The brief piece serves to reproduce part of a lost / inaccessible article...

Looks like the Chicora never made it through the first year (1842.) Might could put it all back together again from the reprinted bits & pieces though. Here's part of Part I with “Mass Ralph's” intro:

“An Editorial Voyage to Edisto Island. – Have our readers ever visited any of the Sea Islands on our southern coast? During the last week we have done so; and as our journey was not devoid of interest, we shall note a few of its incidents. Our voyage was not after the present improved mode of travelling––under the swift and powerful appliances of steam; but in the old time style of transportation––in a canoe* boat, rowed by eight of the best nerved oarsmen of the African race, to be met with in these parts. Have our readers ever made such a voyage? If not, they can form no adequate idea of its pomp and circumstance. It is not a thing to be resolved upon and accomplished in a moment. There are considerations attendant upon it, too weighty for such expedition. The canoe is to be selected; her capaciousness and swiftness examined; her awning tested as to its water and sun-proof qualities; and her oars and oarsmen tried as to their respective powers of endurance. These being agreed upon, the almanac is carefully to be looked into, whether the tide will suit at Whappoo Cut, or Church Flats, or New Cut––how the wind is likely to blow at Stono, at Dead Man's Bluff, and at White Point––in a word, what are likely to be all the natural phenomena, at all the cuts, flats, bottoms, bluffs, points, et cetera, to be met with on the inland voyages to our Sea Islands. And even these are only the infantile steps of so important and undertaking. The number of fellow mortals to be stowed away under the awning is considered; the correct admeasurement of each estimated; the latest fashions consulted as to the probable size of bustles, and due allowances made for the real or artificial size of the ladies. The children are then enumerated; and the probable time calculated during which they will remain accommodated between uncle Billy's legs, or aunt Peggy's lap, without rehearsing the overture to a nursery opera. Then the pic-nic eatables for the voyage are to be prepared––but of these when we stop to enjoy them. Well, everything is ready; the day has arrived; the morn smiles gloriously and cheeringly upon us. Men, women and children are stowed under the awning; aunt Peggy has done scolding her bandbox; cousin Sally has stopped exclaiming, “good gracious,” about the salt water that has splashed upon her geraniums; and uncle Ralph, having taken a good stiff anti-fogmatic, feels internally convinced that the Temperance reform is a capital thing for everyone but himself; has cursed his last curse at the oarsmen, and is quietly seated at the helm, gazing upon the orient sun, and seeming to defy him to the exhibition of more rubicund face than his. Each oarsman takes his place, releases himself of his jacket, and seems to wonder in his mind, if uncle Ralph goes on drinking, whether his cheeks will not surpass in color said oarsman's red flannel shirt.

Regularly and beautifully each oar is dipped into the seemingly glassy water, and as the canoe springs forward at the impulse, “Big-mouth Joe,” the leading oarsman, announces his departure from the city with a song, in whose chorus every one joins––

Now we gwine leab Charlestown city,
        Pull boys, pull!––
The gals we leab it is a pity,
        Pull boys, pull!––
Mass Ralph, 'e take a big strong toddy,
        Pull boys, pull!––
Mass Ralph, 'e aint gwine let us noddy,
        Pull boys, pull!––
The sun, 'e is up, da creeping,
        Pull boys, pull!––
You Jim, you rascal, you's da sleeping,
        Pull boys, pull!––

And thus in an improvisation of as pleasant melody as ever floated over the waters, we are off on our voyage. The river is crossed; the noise and bustle of the city is only distantly heard; and its view is broken at quick intervals by the frequent meanderings of Whappoo Cut. Uncle...”
[William Gilmore Simms, Scrapbook E, p.89]
[The Simms Initiatives, University of South Carolina]

*Just fyi, an American Sea Island “canoe” would be a type of European wherry or overly large jollyboat 'water taxi.' Not the Pre-Columbian narrow beam birch bark or dugout type.

Slight drift: Chicora was the Carolina folklore version of a New World agricultural El Dorado. In local creole it was a settlement or small community built on stilts. A single raised hut or cabin (cabana) is still a chickee.