Most everyone who’s ever lived in Aiken has at least some memory or impression of Sand River, whether as a place at the heart  of a massive drainage project, the site of catastrophic erosion, or — as is the case for most people —  an intriguing feature of Hitchcock Woods and a destination for playing and exploring.

My memories and impressions would fill a book, which I’ll distill to a very few: trekking down to the river with my brother 50-something years ago and wading the wild torrents, (which would pale in comparison the ferocity and danger of later century currents); journeys upriver between rains to treasure-hunt for sherds of old pottery, fragments of aqua and amethyst-colored glass bottles, pieces of exquisitely-patterned china, odd metal relics and, on rare occasion, an unbroken antique bottle or an arrowhead washed down from the banks.

There were also those golden October afternoons when Mrs. Brown, a Winter Colony resident, arrived from Maine and took a party of neighborhood children down to the woods for a picnic on a hillside overlooking Sand River. She read stories to us; we swung on the vines, played in the sand, and, when our appetites could no longer be contained, we ate our sandwiches.

For much of my life from childhood onward, my bottom dresser drawer was filled with treasures from Sand River. The monetary value was zero. I just liked knowing they were there. Sand River — an ephemeral river that rises and falls with the rain — is one of Aiken’s original enchantments, albeit so changed by the elements of time as to be unrecognizable for most of it’s length. 

So it was with special interest that I read a memory of Sand River from 1875 in a a two-part article titled, “Spring Days in Aiken,” written by a man who’d brought his wife to piney-aired landscape of Aiken for its famed restorative properties. The topic of the river rose during a general description of the landscape to the west of town:

A little way off begins a strange valley, with wooded sides, running to the west, and along his bottom trails the river of sand. This river resembles almost any other, except in the fact that there’s not a drop of water in it. The rains have brought down from the hillsides thousands of currents of fine clean earth, of a yellow shade and have caused them to eddy about the trees and roots that have stood in the way, and to spread and disperse themselves and all the inequalities of the ground. Yet the torrents of water which have caused this have been instantly absorbed in the bed of their own making, leaving all the marks of their presence, indeed their facsimiles upon the sand above.

I believe that it is hereabout that the town urchins, and industrious visitors as well, come to gather the colored earth for mementos of the place. It  is not unusual to find before your hotel door on a March morning a group of children…  holding in their hands bunches of roses in full bloom, and tubes of glass filled with fifty specimens of tinted sands. The colors range from green to russet-red and chrome-yellow, and include chocolate and violet. Every stranger buys, and it is a thriving trade. 

It’s true. There is something about the place that compels one to bring something home. A shoeful of sand, a porcelain relic, a happy memory.