransome Williams was a musician and a songwriter. On his land was a building full of musical instruments that he would play. His one composition was a vocal with piano accompaniment entitled “Bring Mother Back to the Cottage,” a curious and fond memory for his nephew.
By now Mr. Jimmy was in the fourth grade at St. Andrew’s Parish High School, living in a garage built on the 2.5 acres of land and watching his new family home being built at the end of a dirt road that would later become Pineview Road. It was the perfect setting for a young fella who liked to be outdoors and experience life first hand. He could ride his bicycle or walk to school, to Edgewater Park for fishing, or go exploring and hunting in the surrounding woods.
The large mound that everyone believed was an old Indian mound was right across from his home (long since bulldozed down). He recalls Mr. Crull’s Farm where he explored as a lad; Mr. King grew potatoes on his land; Mr. Blocker built him a bookcase for his room when they lived briefly on Pleasant Grove Lane. It was a short walk to Richter’s store at the corner of Wappoo and Pineview roads.
The neighbors on Pineveiw were known and Mr. Jimmy recalls their names and some stories. Stono Park Elementary School was new and he attended 5th and 6th grades there. The first athletic equipment at Stono Park Elementary was issued because he and his classmates used a brick from leftover construction material as a football, which resulted in a head injury. He earned .50 cents an hour at Billup’s Gas Station across from the Bootle’s Drive In.
He learned by middle school that he was better at vocational skills than anything else. If it was mechanical, he could fix it. This realization led him around the world to many exotic places and back to Pineview Road, his family home.
Do you have some St. Andrew’s Parish stories? Contact Donna Jacobs at westashleybook@gmail.com.