How Summerville became Summerville
Originally publishedJune 11, 2014
Most of us know how we got here – to Summerville. Maybe a job transfer or maybe we were born here.
But how did Summerville get here? What caused a community to locate 20 miles from a populous and prosperous Charleston shortly after the Revolutionary War?
The inland area, where many plantations were located, was popular for hunting parties. Hunters appreciated the cool breezes of the pine forests. Along the coast, in Charleston and nearby environs, diseases such as malaria were present. In the “Pineland Village,” there were no such diseases.
The breezes were credited with keeping people healthy. The fact that mosquitoes, prevalent in the coastal swamps were the real culprits, was unknown.
Avoiding “swamp fever” meant families began to regularly relocate from downtown Charleston during the summer months. Houses were built on stilts and pilings to capture the breezes underneath and to provide shelter for livestock, such as cows for milk and chickens for eggs.


