Book excerpt: In writing this book I hope to give you some feeling of what Hilton Head Island was like before and after the Bridge. I was encouraged by many friends who listened to the stories my mother would entertain them with when Hilton Head was one of the islands inhabited mostly by blacks. She knew them as friends, and since some spoke Gullah, a dialect spoken by low-country island natives, it helped that she spoke it fluently (or at least communicated beautifully). Hilton Head at that time was truly an island paradise with beautiful virgin forest, environmentally pristine marshes, miles of uninhabited beach and one dirt road! This was the island I knew as a teenager in 1951. This is a history of Hilton Head that I have been a part of and watched year by year develop into what we see today. It has been a great experience and I hope you enjoy the stories of some of the true pioneers of Hilton Head Island. But when all is said and done, I truly know that islanders either "old" or "nearly new" all love this island. And that is why I'm writing this book: to share its "old" tales with the "nearly new."