Wild Horses?
Susan Schaffer, writing in 2009 for the KICA Digest,
stated that when C.C. Royal purchased Kiawah from the
Vanderhorsts in 1950, Kiawah sported a pack of free-roaming
horses. The horses’ origin is a mystery. Dennyson Royal,
son of C.C., speculates that in the days before
construction of a bridge to the Island, hunters
left their horses to roam and graze until needed
for another hunt. The horses and their offspring
would have been under the supervision of the
Vanderhorsts’ caretaker, Charlie Scott, and
Dennyson recalls that during his childhood
the horses, which he labels “wild or becoming
wild,” tended to congregate near Charlie Scott’s
property in the current Rhetts Bluff area. Other possibilities
include former congressman Arthur Ravenel, who grazed
cattle on Kiawah during the Royal ownership and came with
his compatriots to round them up; they could have quartered
horses on Kiawah. Some horses might have belonged to
a caretaker who rode them, sometimes with friends, for
pleasure more than for transportation around the Island.
The recreation provided by horses during the Royal
family tenure was not the organized variety. Dennyson has
fond memories of chasing the horses around in a jeep with
his siblings, trying to lasso one. “My parents would have
put us on restriction if they’d known,” he laughs. “We were
never successful in lassoing one, though.” For the most part,
Dennyson spurned the horses for the more exciting pastime
of feeding alligators.
His sister Nancy Royal remembers the horses a little
differently. “Sometimes they were in pens near the Vanderhorst
house and sometimes they were roaming free. We hounded
my mother until she said we could ride them. The horses were
saddled and brought to our house.” But they were hard to
control. “They always wanted to go east where they hung out;
we were to the west.” Once when she was riding alone, her horse
wildly sped off on its own route and ended up near a road. “I
decided I was lucky and just got off and walked
home.” Her horse was free once again to roam.
By the end of the 1970s, the free-roaming
horses had disappeared. Island old-timers offer
differing explanations. MC Heyward, Bell Captain
at the Kiawah Island Inn for 25 years and still a
resort employee, worked as a caretaker for the
Royals. After the Royals sold Kiawah, he accepted
Eugenia Royal’s invitation to take what he wanted
of the island livestock, and he claimed a mare and a stallion.
He says that he later saw some of the Island horses in the
stables on Seabrook Island, and he thinks the local game
warden might also have taken some. Bob Moore believes they
were removed by island management after the first golf course
was built, because the horses thought it a fine grazing area:
“We had horse tracks cutting up new greens, and that was the
end of the horses.” However, Frank Brumley, the island’s first
general manager, says horses on the golf course were not a
problem and island management did not stage their removal
(the feral hogs, he says, were another matter). Mark Permar,
who with his wife Diana is Kiawah’s second longest-term
resident, recalls that perhaps 12-15 horses were still roaming
the Island when he and Diana arrived in 1979, after Mr.
Brumley had left his position. He thinks that the horses died
out that year after contracting equine encephalitis, a deadly
wasting illness spread by marsh-dwelling mosquitoes. Some
horses might have been removed from the Island, but the
cause would have been illness.
Kay Narmour
Kay Narmour has watched Kiawah Island grow and change for twenty-two
years from her desk in the Kiawah Island Community Association’s Sandcastle
Community Center. As “Queen of the ‘Castle” Kay has rejoiced in making the turn
around the causeway and approaching the Island each weekday morning, often
enjoying one of Kiawah’s signature sunrises. During winter months she often has
a parallel pleasure as she leaves while the soft orange and pink glow of a sunset
surrounds her. She has seen so much development on the Island, development
that continues daily, but describes also the remarkable efforts by the members
of the Kiawah community to preserve the wildlife that has been here forever. A
case in point for her is the Island’s turtle patrol, that army of volunteers who work
constantly during the season to give our loggerheads a chance to thrive. Kay notices
and appreciates the attractive new structures that have become a part of the Kiawah
experience but points out that the wildlife and habitats are still the most impressive
aspects of the Island.
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Naturally Kiawah