The barrier island of Burnside was a cool waterfront summer retreat for the Mercers. Now closed, the little yellow Allison’s store at Ferguson and Shipyard was a place where Johnny enjoying having a cold soda and visiting with friends during his summers on the island. Amanda Drive is named for his daughter and Hunt Drive for the banker who administered Johnny’s settlement of his father’s financial troubles.
Mercer’s summers were spent at the family’s summer home at Vernon View, a section of Burnside Island that was purchased by Johnny Mercer’s father around the time of the younger Mercer’s birth.
Johnny would go down from the family’s river home at Vernon View to the Pin Point Brand Oysters cannery (now A.S. Varn & Company) to listen to the African-American ladies singing gospel, spirituals and folk tunes in their Geechee dialect as they worked. The area of the family’s riverfront summer home is not available to the public.
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