Pat Conroy\u2019s 1972 memoir about his year as a teacher in the two-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island helped to launch his very successful writing career, spawned the feature film \u201cConrack\u201d with Jon Voight in the lead role, and put the nearly forgotten barrier island off the South Carolina coast on the proverbial map.<\/p>\n As late as the early 1940s, Daufuskie had been home to as many as 2,000 residents, nearly all of them African-American descendants of emancipated slaves. Most families grew their own produce in the island\u2019s rich soil and found employment in the surrounding waters: For decades, Daufuskie Island oysters were harvested by the locals and considered to be among the finest shellfish delicacies in the world.<\/p>\n But when pollution from factories along the nearby Savannah River poisoned the oyster beds, the island\u2019s only industry collapsed and most of its residents left to find work elsewhere. By 1970, fewer than 100 people lived on Daufuskie.<\/p>\n At about the same time, just across the Calibogue Sound on Hilton Head Island, a new era of modern development was beginning to hit its stride. The major difference between Hilton Head and Daufuskie is that the first bridge connecting the former to the mainland had opened in 1956, whereas access to the latter\u2014then as now\u2014is only via ferry or private boat. As a result, destination resorts and gated residential communities sprang up all over Hilton Head, which today is home to about 40,000 full-time residents and welcomes millions of vacationers every year. In fact, large portions of the island look very similar to the florid landscape that Pat Conroy described in the early 1970s. Two local volunteer groups\u2014the Daufuskie Island Conservancy and the Daufuskie Island Historical Foundation\u2014are working to keep it that way. The island\u2019s \u201cHistoric District\u201d is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n But notwithstanding the laudable achievements of those groups and others with regard to the island\u2019s environmental and historical heritage, the modern human landscape on Daufuskie long consisted of several diverse communities that had little interaction. However, two local residents\u2014a self-described \u201cfarm girl from Maryland\u201d and a pastor who found his calling on the island\u2014have been working to change that.<\/p>\n DOWN ON THE FARM<\/strong><\/p>\n After graduating from college and working for many years as a cardiovascular nurse practitioner in West Virginia, Beichler took a vacation to the South Carolina coast and a boat ride over to Daufuskie Island. It was love at first site. After being shown an available wooded lot on a dirt road in the island\u2019s Historic District, she signed a purchase contract the following day. That was 17 years ago and Beichler still lives in the same house that she\u2014literally\u2014built herself. \u201cI think it\u2019s the prettiest home on the island,\u201d<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n Always the self-reliant, Beichler rarely left Daufuskie except for the occasional boat trip to stock up on supplies. Over the years, however, an idea began to form that would have an impact on the entire island. \u201cWhen I moved here,\u201d<\/em> she said, \u201chardly anybody ever came out of the back gate at Haig Point or the other gated communities. One of the first things I started was the \u201cmystery dinner\u201d [program] to raise money to get a farm started.\u201d<\/em> The participants \u201cwould usually be four couples, one from Haig Point, one from Bloody Point, one from Melrose, one from the historic section and they would get to meet each other and nobody knew where they were going [for dinner] or what they would be eating.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n By 2009, with seed money in the bank, Beichler found an eight-acre tract in the heart of Daufuskie that the property owner was willing to lease for $1 a year. She formed a non-profit corporation and the Daufuskie Island Community Farm was founded. \u201cThat\u2019s all I needed,\u201d<\/em> she said. \u201cSo I organized some volunteers and we got started. It was just solid woods then, heavy forest with no buildings, no well, no septic, just nothing but woods.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n With a big assist from her grandson, who had worked for a company that helped to establish sustainable farms, Pat and her volunteers started clearing the land. Except for the treated lumber necessary for structural support, all of the initial wood used for the farm\u2019s buildings, fencing, animal pens and raised gardens were from the site\u2019s felled trees. The group had a portable sawmill that Pat\u2019s grandson knew how to use. COMMUNITY DEVELOPER<\/strong><\/p>\n But Crosby, somewhat to his surprise, found another calling at the First Union African Baptist Church, which had been established in 1881 and is still the island\u2019s only house of worship.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started going to church here,\u201d<\/em> Crosby said, reflecting on the period shortly after he moved to Daufuskie with his wife and their two daughters. \u201cAs I got more actively involved, the pastor asked me to become a deacon and teach the Sunday morning Bible school and I did that for a number of years. And then I started preaching about four times a year and, when the associate pastor retired, that became two Sundays a month. Then, about a year and a half ago, the pastor said \u2018I\u2019m going to retire when I turn 80\u2019 and the search committee then called me to be the new pastor.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe consider ourselves to be a non-denominational community church,\u201d<\/em> Crosby said. With so many part-time island residents, attendance varies: \u201cWe might have 10 on a cold-weather Sunday and 75 on a nice summer weekend.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n But the quantity of church membership is clearly less important to this pastor than the quality of its mission. \u201cI say this almost every Sunday: My objective here is to remove the barriers that cause people to think that church is something that takes place within four walls for an hour on Sunday. It\u2019s about creating a sense of togetherness and building a community with one another.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And although Crosby\u2019s role at the Daufuskie Island Community Farm has evolved over the years from sawmill volunteer to chairman of the non-profit\u2019s board, he\u2019s quick to give credit where he believes it\u2019s due: \u201cPat Beichler has built this fantastic community farm and she has pulled people together from all areas of the island. People from the planned communities come and work, but so do people who live on the dirt roads, and the farm has become a central point for the community to rally around. As a pastor, I can say that the farm has done more to pull people together than the church. It\u2019s become part of the island\u2019s identity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n People from the planned communities come and work, but also people who live on the dirt roads and the farm has become a![\"7ocean_marsh_waterway2MG430lo\"](\"https:\/\/www.ideal-living.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/7ocean_marsh_waterway2MG430lo.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cThe island is fringed with the green, undulating marshes of the southern coast….Deer cut through her forests in small silent herds.
\nThe great southern oaks stand broodingly on her banks. The island and the waters around her teem with life. There is something
\neternal and indestructible about the tide-eroded shores….\u201d <\/em>from The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>Development on bridgeless Daufuskie, however, has proceeded at a much slower pace. Of the three Hilton Head-style communities established on the island, Haig Point has been the most successful, with about 200 year-round residents and an equal number of part-timers. In total, just over 400 people now live full-time on Daufuskie.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u201cI was eight years old when my mom and dad moved us to the farm,\u201d<\/em> said Pat Beichler, recalling her family\u2019s decision to buy a small Maryland farmstead north of Baltimore. \u201cThat\u2019s when I started milking [cows] before and after school every day. We had cows, chickens, and pigs and that\u2019s where I developed my love for animals and farming and hard work.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u201cHe taught Aaron Crosby how to run the sawmill,\u201d<\/em> Beichler said, \u201cand he [Aaron] has built all of the buildings since then…He\u2019s really been my right-hand man.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Aaron Crosby grew up in New Hampshire and worked in the resort management and real estate industries. He was serving as a development consultant when he moved to Daufuskie Island in 2005. Crosby\u2019s current \u201cday job,\u201d as he describes it, is project manager for a 1,000-acre mixed-use development on the island\u2019s Webb and Oak Ridge tracts that\u2019s now in the planning stage.<\/p>\n
\ncentral point for the community to rally around.<\/p>\n