The Waccamaw: Congratulations. You Survived the Begats

Waccamaw – it’s a river in Horry County, South Carolina. If you’ve made it to page 67 without giving up, you are about to start the brief, but amazing journey through the Civil War.

Waccamaw – it’s the name of a brig, a brigantine, more accurately, or even more accurately a hermaphrodite brig -- half brig, half schooner. Actually there are two brigs Waccamaw, but we love the second Brig Waccamaw best, because she will become Captain William Sewall Nickels’ first command.

If you got to page 67 without napping, you are at the place where the book turns from a chronicle to a story. After all, in fifty-or-so-pages you have been on a whirlwind tour of local history from the American Revolution to the Civil War. A lot to absorb in a few pages with pictures. And much of William’s early life is chronicled between the wars. By now, you have also discovered that the heart of the ongoing story lies in the news clippings, so when you go on with the meat of the tale, you won’t overlook them as often.

Now we know where every key person was in 1860, and how they got there. You are only a short hop to Bucksville. You are done with the begats, mostly, and a fascinating story will emerge, a story that stitches the lives of our Captains James and William Nickels to the lives of the McGilvery and Buck families, for much of their lives.

And the lives of those families become irrevocably entwined those of the sons of Captain David Nickels. Or at least until one or another of these men meets their Maker. The dynamic will change, but the men who are the base of it merely pass on leaving their children to build on their dreams or live with their failures. By now, you have met the Austins of Addison, too. They will be with you to the bitter end.

If you are a grown-up, you may have made the connection between the shipbuilding on the Penobscot and the slave-hewn lumber of South Carolina. It’s just a fact, like any number of facts to be learned, but not judged. Squirrel that away, though. It will come back to haunt some of these men, but not all.

Hang in there. It gets better, and even better. (You just said “I certainly hope so!” I heard you. Hang in there. Captain Nickels was just a rookie before the war, like I was at the beginning of the writing.)

Welcome aboard the Brig Waccamaw, the first family home Captain William Nickels shared with his bride, and not long afterwards, his newborn twin daughters.

And welcome to the shores of the river named Waccamaw.

Monica



View of the Waccamaw River from Henry Buck's front yard
Photo by the author - 2011