Isle of Palms Spring 2016

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L egend still lingers on A
tiny barrier island only 200 yards off
the Isle of Palms. In the early 1930s,
a man and his wife lived in self-exile
on Goat Island, without electricity or
water, choosing to turn their backs on
civilization forever. The island remains
a place of rustic solitude – a precious, slender slice of land
beyond the reach of streetlights
and bus stops. The legend of
Goat Island has been passed down through generations of
locals who sometimes share it with worthy tourists.
The legend of the Goat Man emerged in 1931, when
a Charleston butcher, Henry Holloway, and his wife,
Blanche, decided to free themselves from the rules,
regulations and stresses of modern day society. Repelled
by the intrusion of what was labeled as progress, the
Holloways retreated from the real world as we know it,
into a timeless, peaceful life of seclusion on their own
deserted island, which they shared with a herd of goats.
There, alone, in a driftwood-covered hole in the
ground, sheltered only by palm fronds, they claimed
squatter’s rights over the island – the sole living heirs to
the virgin paradise of Goat Island’s undeveloped beaches
and marshlands.
The Goat Man and his wife learned to accept what
God provided them with, drinking rainwater and eating
whatever grew on the island. They lived in solitude
under the aimless canopy of tree limbs and palms that
provided them shelter in the rainy season, shade in the
hot, sweltering summers and firewood in the cool, wet
island winters.
While their nearby neighbors donned fancy new shoes
and Sunday clothes, they wore only their tans. They denied
a domesticated existence, refusing to live under the watchful
eye of any community. They didn’t go to church, work
or networking groups. Once they abandoned scheduled
society, they never had to wake up to the sound of an alarm.
by Denise K. James
Photo courtesy of the SC FCA Outdoors.
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The Lingering
Legend of Goat Island
by maria ZOne
The Goat man and his wife
learned to accept what God
provided them with, drinking
rainwater and eating whatever
grew on the island.