SFA | Oral History | Bowen's Island Restaurant

“Bowen’s Island is a grand place and has a great history. And I’ve known it for many years, since Robert Barber’s grandmother [May Bowen] ran the restaurant, and she had a little railway where we could haul our boat. We’ve got an old 45-foot Herreshoff Ketch built in 1935 that we have restored. And we hauled her on Miss May’s railway some twenty years ago.”

– Fred Wichmann

Fred Wichmann was born in 1930 at the Cape Romaine Light Station near McLellanville, South Carolina. His father was the lighthouse keeper. Fred has the rivers, marshes, and tides in his blood. An avid sailor, he can be found out on the water often. And it was a boat that connected him to Bowen’s Island. There used to be a small railway on the island, which people would use to haul their boats onto land; sometime in the 1980s, Fred used it to bring up his 45-foot Herreshoff Ketch. He spent three months on Bowen’s Island, making repairs to the boat’s hull and getting to know the islanders, including Jimmy and May Bowen and their restaurant. He became good friends with May’s grandson, Robert Barber. Today, the boat railway is a rusting pile of metal, but Fred’s fondness for Bowen’s Island hasn't changed a bit.

Listen to this 1-minute audio clip of Fred Wichmann describing what Folly Beach, where May and Jimmy Bowen had their first restaurant, was like in the 1930s. [Go here to download the player for free.]

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NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Edited Transcript

Subject: Fred Wichmann
Date: January 18, 2007
Location: Mr. Wichmann’s Real Estate Office – James Island, SC
Interviewer: Amy Evans

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Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance on Thursday, January 18, 2007. I’m in Charleston, South Carolina, at the office of Mr. Fred Wichmann. And if you wouldn’t mind please, sir, saying your name and your birth date for the record.

Fred Wichmann: My name is Fred Wichmann; I was born 21 February 1930 at Cape Romaine Light Station, where my father was the lighthouse keeper in Charleston County, ten miles out across the marsh from McLellanville, South Carolina.

And I’m with you today to talk about Bowen’s Island Restaurant and your friend Robert Barber, whom we enjoyed a meal with last night. But I wondered, too, if we could spend some time talking about your growing up on the island because you started sharing some wonderful stories last night; I think it would paint a good picture of how the island has changed and your experiences here over the years.

Well that’s James Island Restaurant, Bowen’s Island; it’s connected to part of James Island, and it’s a grand place and has a great history. And I’ve known it for many years, since Robert Barber’s grandmother [May Bowen] ran the restaurant, and she had a little railway where we could haul our boat. We’ve got an old 45-foot Herreshoff Ketch built in 1935 that we have restored. And we hauled her on Miss May’s Railway some twenty years ago, where she sat for three months while we repaired and fiberglassed the bottom.

Now when you say railway, there’s that kind of train trestle conveyor belt, the thing with that rusty machinery that’s still there on the island. Is that what you’re speaking of?

That’s correct. Boat railway is a common thing for hauling large boats. Our vessel displaces about twenty tons, so she can't be hauled by an ordinary travel lift always, unless it’s a super-great travel lift. She’s a heavy old boat. But she’s a piece of work we think [Laughs] and we plan to keep her. She’s written up in the Library of Congress. And she is the original Mobjack built in Saugus, Mass., 1935.

And so what year was it that you hauled the boat up there and fiberglassed the bottom?

It was about twenty years ago, around ’85—’86—’87, somewhere like that.

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I know that Mr. and Mrs. Bowen started a café on Folly Island in the ‘30s, if I remember correctly, Bob’s Lunch [or Restaurant]. Do you have any recollection of that or ever heard any stories about it over the years?

No, the first I knew May Bowen was on Bowen’s Island. But I do remember going to Folly in the ‘30s—the late ‘30s when we went across a wooden one-lane bridge, which was the only access to the island, and it was a five-cent toll to get on the bridge. [Laughs] I remember that very well. Some of the young boys would drive around through the marsh to avoid having to pay the five-cent toll. And Santos Sottile, who ran the tollgate, would call their parents and tell them that they owed him five-cents or ten-cents or whatever it was. [Laughs] It was important in the ‘30s.

Can you talk about what Folly Beach was like back then in the ‘30s?

Well Folly was very primitive. Some of those houses had been floated over to Folly on barges from the Navy Yard, where they had been originally used by the military during World War I, and they could be bought for practically nothing, but you had to transport them over to Folly. And those were the original houses on most of Folly. Folly Beach was bought by the Seabrook family.

Do you remember when they did away with the wooden bridge and built a causeway across the marsh there?

I think it was during World War II that the old wooden bridge went on its way, and new modern transportation required a better accessibility to the beach.

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Well and you were talking about the coon oysters when you were telling the story last night and calling them coon oysters, they’re coon oysters because they’re sticking up in the marsh and, literally, the raccoons eat them?

That’s correct. They stick up in a very vertical position, and they are small but very sharp edges, and the coons are able to bang them around a little and get them open. And so they’re known as coon oysters.

Which is interesting to me because when I was in Apalachicola [Florida] last spring and they—to coon is a verb. And people who are able to wade in the shallow waters of the Apalachicola Bay, it’s said that they’re cooning for oysters. Have you heard that before?

No, I haven’t, not in this area. We use the word coon here as an acronym for raccoons, which are wild animals and they frequent the marshy areas and they live on whatever they can catch in the edge of the marsh, and oysters are an important part of their diet.

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So when you first got to know the Bowens and were going out to the island there, were you visiting there when it was a fish camp?

I really never went to Bowen’s Island until after Mrs. Bowen had it connected to the Folly Road, and she did that, according to what I’ve been led to believe, [Laughs] sort of surreptitiously. She was a determined lady, and the reason she and her husband first settled there was because, I think, they probably acquired the property very nominally, and it was a cheap place to live. And they put up a very modest little dwelling, and eventually began the business by just offering a little food to visiting passersby in the creek—shrimpers, crabbers, or fishermen—and soon it became a known place with no access to it except by boat in its original beginning.

Do you remember how old you would have been when you first went over there?

Oh, I was in my teens, I’m sure, when it was open by road.

So in the late ‘40s-ish, just after it really kind of became established as a restaurant, then?

Right, in the ‘40s somewhere—’40 to ’50.

So what was the general thought then about Bowen’s Island Restaurant and Mr. and Mrs. Bowen in the community? Was it just a hangout place, or what was the feeling there of that place when it started?

Well it was a very unique restaurant because Mrs. May Bowen did not spend any money buying fixtures, chairs, tables, or anything that a modern restaurant would have. The chairs she had were rickety, the tables were sort of slapped together, and people would write on all the walls—even on the ceiling—graffiti, no vulgarities but it would be “Joe and Mary were here” or “FW loves BD” or “everybody is from Massachusetts” or wherever. They’d just write little things all over all the walls and it gave a lot of character to the place covered with all that graffiti.

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So when you started going out there, was it a hangout place for you and your buddies, or was it just known as a place to kind of get away, or what was it to you?

It was a kind of place to get away, and it was some way different. It wasn’t your standard restaurant by any means, and Mrs. May Bowen would serve you whatever you ordered. A lot of people had oysters, but sometimes they’d order shrimp. And I recall she would serve you the shrimp, and if you complained about it, she would not hesitate to tell you to get out and don’t come back. [Laughs] We always thought that was very interesting, so we never complained. [Laughs]

So then it was just, obviously then, serving the community primarily and then word got out, I imagine, and folks from outside Folly and St. James Island and Charleston started flocking to the restaurant?

Right. It was a real place of distinction in the community. There was only one Bowen’s Island, and May Bowen’s character combined with the restaurant really stood out distinctively as a very unique situation all the way around.

Can you describe her personality a little bit more?

Well she was very outspoken and did not hesitate to talk to anyone. And she was very strongly opinionated and didn’t hesitate to give you her opinion. Her husband [Jimmy Bowen], as I recall, was a very modest, mild-mannered person, who did not really make any waves. She ran the show. [Laughs] And he agreed with whatever she wanted to do; it was okay with him.

You and Robert Barber are friends now, but do you remember him as a youngster running around the place in the summers and whatnot?

I guess I’ve known Robert for 25 or 30 years—when I first went out there probably and we went to church together for a great number of years at St. James Episcopal Church on James Island. Robert has also served in various public offices including the School Board and in the Legislature. I think he served as a Legislator. He was a candidate last fall for Lieutenant Governor, and he’s a very capable man with a lot of charisma.

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Well and with everyone I’ve spoken to about Bowen’s Island, since Robert has been a real specific part of it after his grandmother passed, and it seems like Robert is really the lynchpin to the place and that it is what it is today because of him. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Well, that’s correct. Robert is the real personality that’s persevered in maintaining the business, the image of Bowen’s Island, right up until the fire that they had last fall. He is very community minded, very giving to public causes, to charitable operations. He has helped us have fund-raising events for Saving the Marsh Island Lighthouse; he has also helped us with the Friends of McLeod in trying to preserve McLeod Plantation, and we feel he really is a community entity of outstanding caliber.

So could you maybe say that—I’m trying to reconcile in my mind that if people—so many people go there because of Robert Barber and his family and that the physical space is almost secondary. But then, too, so many people who have memories of the place the space is the primary attraction because it’s kind of a sacred space to people who have made memories there. Do you have any response to that idea?

Well Robert’s personality, of course, is important to be tied in with the property and with his grandmother. And he would not have been able to—no one else would have been able to maintain the continuity and identity with Bowen’s Island that Robert has. Everyone originally, of course, connected it with his grandmother, but since his grandmother passed away, Robert has kept the restaurant going, having oyster roasts and regular restaurant service—has not altered—had not altered the interior of the building before the recent fire and maintained that casual old image of complete relaxed informality, with all the graffiti on the walls still preserved, never painted over—never modernized with any new furniture or chairs, just the originals. So Robert is identified with that and the image that exists today. And we’re hopeful he will be able to somehow rebuild the property. And a number of the charitable entities that he has stood up for and allowed to use the premises will assist him in some way.

I’ve been hearing about a lot of people wanting to give back to the Barbers and to the restaurant.

Absolutely. I believe there is a groundswell of community support for Robert restoring, preserving, and maintaining ad infinitum, the Bowen’s Island image and restaurant.

How often do you go there? Has there been a regular schedule over the years at all?

Very irregular. It is something that we have to hit a special mood and special people to go to Bowen’s Island, but everyone should go there at sometime or other because it’s such a unique experience. You could never repeat it anywhere else in the world.

Might you have some stories of maybe taking some out of town guests there or—or any unusual reactions to the place?

[Laughs] Yeah, I’ve had friends come over from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Japan, England, and they’ve all enjoyed it but were a little bit surprised at the absolute relaxed atmosphere.

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Can we talk about the oysters here and oyster picking and the tradition here? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Well of course we’ve got local oysters, which are not the large singles that we sometimes get in from the Gulf of Mexico—Apalachicola is one of the famous spots on the Gulf Coast where the big single oysters come from. And they are good. But the real aficionados claim the flavor on those big oysters is not as good as the little clusters found locally that you have to fight a little more and they’re much smaller, locally.

Growing up, did your family have oyster roasts regularly, or was that something here in the community that happened fairly often?

Oh yeah, oyster roasts are a regular thing. I belong—I’m an Honorary Life Member of the James Island Yacht Club. We were founded in 1898, and one of our regular functions is the annual oyster roast at the James Island Yacht Club, which is on the other side of James Island from Bowen’s Island but still on the same island.

Can you speak to the history of that tradition a little bit and, you know, maybe if there is some kind of difference in the tradition from when you were a youngster and to what goes on now?

I don’t know of any real differences, as far as eating those steamed oysters. There is one thing, I guess: we used to build a little stand out of brick or cement block and put a sheet of metal over the blocks and have a fire built underneath that sheet of metal. We would dump the oysters on top of that metal sheet, and we would take a crocus bag—a burlap sack—wet, and lay it on top of the oysters until they steamed. And that would be the steaming of the oysters. Now, of course, we’ve got big pots with a mesh net inside—metal mesh net where you dump the oysters and there’s water in the pot and as it steams, have a lid on that pot—when it steams up you pull that off—a more modern version than we used to have when I was young.

And you’re a fan, I assume from last night’s little oyster fest at Robert’s house—you like them a little bit closed still when they’re steamed?

I like them just a little bit cracked, not too much. If you cook them too much, the oysters will dry up, and you don’t really get the taste of them. It’s just too dry. But cracked a little bit and they’ve still got their moisture, and they’re delicious.

Do many people not eat them raw here?

Some people are afraid to and, of course, if an oyster batch happens to come from a contaminated area, they could be seriously lethal. I had a friend in North Carolina—Kingston, North Carolina—who got some Moorhead City oysters and they came from a contaminated area, and poor Tony died as a result of those oysters being contaminated. He loved them, though.

Have you had one of these creek oysters raw? And if so, can you describe the difference in taste with a raw and a steamed?

Yes, ma’am. A good raw oyster taken from a good clean area is incomparable. And I have been out on small boats, where we have banged up against pilings of an old bridge and knocked a few of them off and opened them right there on the boat—absolutely raw—and they’re great. Of course, they’re great when they’re steamed and had a little crack when they began to crack open, as long as you don’t cook them too long.

Do you think that steaming brings the sweetness out or more of the salinity, or what does that do taste-wise?

I think it brings some of the sweetness out in them, and it makes it easier to get to them. If they don’t crack open, it’s very hard to get them open. You have to know how to get to the key of the shell with your oyster knife. And don’t try it with a pocket knife; use an oyster knife. [Laughs]

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From an ecological point of view, how has the river changed and—and the marshlands in this area in Charleston County?

Well progress and development is an inevitability of life. We need to understand and accept it; other people will be coming. But there’s room and, as I mentioned earlier, one-third of Charleston County is marsh and creeks and rivers, so we’ve got room for people on the water and plenty of room on the land. We’re preserving enough land for permanent ecological advantages, 250,000 acres in Francis Marion National Forest here; some of it in—a large portion of it in Charleston County. Thirty-eight thousand on the Cape Romaine Wilderness, which is completely preserved from all signs of man’s presence except the lighthouses; there are two lighthouses out at Cape Romaine and they will stand—the original tower built in 1827.

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I wonder if you know much of the history of the area around Bowen’s Island, specifically, with Sol Legare Road there and the African American community that’s over there, and how that’s changed since you’ve lived here.

It’s actually Solomon Legare—two names—Solomon being, of course, a biblical name and Legare—L-e-g-a-r-e—is a family name of French Huguenot settlers in Charleston. Originally, this property presumably must have had some connection with a man named Solomon Legare. It’s now—just carries that name Sol Legare Road because of that location…Sol Legare area has always been a stronghold of some very prominent Negro citizens of the community. The Backman family [of Backman’s Seafood] is known—known for its contributions—shrimping and running some very capable large shrimp trollers out Folly River into the Stono River and into the ocean, which is a very dangerous inlet but those Backman brothers know it very well. There are also the Richardsons over there, and those Negro men know their business very well.

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Is there something that you would like to leave on that’s a final thought about Bowen’s Island and what it’s meant to the community here?

Well I feel like Bowen’s Island should continue, and it always will be in our memories. But we feel that Robert has the personality, determination, character to continue the image of the reputation of Bowen’s Island being a very rare unique place of hospitality. And I do know that the people and the Friends of McLeod and the people in Save the Light are determined to help contribute in any way possible to Robert’s preserving that valuable image and property.

What do you envision the day being like when he reopens for business?

Well I’m sure only Robert can say what that will be. [Laughs] I don’t know how he’ll manage to resurrect the graffiti on the walls, since they were all gone—burned out—but I’m sure he will erect some structure that will be reminiscent of his grandmother’s efforts through the years.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

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