More on Park Day

Famed ironworker to demonstrate craft and autograph books at Park Day

By Tom Ratzloff, Special to The Daniel Island News

Daniel Island Park Day is a celebration of nature and humanity.

Set amid mid-October natural splendor, the popular annual event raises much-needed money for non-profit environmental and humanitarian groups.

No one personifies nature and humanity more than master ironworker Philip Simmons, Daniel Island’s most celebrated former resident, who will be on hand for a special meet-and-greet at Park Day. Nature is a recurring theme in the hundreds of ornamental wrought-iron gates, fences, window grills, and balconies that bear his unique style. And his humanity is evident in how he’s relished passing on his inspiring life story to students from all over the Lowcountry.

Today, prestigious awards, letters of commendations, photos and plaques line the walls of the East Charleston cottage where Simmons has lived for the past 40 years. A recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship, the United States’ highest award given to traditional artists, he has received "lifetime achievement" honors from the State of Carolina, City of Charleston, and other organizations. One of his wrought-iron gates is now in the Smithsonian Institution collection.

"They come round here now and then and hang a picture on the wall," said Simmons, 93. "I like to look at it. It reminds me of what I done."

While his works are plentiful in downtown Charleston, Simmons’ artistry can be appreciated on Daniel Island, too. The curlicue graphic on The Daniel Island Company logo is his design, as are the wrought-iron arch and pool fence at Philip Simmons Park, which is located at the corner of River Landing Drive and Seven Farms Drive.

The island still holds a special place in Simmons’ heart, even though he moved across the water in September 1920 to attend school in Charleston. He’s come back to the island a few times over the years as the master-planned community has sprouted up. And he can’t believe the changes.

"To me, Daniel Island has changed," Simmons said. "What I’m witnessing now about Daniel Island is exciting. They’re doing things over there that I never thought would happen on Daniel Island. Thought they’d always just be planting vegetables during vegetable season and hunting and fishing."

Simmons’ memories are an important link to early 20th-century African-American sea island life. In those days, Daniel Island was a popular hunting preserve for wealthy Northerners and much of the island’s tillable land was used by the American Fruit Growers’ truck-farming operation. While his mother worked in Charleston, young Philip lived with his grandparents, Sarah and William Buncombe Simmons, who were subsistence farmers. By helping his grandparents with daily chores, he developed the strong work ethic that served him for seven decades as a blacksmith and ironworker.

"It was farming, fishing and hunting. There was wild turkey, duck and cormorant, all sorts of animals. Everything on our table in the morning was made on the farm," he recalled. "If it was bacon and grits, we made it on the farm. We grew rice on the farm, chickens and eggs, churned the butter. We got three meals – lunch, dinner and supper. That’s what I go to schools for, to tell children how Dan’s Island was the day I left there."

The family lived in a simple four-room clapboard house that had been built out of native timber by his grandfather. With all of the recent development, Simmons said he no longer knows exactly where the house was located.

"Now there’s nothing I can identify on that island," he said, acknowledging that change comes with the modern world.

Although there was a one-room school near Clements Ferry Road for local children, it operated only three months a year or not at all if the school district didn’t send a teacher to the isolated island. Consequently, his family decided to send him across the water to live with his mother where he would have better educational opportunities.

It was in Charleston that young Philip first visited Peter Simmons’ blacksmith shop at the end of Calhoun Street near the river. Although he was not a relative, the veteran blacksmith would become like a father to the youngster who longed to learn his trade.

"I always tell people I wanted to go to the blacksmith shop because it was exciting," Simmons said. "There was fire, darkness, sparks of fire flying, horses kickin’ up and you had to hold them. I asked the old man for a job when I was 8 years old and the old man said, ‘Boy, this shop is too dangerous for you. I can’t hire you.’ But he told me what he think I should know. ‘You get hurt if I hire you, I’ll get in trouble.’ I said, how old I have to be before you hire me? ‘At least 13 years old.’ I was 13 on a Wednesday and I was in his door on a Thursday. Peter, I’m 13 years old today. He said, ‘Come in tomorrow.’"

Thus began a remarkable career that survived the demise of the horse-and-buggy era and spanned more than 70 years.

"I worked in the blacksmith shop building wagon wheels and fixin’ plows," Simmons said. "Later, after things had changed, cars came and put the horses, wagons, plows and other instruments out of business. You had to change to stay with the changes."

Eighty-year-old Peter Simmons turned his shop over to Philip in 1935. This was a period when blacksmith shops were closing because of waning business. But Philip’s survival instincts and innate artistic skills served him well as he became a decorative ironworker in the late 1930s. Over the course of a year, he went from repairing existing wrought-iron gates and grillwork in historic Charleston to creating his unique original designs.

Many of these "fancy pieces" contained Lowcountry flora and fauna, which showed Simmons’ artistic side and catapulted him to international fame decades later. He was no longer just a blacksmith. He was a sculptor.

"God created the heaven and the earth and later created me," Simmons said. "And today if I make a piece, I’ll put something God created. I don’t have no other guide to go by but get it from God’s creation. Fish – those ideas came from creation. That’s how I was thinking. Animals, birds, fish and stars, stuff like that, I was very interested in tracking those things I come up with. Everything I made came from creation."

Since being "discovered" by the art world in the 1970s, Simmons’ life went in directions he could not have envisioned. He demonstrated his skills in Washington D.C. where he got to meet President Reagan and has reaped countless awards and accolades. Today, he is a Lowcountry living legend. For this, the always self-effacing Simmons credits the people of Charleston.

"They made me a living legend," he said. "Charlestonians, they’re responsible for everything I’m enjoying now."

In 1991, friends founded The Philip Simmons Foundation, which aims to preserve his legacy and promote ornamental ironwork. The organization sells Simmons-designed Christmas ornaments and jewelry as well as books and videos about his storied life. The foundation has a website at www.philipsimmons.org/

Simmons’ blacksmith shop, which is operated by longtime co-worker Ronnie Pringle, is located behind his Blake Street cottage.

"I worked in the shop until 80, but I wanted to retire and just go back there two-three-four hours a day to make souvenirs for the tourists," Simmons said. "But that backfired because of my health. I’m a diabetic and I got a pinched nerve. This pinched nerve been going on about 14 years. I had an accident. That didn’t help me none, made it worse. It stopped the ball rolling as far as work is concerned."

Simmons still draws designs, but recent health concerns have forced him to scale back his activities.

"Arthritis getting in the fingers," he said. "Sometimes it work; sometimes it don’t. I take therapy every morning. I get in the water and stay in the water three-quarter of an hour. It got a whirlpool in it and it help me some."

Tours continue to visit Simmons’ backyard blacksmith shop where people can touch tools that have served four generations and meet Charleston’s living legend.

"We still got plenty of history back there," he said. "We trying to keep the history – the artistic part of it."

Simmons will have a tent in the Wando Fields on Park Day and will be on hand for ironwork demonstrations and a book signing. All proceeds will benefit the Philip Simmons Foundation.