North Island has always been the beacon from the sea leading toward Georgetown, South Carolina. It was an island of exploration for the Spanish in 1526 and the first landing place of Lafayette, France's hero of the American Revolution, in 1777. It was a summer resort for aristocratic rice planters and their slaves from Georgetown and Waccamaw Neck until 1861. North Island's lighthouse, built in 1812, led thousands of sailing ships from all over the world past massive stone jetties and through Winyah Bay to Georgetown. Today, North Island is a sanctuary and laboratory for the study of nature's effects on this unique barrier island. Join historian Robert McAlister as he recounts the island's storied past.

Georgetown lies just inland of the Atlantic Ocean at the upper reaches of Winyah Bay. For eons, five rivers have flowed through the countryside, offering lifeblood to a town and its people. Founded in 1729, Georgetown has seen the heights of prosperity in the indigo and rice crops and the depths of despair in the aftermath of the Civil War. Many famous names have connections here, such as Francis Marion, better known as the Swamp Fox; the Marquis de Lafayette; Thomas Lynch, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; and Vice Pres. Aaron Burr, just to name a few. Presidents and other dignitaries have visited with us over these 200-plus years and millions have luxuriated in the waters of our nearby beaches for generations.

Georgetown and the Waccamaw Neck in South Carolina are steeped in historic and folkloric literature, reflective of the area's rich cultural past. This volume brings that treasury to bear in a collection of vintage postcards from the region compiled for the first time. You will see how the area's aristocratic past ties to present-day Georgetown and the nearby resorts of Pawleys Island and Murrells Inlet and the renowned Brookgreen Gardens. Also included are nostalgic views of life on plantations along the Santee Rivers, which relied upon Georgetown for economic trade, then and now. The communities depicted in this book were among America's wealthiest 150 years ago. That legacy is still seen in architectural remnants-plantations, churches, and town houses now restored to their former grandeur.

Born at sea on his father's whaling ship in 1861, Captain Abram Jones Slocum learned the seafaring life in New Bedford, Massachusetts, as part of the last generation of iron men aboard commercial wooden sailing ships in the Atlantic. His voyages often took him around Cape Hatteras to Georgetown, South Carolina, to load lumber bound for northern cities. He sailed in all seasons, through storms and hurricanes, for twenty years as captain of two schooners, the Warren B. Potter and the City of Georgetown. He was respected in Georgetown, where he wooed his wife. His ship sank in a collision with an ocean liner in 1913, but he survived, only to be lost at sea a year later as captain of another schooner. Local author and wooden boat enthusiast Robert McAlister recounts Slocum's epic life through the end of the Age of Sail.