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Title: Landmarks of Charleston - Including description of An Incomparable Stroll
Author: Lesesne, Thomas Petigru
Language: English
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[Illustration: _St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Broad and Meeting
Streets: its Steeple and Chimes Famous_
Courtesy of South Carolina National Bank]
LANDMARKS of
CHARLESTON
INCLUDING DESCRIPTION OF
_An Incomparable Stroll_
BY
THOMAS PETIGRU LESESNE
AUTHOR OF
_History of Charleston County_
[Illustration: Publisher Logo]
RICHMOND
GARRETT & MASSIE, INCORPORATED
MCMXXXIX
COPYRIGHT, 1939, BY
GARRETT & MASSIE, INCORPORATED
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
[Illustration: Formal garden.]
_Foreword_
One’s task in discussing Landmarks of Charleston is to describe the more
outstanding from the beginning of Charles Town to this present year. It
is an agreeable task, but it leaves undone some things one wishes he had
done.
An Incomparable Stroll will give the visitor information of people and
places of _Charles Town_ under the Lords Proprietors, _Charlestown_
under the Royal Government, and _Charleston_ under the Republic.
The gardens which bring thousands of visitors to Charleston each spring
are reached by excellent highways. Middleton Place and
Magnolia-on-the-Ashley are on the Ashley River Road; Cypress off the
Coastal Highway, United States 52. These gardens are so different that
they are not competitive, and the visitor questing for beauty that
baffles description should see all three, and, time permitting, journey
toward Georgetown and enjoy the famous Belle Isle Gardens, on Winyah
Bay.
In this work the index has been compiled with great care and should be
consulted freely. Charleston’s points of interest are too scattered to
be grouped on a single route. Near Charleston are traces of
fortifications used in the Revolution and in the War for Southern
Independence. They are too numerous for individual enumeration. Books
have been written about them.
From the building of the Colonial Powder Magazine to the building of the
Cooper River Bridge, the third highest vehicular bridge in the world, is
a tremendous gap.
It is unnecessary to say that the author has consulted many authorities;
his quotations suffice to reveal this.
Thomas Petigru Lesesne.
Charleston,
South Carolina.
[Illustration: Ox-drawn cart.]
[Illustration: Shaded lane.]
_Contents_
PAGE
Foreword v
Historic Charleston 1
An Incomparable Stroll 6
Landmarks of Charleston (Guide Section) 13
Index 105
[Illustration: Park.]
_Illustrations_
PAGE
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church _Frontispiece_
Fort Sumter from the Air 6
Looking North on Meeting Street 18
St. Philip’s Episcopal Church 25
William Rhett House 31
The Izard Houses 31
Unitarian Church 36
St. John’s Lutheran Church 36
Huguenot Church 36
First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church 43
Bethel Methodist Church 43
Alluring Views of Magnolia-on-Ashley 49
St. Mary’s Catholic Church 56
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist 61
Trinity Methodist Church 61
Trumbull’s Portrait of General George Washington 67
City Hall 71
College of Charleston 71
The Old Exchange 71
Middleton Place 76
Miles Brewton House 81
“Sword Gates” 81
Gateway, Home of Herbert Ravenel Sass 81
Lord William Campbell House 86
William Washington House 86
Monument to Defenders of Fort Moultrie 94
Colonial Powder Magazine 94
Strawberry, Chapel of Ease to Biggin 99
St. James Church, Goose Creek 99
LANDMARKS OF CHARLESTON
[Illustration: Waterfront view]
_Historic Charleston_
Why Charleston? Three European nations were claiming this southern
country—the Spaniards called it Florida, the French Carolina and the
English Southern Virginia. The Spanish claim was through Ponce de Leon,
1512; the French through Verazzano, a Florentine, 1524, and the English,
it is said, by virtue of a grant by the Pope of Rome, and through John
Cabot and his son, Sebastian, both of them in the service of the English
King Henry VII, 1497-98. To Edward, Earl of Clarendon, and his
associates Charles II of England gave a charter in 1663—“excited by a
laudable and pious zeal for the propagation of the Gospel.”
The Proprietors planted colonists on the Albemarle and the Cape Fear,
North Carolina. Things did not go well and many of these people
subsequently found their way to old Charles Town, which was established,
not by English design, but through circumstances. Robert Sandford,
“Secretary and Chiefe Register for the Lords Proprietors of their County
of Clarendon,” had explored this coast in the summer of 1666, and would
have seen the site of Charles Town, but his Indian pilot confused his
bearings “until it was too late.” Sandford however, renamed the River
Kiawah the Ashley in honor of Ashley-Cooper, later the Earl of
Shaftesbury, one of the Proprietors.
Sandford, off Edisto, near Charles Town, was sought by the Cassique, or
Chief, of the Kiawah Indians and importuned to plant an English colony
near the Kiawah village on the west bank of the Kiawah (Ashley) River.
The Cassique, Sandford related, was known to the Clarendon colonists.
Sandford agreed to investigate, but missed the entrance and chose to
lose no further time by putting back. The Sandford report so impressed
the Proprietors that they authorized the planting of a colony, not at
Charles Town, but at Port Royal, to the south. Colonel William Sayle,
soldier of fortune, was commissioned Governor when Sir John Yeamans,
already Governor of the more northern colony, left the adventurers.
Three ships were in the enterprise, but one of these was separated. The
other two made land at present-day Bull’s Island in the spring of 1670.
The Cassique of Kiawah was there and Governor Sayle was importuned to
abandon Port Royal and bring his colonists to the Kiawah country.
Sayle, however, followed his instructions and proceeded to Port Royal,
arriving in mid-April of 1670. The Cassique of Kiawah had told the
colonists that the Indians were on the warpath and his story was
confirmed. Carteret, who was in the “friggott” _Carolina_, flagship,
says: “Wee weighed from Porte Royall and ran in between St. Hellena and
Combohe (Combahee).” Here the first English election in Carolina was
held, five men “to be of the Council.”
The sloop which had come with the _Carolina_ was “despatched to Keyawah
to view that land soe much commended by the Casseeka,” and soon returned
with “a report that ye land was much more fitt to plant than in St.
Hellena which begott a question.... The Governour adhearing for Keyawah
and most of us being of a temper to follow though we know noe reason for
it, imitating ye rule of ye inconsiderate multitude, cryed out for
Keyawah, yet some dissented from it being sure to make a new voyage, but
difident of a better convenience, those that inclyned for Porte Royall
were looked upon strangely, so thus wee came to Keyawah.”
So, it was the Cassique, or chief, of the Kiawahs, that was responsible
for the choice of the site of old Charles Town. First the colonists
named their settlement Albemarle Point, but in the fall of 1670 they
renamed it Charles Town, in honor of their King, Charles II. Carolina
they named for him also, but the French had previously called it
Carolina for their King, Charles IX. However, there were no French in
Carolina when the English colonists arrived; the French effort at
colonization had ended in tragedy, a hundred years before.
No sooner were the colonists established at Albemarle Point (where the
Seaboard Air Line Railroad touches the west shore of the Ashley) than
they looked with favor on the peninsula between the Ashley and the
Cooper (the Indians called this river the Etiwan), as much the more
desirable for their town, and in 1680 the change was officially in
force. The new town was facilitated by the voluntary action of Henry
Hughes and of John Coming and “Affera, his Wife,” in surrendering land
for the new town. John Culpeper was commissioned to plan it. “The Town
is regularly laid out into large and capacious streets,” said “T.A.,
Gent.,” clerk aboard H.M.S. _Richmond_, “in the year 1682.”
Charles Town on the peninsula prospered as a port and as the capital of
the plantations. To ships in its commodious harbor came the things of
the fields, the woods and the streams. Constantly new people were
arriving and the outpost of civilization rapidly took on the appearance
of European manners and customs, notwithstanding the incongruity of
savages, red and black, and Indian traders in their bizarre garb. It was
_Charles Town_ under the Proprietors, _Charlestown_ under the Royal
Government, and _Charleston_ since its incorporation in 1783.
This Carolina metropolis has had part in Indian, Spanish and French
wars. It has had bold adventures with pirates. It was conspicuous in the
Revolution and in the War for Southern Independence. It furnished men
for the famous Palmetto Regiment in the Mexican War. The War of 1812
little affected it. Its men served in the Spanish-American War and the
World War. It is said that from the tops of the highest buildings come
under the eye more historic places than come under it from any other
place in the United States, explaining the slogan, _Charleston—America’s
Most Historic City_. It is in order to remind that William Allen White,
in an address, said that “Charleston is the most civilized town in
America,” and that William Howard Taft, then President of the United
States, pronounced it, “the most convenient port to Panama.”
In Charleston survive buildings that were erected during the Proprietary
Government, many buildings that were erected during the Royal
Government. Survive scars of wars and storms and fires that raged in the
long ago. Survive street names that were bestowed when Charles Town was
in its swaddling clothes. It is a far cry from old Charles Town, bounded
on the south by Vanderhorst Creek (Water Street); on the west by
earthworks and a moat (Meeting Street); on the north by earthworks
(Cumberland Street), and on the east by the Cooper River. King, Queen
and Princess Streets are reminiscent of the Royal Régime. St. Philip’s,
St. Michael’s, St. Andrew’s, Berkeley, and St. James, Goose Creek, were
of the Church of England, under the Bishop of London, albeit the present
St. Philip’s was erected half a century after the Revolution, replacing
the Proprietary building that was burned in 1835.
But this work is concerned, not with the history of Charleston, but with
Landmarks of Charleston, and in the pages that follow are tales of
prominent landmarks, places and buildings that are storied. Eminent
Carolinian names pass in review. The greatness of the lustrous past is
linked with the more convenient present. The Charles Town that was and
the Charleston that is are brought before the reader. The author’s
effort is to present the facts accurately.
Outstanding landmarks include Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, the Old
Exchange Building, the Powder Magazine, the Rhett and Trott Houses for
their antiquity, the Miles Brewton House as enemy headquarters in the
Revolution and the War for Southern Independence.
[Illustration: _Fort Sumter from the Air_]
_An Incomparable Stroll_
Would you, guest within the gates of Charleston, see things reminiscent
of _old_ Charles Town rubbing elbows with things of modern Charleston?
Take this stroll, a little more than a mile, and you will be abundantly
compensated.
Begin at the Mosque of Omar Temple of the Mystic Shrine, on the site of
the Granville Bastion, southeastern edge of Charles Town in 1680.
Proceed, southward, along East (or High) Battery, washed by the Cooper
River. You behold the harbor declared by Admiral Dickins capable of
accommodating the fleets of the world at one time. Seaward you see
gallant Fort Sumter. To its left, Sullivan’s Island, on which is Fort
Moultrie of Revolutionary fame; to its right, by the Quarantine Station,
Charles Town’s first fort, Johnson, named for a Proprietary Governor. On
the west side are some of Charleston’s most desirable residences. You
reach South Battery.
Here you see the monument to the brave Confederate defenders of Fort
Sumter, to face that famous fortress. Continue on the promenade which
has inspired extravagant phrases. In the park you see the capstan from
the battleship _Maine_, blown up in Havana harbor in February, 1898;
monuments to the defenders of Fort Moultrie in 1776, and to William
Gilmore Simms, novelist, historian, editor. Across the park, at the foot
of Church Street, you see the home of Colonel William Washington,
Virginian, who achieved a lustrous record as a Revolutionary officer in
South Carolina; across Church Street is the Villa Margharita, built as
the home of Andrew Simonds, banker. At the foot of Meeting Street, you
see a memorial fountain to the gallant Confederates of the first
submarine.
Stay on the promenade and enjoy the sight of stately palmettos bordering
a beautiful park in which majestic oaks are many. At the foot of King
Street, you come to the Fort Sumter Hotel. This building includes the
site of the landing stage used by Queen Victoria’s daughter, the
Princess Louise, in 1883; first member of the English royal family to
visit the capital of the former English colony and province. Go north in
King Street. At No. 27 is the celebrated Miles Brewton House, used by
the British as headquarters in the Revolution and by the Union
commanders in the War for Southern Independence. Note the picturesque
old coach house.
Turn east and proceed through Ladson Street. At the northwest corner of
Ladson and Meeting Streets is the home of the last Royal Lieutenant
Governor, William Bull, and across Meeting Street (No. 34) the home of
the last Royal Governor, Lord William Campbell, who escaped through
Vanderhorst Creek (now Water Street) to H.M.S. _Tamar_, carrying with
him the Great Seal of the Province. Next to the Bull House is the home
of the late General James Conner, distinguished Confederate officer, and
eminent for his work during Reconstruction. At Water Street you come to
a corner of old Charles Town.
Continue north in Meeting Street. At No. 51 is the home of Governor
Robert Francis Withers Allston, some time a convent of the Sisters of
Mercy, now the home of Francis J. Pelzer. At the southwest corner of
Meeting and Tradd Streets is the First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church,
organized in 1731, an offspring of the old White Meeting House. On the
northwest corner is the old Branford (also called Horry) home, the
portico over the street being less ancient. On the east side (No. 72) is
the hall of the South Carolina Society, which also houses the St.
Andrew’s Society, founded in 1729; in this building are tables and
chairs used in the Secession convention. On the west side is the post
office park, including the site of the old Charleston Club, and of the
United States courthouse that collapsed in the earthquake of August 31,
1886. On the southwest corner of Meeting and Broad Streets is the United
States post office, completed in 1896; this houses the United States
court. On the northwest corner is the county Court House, on the site of
the old State House, burned in 1788. Behind the Court House is the
Daniel Blake double house, one of the first of its kind in the country.
On the southeast corner is St. Michael’s Church, on the site of the
original English church, St. Philip’s. In its yard sleep illustrious
Charlestonians, including James Louis Petigru, the epitaph on whose
grave is famous. On the northeast corner is the City Hall, with its
great municipal art gallery, including John Trumbull’s renowned portrait
of General George Washington. This was the building of the United States
Bank, on the site of the early market place. Behind and beside the City
Hall, Washington Park, in the northwest corner of which is the country’s
first fireproof building.
Proceed east in Broad Street. No. 73 is the site of Lee’s Hotel, known
also as the Mansion House, “kept by a dignified and distinguished
looking mulatto, once the most fashionable hotel in the city and
probably the best kept and most expensive,” said William G. Whilden in
his _Reminiscences_. Across the street (No. 62) is the Confederate Home
which before the War for Southern Independence was the Carolina Hotel, a
noted caravansary. At the northwest corner of Broad and Church Streets,
is the Chamber of Commerce, oldest in the country, organized in 1773;
this was the old South Carolina Bank building, later the home of the
Charleston Library Society, which moved into modern quarters, elsewhere
on this stroll. At the northeast corner is the Citizens and Southern
Bank, on the site of Shepheard’s Tavern, birthplace of Ancient Free
Masonry in America, Solomon’s Lodge, No. 1, having been chartered by the
Grand Lodge of England in 1735, and birthplace also of the Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite of Free Masonry, 1801. A block to the eastward,
at the foot of Broad Street, is the Old Exchange, as historic a building
as there is in all America.
Northward on Church Street, at the southeast corner of Church and Queen,
the only Huguenot church in America! Opposite, on the southwest corner,
the restored Planters’ Hotel (1803), including the reproduction of
Charleston’s first regular theater (1735), the company of players coming
direct from England. North of Queen Street, on the west side, the
reputed Pirates’ houses. St. Philip’s graveyard is divided by Church
Street, running through the foundations of the building burned in 1835.
The first St. Philip’s was on the site now occupied by St. Michael’s and
the present St. Philip’s is the third. In the graveyards sleep, Edward
Rutledge, Signer of the _Declaration of Independence_; William Rhett,
captor of the notorious pirate, Stede Bonnet, 1718; Christopher Gadsden,
Revolutionary patriot; John Caldwell Calhoun, eminent statesman.
Proceed through the western yard. You are paralleling the northern
boundary of old Charles Town, a matter of yards away. You are in the
Gateway Walk of the Garden Club. Midway of the yard, you are behind the
first brick house in Charles Town, that of Judge Nicholas Trott; it was
standing in 1719. Next to the Trott House is Charles Town’s oldest
building, the Powder Magazine, 1703, owned and used by the Colonial
Dames of America. Into the yard of the Circular Church, cradle of
Presbyterianism in Carolina. Illustrious dead are buried here. The
newspaper building to the south is on the site of the South Carolina
Institute Hall, in which the _Ordinance of Secession_ was signed
December 20, 1860, and in which, several months before, the famous
Democratic convention of 1860 was held. You come to Meeting Street, the
Circular Church as the White Meeting House giving its name. Down Meeting
Street, at the southwestern corner of Queen, is the St. John Hotel, on
the site of the old St. Mary's Hotel, opened in 1801; General Robert E.
Lee and President Theodore Roosevelt were of the notables who have been
guests of this house.
At Meeting Street you are at the western edge of old Charles Town. Cross
the street and pass through the yard of the Gibbes Memorial Art Gallery,
a section of the old Schenking Square. Thence into the yard, of the
Charleston Library Society, dating to 1748, among the oldest in the
land. You come now to King Street. Down the street on the east side of
the next block is the Quaker burial ground and site of the meeting
houses that were burned. Cross King Street into the walk of the
Unitarian Church, its building used by the British during their
occupation in the Revolution for stables, and, to the north, the first
Lutheran church, St. John’s. You come to Archdale Street, named for
pious John Archdale, Quaker, Proprietor and Governor. Go southward to
Queen Street, at the corner of Legare (it used to be Friend, reminiscent
of the early Quakers in the colony) is the convent of Our Lady of Mercy,
a community of consecrated Sisters, now more than a hundred years old.
Opposite the convent, in Legare Street, is the Crafts public school,
memorial to William Crafts.
On the left, at the corner of Broad Street, is the Cathedral of St. John
the Baptist, on the site of the Cathedral of St. Finbar and St. John,
burned in 1861; here Bishop John M. England built the first St. Finbar’s
on the site of the Vauxhall gardens. Go east in Broad Street. No. 119
(south side) is the residence of Irving Keith Heyward with one of
Charleston’s finest formal gardens. Next door, to the east, is a
property once occupied by Edward Rutledge.
On the north side of Broad Street, No. 118, is the site of St. Andrew’s
Society hall in which President James Monroe and the Marquis de
Lafayette were guests of the city, Monroe in 1819 and Lafayette in 1825;
in which the _Ordinance of Secession_ was adopted December 20, 1860.
Next door, No. 116, is the former house of John Rutledge, “The
Dictator,” later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States; here President William Howard Taft was the guest of Robert
Goodwyn Rhett. No. 114, once the home of Colonel Thomas Pinckney, is the
residence of the Bishop of Charleston, the Most Reverend Emmet Walsh.
No. 112 is the Ralph Izard house; the coach house in the yard is one of
the most picturesque in Charleston. This neighborhood was in Mr.
Hollybush’s farm, just outside of old Charles Town. No. 100 Broad Street
was at one time the residence of James Louis Petigru.
You come again to the intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets and
remember that here in 1876 occurred violent Reconstruction riots; that
in the Revolution, years before, the statue of William Pitt was in the
center and that a British shell struck off an arm. You who have followed
me on this incomparable walk have seen things of Charles Town,
Charlestown and Charleston. You have seen things reminiscent of early
English and early French. You have seen the evolution of a British
outpost in a savage land into what William Allen White has called “the
most civilized town in America.”
[Illustration: Antebellum street scene]
_Landmarks of Charleston_
POWDER MAGAZINE, _23 Cumberland Street_: In the early days of Charles
Town this storehouse for ammunition was built of brick covered with
“tabby.” It is known to have been in use in 1703. It continued as a
storing place of gunpowder years after the town limits had been pushed
northward of Cumberland Street. When the British were besieging
Charlestown in 1780, a shell exploded near the magazine and attention
was thus directed to its danger. It was abandoned as a magazine.
Nowadays this ancient building is the property of the Charleston Society
of the Colonial Dames of America. In it are many interesting and
valuable relics. How this magazine escaped through the years is one of
the mysteries.
NICHOLAS TROTT’S HOUSE, _25 Cumberland Street_: Next door to the Powder
Magazine is Charleston’s first brick house, standing in its old
appearance until a few years ago when it was done over for business
offices. It was the home of Nicholas Trott, one of the chief men of
Charles Town. It is a large two-story building, its back to St. Philip’s
western graveyard. Trott, born in England in 1663, came to Charles Town
from the Bahamas about 1690. He was Attorney General in 1698, Speaker of
the Assembly in 1700, Councillor in 1703 and the Chief Judge after that.
With the overthrow of the government of the Proprietors, Trott’s star
waned. He revised and published _Laws of South Carolina_ (two volumes,
1736) and _Laws Relating to the Church and the Clergy_ (1721). He died
in Charlestown in 1740. Dr. Shecut says that the Trott House was
standing in 1719. “The great ability and legal attainments of Chief
Justice Trott, who acted as Chief Justice in all for some fifteen or
sixteen years,” Henry A. M. Smith wrote, drew all the business and
litigation to it; his became practically the only court in the Province.
The Proprietors sustained Trott when the people complained “and the
response on the part of the people was to overthrow the Proprietary
Government,” Judge Smith is quoted.
WILLIAM RHETT’S HOUSE, _58 Hasell Street_: Wade Hampton, South Carolina
hero of the Reconstruction period after the War for Southern
Independence, acclaimed as the savior of his state, was born in the
house wherein lived William Rhett, captor of Stede Bonnet, notorious
pirate, and his fellows, who were hanged, in 1718. William Rhett was a
great man in the early Carolina and Wade Hampton in the later. Rhett’s
large square house was in excellent condition in 1722, says Joseph
Johnson, M.D., in his _Traditions of the Revolution_. It is in good
condition in this year, 1939. It is entered through a broad piazza on
the west side and contains four large rooms on each floor. Colonel Rhett
is remembered chiefly for his capture of the pirates, but other marks in
his record are lustrous. He commanded the little fleet that in 1706 put
down the harbor against a hostile French fleet under Le Feboure: the
Frenchman weighed his anchors and went to sea without offering a single
shot. A few days later Rhett’s flotilla, a short distance up the coast,
captured a French vessel; among his prisoners was the chief land
officer, Arbouset. Rhett was born in London, September 4, 1666, and came
to Charles Town in November of 1694; he died here in June of 1722. On
his tomb in St. Philip’s western graveyard, it is chiseled that “he was
a person that on all occasions promoted the public good of this colony
and several times generously and successfully ventured in defense of the
same.... A kind husband, a tender father, a faithful friend, a
charitable neighbour.”
QUAKER GRAVEYARD, _138 King Street_: Graves among the oldest in Carolina
are in the yard of the old Quaker Meeting House property. The first
Quaker house of worship was built on this site in 1694. John Archdale,
Quaker, Proprietor and Governor, came to Charles Town in 1695, and
attended services with his fellow Friends. The property is a parcel of
the old Archdale Square, nowadays bounded by King, Queen, Meeting and
Broad Streets. It was just outside the town in those early years. This
building was blown up in July, 1837, to stop a fire. The rebuilt Meeting
House was destroyed in the conflagration of 1861. Quakers came to
Charles Town while it was across the Ashley River. A letter from
Shaftesbury, dated June 9, 1675, said: “There come now in my dogger
Jacob Waite and two or three other familys of those who are called
Quakers. These are but the Harbingers of a greater number that intend to
follow. ’Tis theire purpose to take up a whole colony for themselves and
theire Friends here, they promised me to build a Town of 30 Houses. I
have writ to the Gov’r and Council about them and directed them to set
them out 12,000 acres.” The Society of Friends owns this property, but
there is now no meeting house in Charleston. The name of Governor
Archdale is preserved in the street of that name, on which are the
Unitarian and St. John’s Lutheran Churches.
THE GATEWAY WALK, _from Church to Archdale_: No visitors to Charleston
should forego the pleasure of using the Gateway Walk of the Garden Club.
A bronze plate on a gate at the Charleston Library says:
_Through hand-wrought gates alluring paths
Lead on to pleasant places,
Where ghosts of long-forgotten things
Have left elusive traces._
This verse speaks eloquently for it. East to west, the walk is through
St. Philip’s graveyard, through the yard of the Circular Congregational
Church, thence across Meeting Street, through the yard of the Gibbes
Memorial Art Gallery, through that of the Charleston Library Society,
across King Street, through the yards of the Unitarian and St. John’s
Lutheran Churches. There are two graceful wrought-iron gateways between
the Gallery and the Library which formerly had place at the home of
William Aiken, King and Ann Streets, used nowadays by the Southern
Railway System for offices. Mr. Aiken was president of the South
Carolina Canal and Railroad Company from 1828 to 1831. Aiken, near
Augusta, popular winter resort, was named in his honor. The railroad
company a hundred years ago built the world’s longest steam railroad. In
the large yard behind the Gibbes Gallery is an attractive pool with
growing water plants. To describe the Gateway Walk at length would
operate to rob a visitor of the tranquil pleasure of moving through it
leisurely. In the yards of St. Philip’s and the Circular Church are
graves of early citizens of Charles Town. It is enough to say that the
Garden Club has achieved a unique and worthwhile project. Elsewhere in
this book is found information of the six properties traversed by the
walk.
ST. ANDREWS HALL SITE, _118 Broad Street_: The St. Andrew’s Society of
Charleston was organized by Scots in 1729. It is Charleston’s oldest
benevolent society, active and flourishing into this season. Its hall
was built in 1814 and here the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained in
March, 1825. The distinguished Frenchman was the guest of the city and
was showered with attentions. Here he met his friend, Colonel Francis K.
Huger, who some years before had engaged in the frustrated scheme of
aiding Lafayette to escape from an Austrian prison. Here on Tuesday,
March 15, 1825, he “received the salutations of the reverend clergy, the
officers of the militia, judges and gentlemen of the Bar, and many
citizens, after which he visited Generals Charles C. and Thomas
Pinckney, Mrs. Shaw, the daughter of General Greene, and Mrs.
Washington, relict of the late General William Washington.” In this hall
was passed the _Ordinance of Secession_ December 20, 1860 (it was signed
in the Institute Hall, however). It was among the many buildings razed
by the flames in 1861. The St. Andrew’s Society is housed in these
seasons with the South Carolina Society, certain of the chairs and
tables used in the Secession convention being preserved. In the years
before the War for Southern Independence St. Andrew’s Hall was the scene
of many brilliant social entertainments, including balls of that eminent
Charleston order, the Saint Cecilia Society, which had its beginning as
a musical society, presenting concerts.
[Illustration: _Looking North on Meeting Street
Right Middleground, Portico of South Carolina Hall; Background, St.
Michael’s Church_]
JOHN STUART’S HOUSE, _104 Tradd Street_: John Stuart, born in England in
1700, came through Charlestown with General James Oglethorpe, founder of
Georgia, in 1733. Thirty years later he was appointed the British
general agent for Indian affairs in the South. Captured by the
Cherokees, he was saved by Attakullakulla (the Little Carpenter). With
the breaking of the Revolution he engaged to incite Cherokees,
Chickasaws and Creeks (Muscogees) to war against the whites. The Indian
outbreak was to coincide with Sir Peter Parker’s attack on Charlestown
in the spring of 1776. It was foiled by alert Kentucky settlers. His
plot being exposed Colonel Stuart fled to Florida, thence to England
where he died in 1779. His property was confiscated by the independent
government. To escape the British, it is related that General Francis
Marion leaped from a window. His coattails caught and his liberty was in
peril. (That’s the story, but the house from which Marion fled is at the
northeast corner of Legare and Tradd.) Certain of the interior of this
house has been reset up in Minneapolis which has broadcast its pride in
the accession.
SITE OF FORT JOHNSON, _James Island_: The first fortification erected
for the defense of old Charles Town was at the northeast end of James
Island, within the present-day Quarantine reservation. It was devised to
meet the threatened invasion by the French under Le Feboure and was
named Fort Johnson in honor of the then Governor, Sir Nathaniel Johnson.
In 1759 a second fort of tabby (or tapia) was built on the site and this
was the Fort Johnson of the Revolution—“in plan triangular, with
salients bastioned and priestcapped, the gorge closed, the gate
protected by an earthwork, a defensible sea wall of tapia extended the
fortification to the west and southwest.” In 1765 stamped paper was
transferred from a British sloop-of-war and stored in Fort Johnson while
in Charlestown excitement prevailed, resulting in seizure of the stamped
paper by three companies of volunteers under Captains Marion, Pinckney
and Elliott. The British garrison was placed under guard and
preparations made to resist any attack from the sloop-of-war. At this
time was displayed the first form of the South Carolina State flag—a
blue field with three white crescents. The naval commander agreed to
carry the stamped paper from Charlestown and the incident passed off
without clash at arms. This was ten years before the Battle of Concord.
In 1775, the spirit of liberty gaining strength, Fort Johnson was again
seized by order of the Council of Safety, as a precaution against the
last of the Royal Governors, Lord William Campbell, British troops being
expected. In November of this year (1775) three shots were fired from
Fort Johnson on the British sloops-of-war _Tamar_ and _Cherokee_, which
were engaged in blocking Hog Island Channel. June 28, 1776, Fort Johnson
was commanded by Colonel Christopher Gadsden, but had no opportunity of
engaging Sir Peter Parker’s fleet, which was repulsed by soldiers under
Colonel William Moultrie at Fort Sullivan, known afterward and now as
Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan’s Island. In 1780 Sir Henry Clinton reported
Fort Johnson “destroyed.” In 1793 the third work at this site was built,
but in 1800 a tropical storm so damaged it that it was abandoned, being
restored in the War of 1812. At the site of Fort Johnson the Confederate
forces defending Charleston located a mortar battery from which to
bombard Fort Sumter. It now became “an extensive entrenched camp of
considerable strength and capacity.” The Confederates evacuated this
fort February 17, 1865, and the works were allowed to fall into decay.
Latterly there has been an earnest effort at restoration.
FORT MOULTRIE, _Sullivan’s Island_: A glorious day in the annals of
South Carolina was the twenty-eighth of June, 1776. A partially built
fort of palmetto logs repulsed the proud British fleet under Sir Peter
Parker. Above this rude fort floated a South Carolina flag with a blue
field in which was one crescent and the word LIBERTY. It was this flag
that Sergeant Jasper rescued, his gallant deed commemorating his name.
The first government of any of the thirteen American colonies was
established at Charlestown, March, 1776, with John Rutledge as
president, Henry Laurens as vice-president and William Henry Drayton as
chief justice. Against Colonel William Moultrie’s rude fort on that June
day in 1776 was pitted a trained fleet of eleven armed vessels carrying
270 guns. Moultrie’s garrison comprised 435 men. While Moultrie was
engaged with Sir Peter Parker, Colonel William Thomson with 800 men and
two cannons prevented Sir Henry Clinton from landing his soldiery. In
the Battle of Fort Moultrie the defenders suffered only thirty-seven
casualties while the fleet suffered more than 200, and the loss of a
frigate. It was from Fort Moultrie that Major Robert Anderson on the
night of December 26, 1860, removed his Union garrison into Fort Sumter.
The Confederates used Fort Moultrie against the invading Union forces
until Fort Sumter was abandoned by the South’s defenders. Before
Anderson left Moultrie, he had spiked the guns and burned their
carriages. Fort Moultrie helped make Morris Island an unhappy place for
Union troops under General Gilmore. At the entrance to the old fort is
the grave of Osceola, chief of the Seminoles, who was brought a captive
after the war in Florida a hundred years ago. In these years the fort
gives name to a reservation which is the headquarters of the Eighth
Infantry, a small detail of Coast Artillerymen being on duty with the
coast defense guns.
FORT SUMTER, _at the Entrance to the Harbor_: Facing the open sea stands
gallant Fort Sumter. No fortress in all America awakens greater
memories. It is a shining emblem of Secession, enduring monument to the
incomparable defense of Charleston by the Confederates. The bravest of
the brave served within this shell-torn fortress, withstanding the siege
of Union land and sea forces. Sumter is not alone a proud fortress, but
a landmark invested with a wealth of patriotic sentiment. It is stirring
American drama. “In the annals of the Federal army and navy, there is no
exploit comparable to the defense of Charleston harbor. It would not be
easy to match it in the records of European warfare”—the Rev. John
Johnson, D.D., quoted an English historian. In skeleton, Fort Sumter’s
great story includes: April 7, 1863, it had part in the repulse of the
United States armored squadron after a severe engagement. In August it
“suffered its first great bombardment of sixteen days, ending in the
demolition and silencing of the fort, chiefly by land batteries of
Morris Island.” Confederates effected immediate repairs. While these
were making, the defenders of Sumter beat off a night attack by small
boats. Then came the “second and third great bombardments, one of
forty-one days, and the other, and last, of sixty days and nights
continuously, both being borne without any thought of failure or
surrender.” The quotations are from an article by Dr. Johnson in _The
News and Courier_. In all, the siege lasted until Charleston was
evacuated February 17-18, 1865, “after 567 days of continuous military
and naval operations.” The famous fortress of Sumter, named for the
Revolutionary hero, General Thomas Sumter, the “Game Cock,” was built
upon a shoal, the Secretary of War approving the plans in December,
1828. It is about a mile southwest of Fort Moultrie, Sullivan’s Island,
and the same distance northeast of Fort Johnson, James Island. It was
nearing completion when on the night of December 26, 1860, Major Robert
Anderson removed the Union garrison of Fort Moultrie to it. On the
twelfth and thirteenth of April, 1861, it was bombarded by the
Confederates for about thirty hours, Major Anderson surrendering. He
evacuated the following day, embarking his men for the north. The
Confederates at once put the fortress in order for defense. There had
been no casualties on either side. Lieutenant Colonel R. S. Ripley was
the first Confederate commander of Fort Sumter and Major Thomas A.
Huguenin the last, the Confederate occupation extending from April 14,
1861, to February 17, 1865. Fort Sumter nowadays is without a garrison.
It is part of the defenses of Charleston. A military caretaker lives
within the battle-scarred walls. Modern coast defense guns are mounted.
As a grim sentinel, Sumter still faces the open seas.
SITE OF FIRST THEATER, _43 Queen Street_: Plays were performed in
Charles Town in 1703, according to Sonneck. However, the first regular
theater was the Play House in Dock (now Queen) Street. Here in the
winter of 1735, a company, “direct from England,” presented its
repertory. Members of Solomon’s Lodge of the Ancient Free Masons, the
oldest Masonic lodge in the United States, attended, in a body, the
performance of “The Recruiting Officer” May 28, 1737. The Federal
government has reproduced this theater; it was reopened officially
November 26, 1937.
ST. PHILIP’S CHURCH, _144 Church Street_: St. Philip’s is the oldest
Protestant Episcopal congregation south of Virginia. The first edifice
was built on the site now occupied by St. Michael’s (southeast corner of
Meeting and Broad Streets). The second and third were built at the
present site. The first St. Philip’s was erected in 1681-82. It was of
wood, but little is known of it. Early maps designate it as the English
Church. The second St. Philip’s was opened for divine worship Easter
Sunday, 1723. It faced the west and its steeple was eighty feet high.
John Wesley, founder of Methodism, preached in this church two hundred
years ago. The first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina
was the Right Reverend Robert Smith, rector of St. Philip’s. This
edifice was known far and wide for its great beauty. It was burned
February 15, 1835. The third St. Philip’s was used for service May 3,
1838. Its chimes, cast into Confederate cannon, have never been
replaced. During twenty-two years an important mariners’ light glowed in
the steeple, the other light of this range having been on historic Fort
Sumter. The light above St. Philip’s was discontinued when the main
channel was changed about twenty years ago. St. Philip’s is known as the
Westminster of the South as so many distinguished men of early years are
in its graveyards, including Edward Rutledge, Signer of the _Declaration
of Independence_; John C. Calhoun, often appraised South Carolina’s
greatest statesman; William Rhett, captor of Stede Bonnet and his
associate pirates. During the War for Southern Independence Calhoun’s
body was removed for safekeeping, but it was later reinterred. The story
of St. Philip’s is coeval with the story of Charleston on this
peninsula. Its communion plate is of uncommon interest and value,
including pieces presented by William Rhett and a paten of unquestioned
antiquity. The present edifice faces the east. The curve in Church
Street passes through the site of the body of the edifice that was
burned in 1835. President George Washington attended services in the
second St. Philip’s May 8, 1791, and President James Monroe May 2, 1819.
The present St. Philip’s is accounted one of the beautiful churches of
America.
[Illustration: _St. Philip’s Episcopal Church_]
CRADLE OF PRESBYTERIANISM, _138 Meeting Street_: The congregation of the
Circular Church dates to 1681. The small wooden building in the erection
of which Landgrave Joseph Blake was influential was known as the White
Meeting House and was replaced in 1804 by a brick edifice circular in
form, that was burned in 1861. It was this church that gave name to
Meeting Street. From this congregation sprang two other congregations,
the First (Scotch) Presbyterian and the Unitarian. Some of the earliest
graves in Charles Town are in the Circular Churchyard. David Ramsay,
physician, statesman and historian, is buried in it. Some of the early
Huguenots (French Protestants) are also buried in it. The chapel in the
rear of the yard was built after the fire of 1861. The present edifice
is without a great portico over the street.
HUGUENOT CHURCH, _136 Church Street_: The only Huguenot Church in
America! This is the proud and unique distinction of the French
Protestant Church in Charleston. Its congregation holds to the old
Huguenot litany. It dates to 1681. The first recognized and regular
pastor of the French Church was the Reverend Elias Prioleau, who came
with the “great Huguenot immigration” about 1687; he died in 1699.
Alluding to the Huguenots of Charles Town Bancroft said: “Their Church
was in Charles Town and thither every Lord’s Day, gathering from their
plantations upon the banks of the Cooper, and taking advantage of the
ebb and flow of the tide, they might all regularly be seen, the parents
with their children, whom no bigot could now wrest from them, making
their way in light skiffs through scenes so tranquil, that silence was
broken only by the rippling of oars and the hum of the flourishing
village at the confluence of the rivers.” The first Huguenot Church was
burned in 1740. The second church was also burned, in 1797. It was at
once rebuilt and in 1845 it was remodeled to the form it now presents.
“The church edifice is of great architectural beauty, being of pure
Gothic, and its walls are adorned with mural tablets, commemorating the
names and memories of the first Huguenot emigrants to Carolina.” It is
the boast of this congregation that it has had a church on the same site
for more years than has any other Charleston congregation. For more than
one hundred and fifty years the services were in the French language.
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, _61 Church Street_: When Charles Town on the
peninsula was about three years old the first congregation of Baptists
was formed. Some of these Baptists came from New England, with the
Reverend William Screven, their pastor, and others came from England.
Old records show that for several years the Baptists worshipped in the
home of Mrs. William Chapman. Lady Blake, and her mother, Lady Axtell,
were both Baptists and members of this congregation; their official rank
lent strength to the church. William Elliott, a member, gave the site of
the First Baptist Church in 1699. A wooden building was erected. The
present building was on the site before 1826 and of it Mills says it
showed “the best specimen of correct taste in architecture of the modern
buildings in the city.” There are many old graves in its yard.
SCOTCH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, _53 Meeting Street_: Sprung from the White
Meeting House, the First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church dates to 1731. The
Reverend Hugh Stewart, a native Scot, was its first pastor. The present
edifice was dedicated in 1814. It was severely damaged in the earthquake
of August 31, 1886, but fully restored. It has one of the finest
auditoriums in the country. When the Marquis of Lorne (later the Duke of
Argyle) and his wife, the Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria,
were in Charleston in January, 1883, they visited the Scotch Church to
inspect a memorial tablet to their cousin, Lady Anne Murray. The Duke of
Sutherland also made a trip to Charleston expressly to see it. May 2,
1819, President James Monroe attended service in the Scotch Church,
hearing a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Reid, the pastor. This church
celebrated its bicentennial in March, 1931. During 100 years it has had
three pastors—the Reverend John Forrest, D.D., forty-seven years, the
Reverend W. Taliaferro Thompson, D.D., twenty years and the Reverend
Alexander Sprunt, D.D., thirty-three years. Prominent Charlestonians
sleep the sleep eternal in its yard.
TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH, _273 Meeting Street_: As its congregation
springs from the old Cumberland Church, the first Methodist group in
Charleston (1786), Trinity may be called Charleston’s oldest Methodist
congregation, but the building it now occupies was recently acquired
from the Westminster Presbyterian Church (which combined the abandoned
Third Presbyterian in Archdale Street and the Glebe Street Presbyterian
Church). Through years Trinity Church was at 57 Hasell Street. Here the
first church was erected before 1813. For a short time the church was
used by an Episcopal congregation. The story goes that some of the
congregation were not agreeable to occupancy by Episcopalians and sought
legal counsel. They were informed that possession was “nine points in
the law.” So, after an Episcopalian service, the Methodist brothers and
sisters, when the congregation was dismissed, locked the doors from the
inside, fastened the windows and mounted guard within the edifice, women
assisting, until the case was returned in their favor. During this
peaceful siege, a lad was born in the building; he years later became a
bishop of the church. The Methodist church was planted in Charleston
when Bishop Asbury and his associates came here in 1785. The first
church building was erected in Cumberland Street in 1787, and within it
the first Methodist Conference in South Carolina was held the same year.
This building was destroyed in the fire of 1861. John and Charles Wesley
had visited Charlestown in 1736. John Wesley preached in St. Philip’s
Episcopal Church in 1737. The Wesleys came with General James
Oglethorpe’s Georgia colonists. Charles Wesley was the general’s
secretary and John Wesley was to be a missionary among the Indians.
ST. JOHN’S LUTHERAN CHURCH, _10 Archdale Street_: The Lutheran
congregation of St. John’s was organized in 1757 with the Reverend John
George Fredichs as pastor. Lacking a building of their own the Lutherans
used the French Huguenot Church. June 24, 1764, the first St. John’s was
dedicated. The present brick building was dedicated January 18, 1818,
the Reverend Dr. John Bachman, friend and associate of J. J. Audubon,
the celebrated naturalist, being the pastor. This congregation was
influential in the organization of Newberry College and the Lutheran
Theological Seminary in South Carolina. Prominent persons of German
origin or descent are buried in the yard. But the Lutheran story goes
back to March, 1734. In his _Sketch of St. John’s_, the Reverend E. T.
Horn says: “In March, 1734, while the ship containing the exiled
Salzburgers lay off the harbor of Charleston, Governor Oglethorpe
brought their Commissary, the Baron von Reck, and their pastor, the
Reverend John Martin Bolzius, with him to the city. Here they found a
few Germans, firm in their attachment to the Lutheran faith, and
hungering and thirsting for the Holy Supper. In May, therefore, Bolzius
was glad to accompany von Reck as far as Charleston, that he might
minister to this little company, and on Sunday, May 26th, 1754, at five
o’clock in the morning, most probably in the inn where Bolzius was
stopping, he administered the Holy Communion to those whom on the day
before he had examined and absolved according to the usages of the
Lutheran Church.”
[Illustration: _William Rhett House, 58 Hasell Street_]
[Illustration: _The Izard Houses; Nearer, Home of Bishop of
Charleston; Other is the Older—110 and 114 Brand Street_]
UNITARIAN CHURCH, _6 Archdale Street_: Just before the American
Revolution, the Circular Church on Meeting Street, cradle of
Presbyterianism in Charles Town, found it necessary to use an additional
building. Thus another church with another pastor was established in
Archdale Street. One of the pastors espoused Unitarianism and by
amicable agreement the part of the congregation following his teachings
took over the Archdale Street church. While the British occupied
Charlestown during the Revolution, they stabled horses in this edifice.
The present church building was dedicated in April of 1854, and is much
praised for its architecture. The ceiling of the nave is peculiarly
attractive. The pastor of this Unitarian congregation, the only one in
Charleston, was the Reverend Samuel Gilman, author of the famous college
song, “Fair Harvard,” and in his memory Harvard alumni arranged the
Samuel Gilman Memorial Room in the church tower; the ceremony was
performed April 16, 1916.
ST. MARY’S CATHOLIC CHURCH, _79 Hasell Street_: Mother parish of the
Roman Catholic Church in North and South Carolina and Georgia, St.
Mary’s congregation was organized in 1794, and in 1798 bought a frame
building from a Protestant congregation. In 1836 this was burned and on
the site the present fine brick edifice was erected being completed in
1838. In the late 1890’s the interior was improved. Memorial
stained-glass windows were emplaced. Of its interesting graveyard Bishop
John M. England who came to Charleston in 1820 (finding two Catholic
churches occupied and two priests doing duty) wrote: “The cemetery of
this church which is now in the center of the city affords in the
inscriptions of its monuments the evidence of the Catholicity of those
whose ashes it contains. You may find the American and the European side
by side.... The family of the Count de Grasse, who commanded the fleets
of France near the Commodore of the United States and his partner, sleep
in the hope of being resuscitated by the same trumpet.” According to
David Ramsay, “prior to the American Revolution in 1776, there were very
few Roman Catholics in Charleston, and these had no ministry, but of all
other countries none has furnished the Province with so many inhabitants
as Ireland.” About 1786 a vessel bound for South America, having an
Italian priest aboard, put into Charleston. This priest celebrated mass
for a congregation of about twelve persons. It was “the first Mass
celebrated in Charleston and may be regarded as the introduction of the
Catholic religion to the States of North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia which afterward constituted the See of Charleston.” The history
of St. Mary’s is coeval with the history of the Roman Catholic religion
in the Southeast, excluding the Florida possessions of the Spanish.
ST. JAMES, GOOSE CREEK, _off the Coastal Highway_: The British Royal
Arms still stand in South Carolina! The British yoke was thrown off one
hundred and sixty years ago, but in St. James Church, Goose Creek,
sixteen miles from the city hall of Charleston the Royal Arms have never
come down! The ancient edifice stands in a tranquil woodland, quite near
The Oaks, home of Arthur Middleton in early years. At the foot of the
altar is a tomb with this inscription: “Here lyeth the body of the
Reverend Francis Le Jau, Doctor in Divinity, of Trinity College, Dublin,
who came to this Province October, 1706, and was one of the first
missionaries sent by the honourable society to this Province, and was
the first Rector of St. James, Goose Creek, Obijt. 15th September, 1717,
ætat 52, to whose memory this stone is fixed by his only Son, Francis Le
Jau.” In the records left by Dr. Le Jau is mentioned that he christened
Indians. Four acres for the old parsonage were the gift of Arthur
Middleton, and another pioneer gave the Glebe of one hundred acres. The
cherubs in stucco over each of the keystones are famous and so is the
pelican feeding her young, over the west door. Interesting memorial
tablets have places. In the present day this picturesque and historic
church is easily reached by automobile. Each year at Easter divine
services are held in the church, the congregation invariably overflowing
the building. The original church was built soon after Dr. Le Jau’s
arrival.
ST. ANDREW’S, BERKELEY, _on the Ashley River Road_: The parish of St.
Andrew’s, Berkeley (the district about Charles Town was Berkeley in
olden times), was founded in 1706 and a simple brick building erected.
Seventeen years later this was enlarged, taking the form of a cross. The
gallery was intended for non-pewholders and was later set aside for
negroes. Destroyed by fire it was rebuilt in 1764 and is one of the few
rural churches that has survived the Revolution and the War for Southern
Independence. St. Andrew’s was one of ten parishes authorized by act of
the Assembly in 1706 regulating religious worship in accordance with the
forms of the Church of England. In quite recent years a question
relative to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London was raised! St.
Andrew’s had its genesis when the colony had a population of 9,000, “of
whom 5,000 were Negro and Indian slaves.”
ASHLEY RIVER ROAD, _Leading to Famous Gardens_: St. Andrew’s Church is
but one of many interesting and historic places on the Ashley River
Road. Two miles from the Ashley River Bridge the road passes near the
site of the original Charles Town in South Carolina and three miles
farther is the Ashley Hall plantation of the Bull family, distinguished
in provincial and colonial periods. It was on the Bull place that
Attakullakulla, a chief of the Cherokee Indians, signed a treaty of
peace in the 1760’s after his tribe had been severely humbled by the
whites. Just across the highway were the lovely Magwood Gardens, now the
property of a granddaughter of President Abraham Lincoln. Here the
highway passes through a grove of majestic live oaks festooned with
Spanish moss. Seven miles from the bridge one passes St. Andrew’s Church
and a short distance farther through old Fort Bull, the moat about which
has been filled. Next, on the right, is the entrance to Drayton Hall,
then Magnolia Gardens, Runnymede, home of John Julius Pringle, Speaker
of the House of the Assembly in 1787, and later the property of Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney, of the famous Pinckney family; Middleton Place
(gardens) where is buried Arthur Middleton, Signer of the _Declaration
of Independence_; the seat of the old Wragg barony; the Ashley River is
crossed at Bacon’s Bridge near which stands an ancient oak beneath the
spreading boughs of which General Francis Marion is alleged to have
entertained a British officer (it is a pretty legend, but its site is
severally located). Half a mile beyond the bridge is the road leading
down to the ruins of old Dorchester, established in 1696 by colonists
from Dorchester, Massachusetts, led by the Reverend Joseph Lord. In this
year ruins of fort and churches are mute reminders of a brave village in
a primeval wilderness infested with savage Indians. From Bacon’s Bridge
the distance to Summerville is five miles. It is a drive every visitor
to this section should follow. In the season, the Middleton Place and
Magnolia Gardens are open to visitors.
[Illustration: _Foreground, Unitarian Church; Background, St. John’s
Lutheran Church_]
[Illustration: _Huguenot Church. Only One in America_]
CASTLE PINCKNEY, _in Charleston Harbor_: Stand on the incomparable
Battery and look seaward. Fort Sumter is in plain view, of course, but
nearer the gaze is Castle Pinckney, holding the status nowadays of a
government monument. It is to be reached only by boat. The fort at the
edge of the sand bank known as Shute’s Folly was built after the
Revolution, in 1797-1804. Later, it was enlarged. In the War for
Southern Independence, it lacked opportunity to contribute materially to
the defense of Charleston. Really there is more legend than history
about Castle Pinckney, but long it has been a well-known landmark. The
government used it as a depot for aids for navigation until the depot
was established at the foot of Tradd Street, on the Ashley River, site
of the old Chisolm’s rice mill. An excuse for including it among
_Landmarks of Charleston_ is that many strangers promenading on the High
Battery wish to know what Castle Pinckney is.
ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH, _78 Meeting Street_: Five times have the bells of
St. Michael’s crossed the Atlantic ocean. They came from England in 1764
and returned there after the British evacuated the town in 1784.
Repurchased for Charleston, they came back to their steeple. During the
War for Southern Independence they were taken for safekeeping to
Columbia and in the burning of that town charged to General William
Tecumseh Sherman (who had been a social favorite in Charleston before
the war) they were so damaged that they were shipped to England. There
they were recast in the original molds. Brought back they are still in
the steeple, pealing on occasions. When Charles Town on the peninsula
was laid out, a lot was designed for the English church, St. Philip’s. A
wooden building was erected. This being outgrown a brick church was
built on Church Street, on the present site of St. Philip’s. By act of
the Assembly, June, 1751, Charlestown was divided into two parishes; the
lower, St. Michael’s, and the upper, St. Philip’s. February 17, 1752,
the corner stone was laid with much ceremony, the _South Carolina
Gazette_ carrying an account. The reputed successor of Sir Christopher
Wrenn was the architect and the edifice is declared to resemble St.
Martin’s-in-the-Field, London, near Trafalgar Square. From the pavement
to the ball of the steeple is 182 feet. During the War for Southern
Independence, the steeple, and that of St. Philip’s, offered shining
marks for the Union artillerists. Cannon balls struck the church, but
not with serious results. Heavy damage was done by the earthquake of
August 31, 1886. The old clock in the steeple, with four dials, began
the keeping of Charlestown time in 1764. President George Washington and
the Marquis de Lafayette have worshipped in St. Michael’s. In the taxed
tea excitement of 1774, the assistant rector of St. Michael’s preached a
sermon that aroused his congregation and he received his walking papers.
In the yard of this church are illustrious dead, including James Louis
Petigru, eminent South Carolina lawyer, an opponent of Nullification in
the 1830’s and of Secession in 1860; however, when his state had
seceded, Mr. Petigru cast his fortune with the Confederacy. The
incumbent Bishop of South Carolina, the Right Reverend Albert S. Thomas
was rector of St. Michael’s when he was elected to this high office.
CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, _122 Broad Street_: John Morica
England, first Bishop of Charleston, arrived in Charleston December 30,
1820, and the Cathedral of St. Finbar was dedicated by him a year later.
It was a plain frame structure. Thirty years it stood. Then it was razed
for the building of the St. John and St. Finbar Cathedral, burned in
1861; it was similar in design to the present Cathedral of St. John the
Baptist on the same site, the northeast corner of Broad and Legare
Streets. This handsome Gothic edifice of brown stone was begun late in
1888 by the Right Reverend Henry Pinckney Northrop, Bishop of
Charleston. April 14, 1907, it was consecrated, Cardinal Gibbons being
one of the celebrants. The site is that of the Vauxhall Gardens. Between
December, 1861, and the occupancy of the new cathedral, the congregation
worshipped in the pro-cathedral in Queen Street, built by the Right
Reverend Patrick Nielsen Lynch, then Bishop of Charleston. St. John the
Baptist’s is 200 feet long from the entrance to the rear of the vestry,
the nave being 150 feet long by eighty feet wide; from the floor to the
top of clerestory is sixty feet. The interior is beautifully decorated
and contains fine paintings and stained-glass windows. To the north of
the Cathedral is the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy. Graves of bishops are
under the cathedral. The edifice is one of Charleston’s cardinal show
places.
TRUMBULL’S WASHINGTON, _in Charleston City Hall_: One of the most famous
and valuable portraits of General George Washington hangs in the City
Hall, northeast corner of Meeting and Broad Streets. It was done by John
Trumbull on the order of the City Council in honor of President
Washington’s visit in 1791. It is reputed to be worth a million dollars!
Art connoisseurs have come long distances to inspect this great
portrait. Washington is shown full length, with his horse near him.
While this is Charleston’s most valuable painting, there are other fine
paintings in the Municipal Gallery, including President James Monroe,
commemorating his visit in 1819, by Samuel F. B. Morse (inventor of the
telegraph); the damage done by a Union shell in the 1860’s does not
show; President Andrew Jackson, in uniform after the Battle of New
Orleans, by Vanderlyn, student under the celebrated Gilbert Stuart;
General Zachary Taylor, with spyglass in hand in Mexico, by Beard; John
Caldwell Calhoun, eminent statesman, addressing the United States
senate, by Healy; General William Moultrie, defender of Fort Moultrie
against Sir Peter Parker’s British fleet in 1776, by Fraser; Marquis de
Lafayette, miniature, by Fraser, commemorating the Frenchman’s visit in
1825; General Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” in Revolutionary uniform,
by John Stolle (here the famous coonskin cap is replaced by a
brigadier’s hat, by order of William A. Courtenay, then Mayor); Queen
Anne, of England, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, a fragment of the original
cherished as a relic; Joel Roberts Poinsett, statesman, by Jarvis;
William Campbell Preston, statesman, by Jarvis; General and Governor
Wade Hampton, the hero of Reconstruction, by Prescott; General P. G. T.
Beauregard, Confederate Chieftain, by Carter; General Thomas A.
Huguenin, the last Confederate commander of Fort Sumter; statuary busts
of James Louis Petigru, Robert Young Hayne, Christopher Gustavus
Memminger, Robert Fulton, and others. An informing sketch of this
gallery by Joseph C. Barbot, Clerk of Council, is recommended. In
Colonial years the site of the City Hall was the town’s market place. On
it the United States Bank was housed about 1802 and this building became
the City Hall. It is related that the money for the purchase came from
the sale of the Exchange to the United States government. The interior
has been rearranged.
THE OLD EXCHANGE, _East End of Broad Street_: From the standpoint of
history, this building is incomparably the most interesting in South
Carolina and one of the most interesting in America, the Rev. William
Way, D.D., told the Rebecca Motte Chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, whose property it is by gift of the United States.
When Charles Town was laid out in 1680 this site was the Court of
Guards, the place of arms for the early colonists. Here were imprisoned
Stede Bonnet and other pirates in 1718 when South Carolina was putting
down piracy after its previous years of friendship and fraternizing. The
Exchange and Custom House was built in 1767 at a cost of 44,016 pounds.
Most of the material was brought from England in sailing vessels. The
date of completion was 1771. Taxed tea from England was stored in the
Exchange in 1774 and citizens prevented its sale. A second cargo,
arriving November 3, 1774, was dumped by merchants of Charlestown into
the Cooper River. In July, 1774, delegates to the Provincial Congress
gathered in this building and set up the first independent government
established in America; the congress also elected delegates to the
General Congress meeting in Philadelphia. Patriotic men and women of
Charlestown were incarcerated in the Exchange by the British during the
Revolution; it was from the Exchange that the martyr Colonel Isaac Hayne
was led to his execution in 1781. President George Washington was
entertained in the building, Charles Fraser writing in his
_Reminiscences_: “Amidst every recollection that I have of that most
imposing occasion, the most prominent is the person of that great man as
he stood upon the steps of the Exchange uncovered, amidst the
enthusiastic acclamation of the citizens.” Saturday, May 7, 1791,
General Washington was guest of honor at a “sumptuous entertainment”
given by the merchants of Charleston in the Exchange. During the War of
1812 patriotic meetings were held in the Exchange. In 1818 the city of
Charleston sold the Exchange to the United States government for the sum
of $60,000 and a week later the city government paid the sum of $60,000
for the building of the United States Bank, to be converted into the
City Hall. The following year President James Monroe was in the
Exchange. The federal government used the building for a customhouse and
post office, the customhouse transferring to its own building after the
War for Southern Independence and the post office to its present home in
1896. In the earthquake of 1886, the cupola designed by the artist
Fraser was so badly damaged that it was removed. For years the building
has been headquarters for the Sixth lighthouse district; these offices
continue in it although the government has presented the historic
building to the Daughters of the American Revolution in and of the State
of South Carolina as an historical memorial, to be occupied by the
Rebecca Motte Chapter; this was effective in March of 1913. When the
United States entered the World War the Exchange by unanimous vote of
the D.A.R. was tendered the Federal government which it used to the end
of the conflict. On the centennial of George Washington’s death a
handsome bronze tablet on the west side of the Exchange was unveiled.
There is no question that this ante-Revolutionary building is one of
Charleston’s greatest landmarks.
[Illustration: _First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church_]
[Illustration: _Bethel Methodist Church_]
SITE OF INSTITUTE HALL, _134 Meeting Street_: South Carolina declared
itself free and independent, seceding from the United States, December
20, 1860. This bold act was taken in the hall of the South Carolina
Institute. The _Ordinance of Secession_ had been adopted in the hall of
the St. Andrew’s Society, 118 Broad Street, but the delegates came to
the Institute Hall because of its greater capacity; the wish was to
accommodate as many as possible of the thousands who hoped to see the
ordinance signed. With the great hall crowded to suffocation, after all
the signatures had been affixed, President Jamison advanced to the front
of the rostrum and announced, that South Carolina was an independent
sovereignty, free of the United States. And the War for Southern
Independence was nascent. In this hall several months before had been
held the famous Democratic National Convention that adjourned without
decision with respect to candidates for President and Vice President. On
the site are published _The News and Courier_, one of the oldest daily
newspapers in the United States, founded in 1803, with its roots going
back to 1786, and the _Charleston Evening Post_. They carry on the
traditions of the South.
CONFEDERATE MUSEUM, _at the Head of the Market_: Valuable relics of the
Confederacy are preserved in their hall at the head of Market Street, at
Meeting Street, by the Charleston Chapter of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy. A gun on the porch was fashioned from Swedish wrought iron
from one of the first locomotives operated by the South Carolina
Railroad, the world’s oldest long-distance steam railroad. It was among
the first rifled cannon made in the United States. This piece was in
Columbia when General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union troops occupied
that town, and Union soldiers tried to burst the cannon, cracking it
near the muzzle. During riots in the period of Reconstruction the
Washington Light Infantry manned the gun. The Confederate Museum is in a
hall over the west end of the old City Market established between 1788
and 1804, extending from East Bay Street to Meeting Street. Through many
years all household marketing was done in the stalls. Into recent years
it was a common sight to see a gentleman doing the marketing, a negro
with a large basket following him from stall to stall. There survive
stalls in the Market, but the long low building is not congested as it
was in other years. The telephone has contributed much toward the
discontinuance of the good old Charleston custom of marketing in person.
MARION SQUARE, _King, Meeting and Calhoun Streets_: Named in honor of
General Francis Marion, hero of the Revolution, affectionately called
the “Swamp Fox,” this six-acre square in the very heart of Charleston
was from 1882 to 1921 the parade ground of The Citadel, the military
college of South Carolina, giving rise to the nickname, Citadel Green.
The Citadel is now at Hampton Park, on the Ashley River, but its main
building and four wings stand as reminders. In Lowndes Street, from
Calhoun to the Citadel sally port, is a statue of John Caldwell Calhoun,
eminent South Carolina statesman, atop a tall granite shaft. On the
Meeting Street side is a monument to General and Governor Wade Hampton,
savior of his State in Reconstruction, and on the west side a section of
“horn work,” part of the Revolutionary line of fortifications for the
defense of Charlestown against the invading British. It was just outside
the town, Boundary Street becoming Calhoun Street after the town limits
were extended to their present line in 1849. Before the purchase by the
now defunct Fourth Brigade, the square was solidly built. After the
evacuation of Charleston until 1882 the United States army was in
possession of the Citadel buildings. On the east side and on the west
side are fountains fed by a great artesian well near King and Calhoun
Streets, formerly in the waterworks system.
THE OLDEST DRUG STORE, _125 King Street_: America’s oldest drug store
business is in Charleston. It has had a career antedating 1781 as in
that year Dr. Andrew Turnbull bought the business and began the
dispensing of his own remedies. In 1792 Joseph Chouler was the
proprietor, in 1806 William Burgoyne, in 1816 Jacob De La Motta. The
mortar and pestle he displayed over his Apothecary’s Hall is still
extant, and in the store now used. Felix l’Herminier took over the
business in 1845 and soon afterward it was in the name of William G.
Trott who in 1870 sold it to C. F. Schwettmann. In 1894 the style was C.
F. Schwettmann & Son. This continues with John F. Huchting as
proprietor. In 1920 Mr. Huchting presented much of the old Apothecary’s
Hall to the Charleston Museum which has reset it and where it may be
seen. More than one hundred and fifty years for a drug business is a
worth-while record!
CHARLESTON LIGHTHOUSE, _on Morris Island_: During Colonial years the
only coastal light south of the Delaware capes was the Charleston
Lighthouse on Morris Island, built in 1767. The present tower was built
in 1876; it is of brick, 161 feet high. The earthquake of 1886 cracked
the tower and threw the lens out of adjustment. From the first
Charleston Light came a copper plate in the corner stone, reading: “The
first stone of this Beacon was laid on the 30th of May 1767 in the
seventh year of His Majesty’s reign, George the III,” and so on.
December 18, 1860, the first incident of the War for Southern
Independence affecting the lighthouse service occurred at the Charleston
Light. The Secretary of the Treasury was told by the Secretary of the
Lighthouse Board that he would not recommend that the coast of South
Carolina “be lighted by the Federal Government against her will.”
December 30, the lighthouse inspector reported that “the Governor of the
State of South Carolina has requested me to leave the State.” By the
latter part of April, 1861, the Confederates had extinguished this and
other lights; they were furnishing no aids to navigation for Union
mariners. Morris Island is at the left entrance to the harbor of
Charleston. From the eastern end of the Folly Beach, accessible by
automobile, a clear view of the Charleston Light may be had.
MIDDLETON PLACE, _Gardens on the Ashley River_: This was the seat of
Arthur Middleton, Signer of the _Declaration of Independence_. Henry
Middleton, of The Oaks, president of the Continental Congress, obtained
the land through his wife. Two English landscape gardeners were brought
oversea to fashion the show place, which was completed about 1740. The
fine Tudor house was put to the torch late in the War for Southern
Independence. Only the left wing stands, and in it the owner, J. J.
Pringle Smith, descendant of the Signer, lives. The old steps to the
main building are in place, and from them a commanding view of the broad
formal terraces and the winding Ashley River is had. The first japonicas
brought into this country were transplanted at Middleton Place about
1805 and one of the original plants was alive in 1939. Middleton Place
is famous not only for its gorgeous azalea show in spring, but for the
wide variety of plants. It has been praised with lavish enthusiasm by
distinguished visitors. Annually thousands of people travel many miles
to walk about these wonderful gardens, a living reminder of the beauty
wrought before the Revolution. The grave of the Signer is at Middleton
Place. The Gardens are on the Ashley River Road, about fourteen miles
from the Ashley River Bridge. If one would see gardens, terraces and
hedges substantially as they were in 1740; if one would see one of the
world’s most beautiful places, he should be sure of visiting Middleton
Place.
[Illustration: _Alluring Views of Magnolia-on-the-Ashley_]
[Illustration: Magnolia-on-the-Ashley]
MAGNOLIA GARDENS, _on the Ashley River_: Distinguished authors have
heaped glowing compliments on the enchantment that is
Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, “a sight unrivalled,” said a writer in the
_Chicago Tribune_. The fame of these gardens has gone wide and far.
Thomas P. Lesesne, of Charleston, was in the great Kew Gardens, London.
Coming to the azalea section he was surprised to find a sign declaring
to all who came that way that if one would see the azalea in the zenith
of its beauty, he should visit Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, near Charleston,
South Carolina, United States of America! In Kew! Think of that! John
Galsworthy, Owen Wister and other notables have shed superlatives in
describing the gardens. In this show place on the Ashley River, the
Reverend John Grimke Drayton planted the first _Azalea Indica_. They had
been imported from the East to Philadelphia in 1843, but, the
Pennsylvania climate being too rigorous for them, Mr. Drayton was
invited to see what he could do with them. And what he has done with
them brings thousands of people from distant places each spring when the
azaleas are in the full glory of their bloom! The gardens, about
twenty-five acres in extent, have what is declared to be the most
valuable collection of the Camellia Japonica; there are more than 250
varieties. They come into bloom in the winter, and the gardens are open
for their inspection. Carlisle Norwood Hastie, present owner of
Magnolia, is grandson of the Reverend Mr. Drayton, an Episcopalian
minister. Two hundred years the property has been in possession of the
Drayton family. During the Revolution the Colonial mansion was burned
and a second building was burned during the War for Southern
Independence. Mr. Hastie has purchased the old Tupper house in
Charleston (its site on Meeting Street) for rëerection at
Magnolia-on-Ashley. Moss-covered oak and cypress trees, bordering
mirroring lagoons, furnish a bewitching background for the gardens, with
the Ashley River in front.
ASHLEY RIVER BRIDGE, _on the Coastal Highway (17)_: Until the first of
July, 1921, the bridge over the Ashley River at the head of Spring
Street was privately owned. At that time the county of Charleston
acquired it by purchase and at once the toll was taken off. In the
spring of 1926, the present handsome and commodious concrete bridge was
formally opened. It is slightly down-stream from the rather ramshackle
wooden bridge. It cost a million and a quarter dollars. It is wide
enough for four vehicles abreast and on each side is a sidewalk for
pedestrians. Its huge bascule leaves provide plenty of clearance for the
greatest seagoing vessels. This bridge, a memorial to Charleston
soldiers who lost their lives in the World War, is an essential link in
the Coastal Highway between the provinces of eastern Canada and the keys
of Florida, thence by “ferry” to Havana, Cuba. It connects the city of
Charleston with all the trans-Ashley region. From the town it leads to
James Island (on which are the Country Club and the Municipal Links,
Riverland Terrace and Wappoo Hall) and the popular Folly Beach; by way
of James Island to the Stono River bridge which is near the famous
Fenwick Hall, a great estate in pre-Revolutionary years; it leads to
Walterboro, Beaufort, Port Royal (site of the earliest French colony)
and Savannah and Jacksonville; it leads to the Ashley River Road for St.
Andrew’s Church, Middleton Place, Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, Drayton Hall,
Runnymede, Wragg Barony and Bacon’s Bridge over the upper Ashley River.
In the War Between the States the old bridge was burned and after
Appomattox more than fifteen years elapsed before it was restored. Near
the Ashley River Bridge in St. Andrew’s Parish are sites of the earliest
English plantations. Quite near it Eliza Lucas, daughter of the Governor
of Antigua and mother of the Generals Charles Cotesworth and Thomas
Pinckney, carried forward her indigo experiments. David Ramsay says that
the indigo planters doubled their capital every three or four years.
COOPER RIVER BRIDGE, _on the Old King’s Highway_: Coming to Charleston
President George Washington, President James Monroe and the Marquis de
Lafayette traveled over the old King’s Highway. Washington was here in
1791, Monroe in 1819 and Lafayette in 1825. From the Mount Pleasant
shore to the City of Charleston they crossed by primitive ferry. To
August of 1929 ferries over the broad Cooper River were continued. In
that month the great bridge over the Cooper River was opened to traffic.
This is the world’s third highest vehicular bridge! Its span over Town
Creek affords vertical clearance of 132 feet, as much as that of the
famous Brooklyn Bridge, and the span over the Cooper River a vertical
clearance of 152 feet at mean high water. From the crest of this
engineering achievement are provided commanding views. In the distance
to the right is Fort Sumter, looking for all the world like a toy
fortress in a toy pool. From this coign of vantage one sees the many
bold and little creeks that flow into the Cooper. To the middle left one
sees the heavy woods of Christ Church Parish. Give the imagination rein
and appear ghosts of almost naked Indians, of early English, French,
Irish, Scotch; of bitter conflicts of man against man; of Sir Peter
Parker and his naval armada smiting the little palmetto fort with shot
and shell. At Charleston, over the Cooper River Bridge the old Kings
Highway makes junction with the Coastal Highway. It is the short route
from Charleston to Georgetown, Wilmington, Norfolk, crossing the lower
Santee and other bold coastal streams almost within sight of the sea.
There is every promise that the old King’s Highway, paved, will develop
into a paramount route between East and Southeast, an important
alternate to the Coastal Highway. No visitor to Charleston should forego
the opportunity of passing over the three-mile Cooper River Bridge. It
is a sensation well worth the trivial Journey.
THE CITADEL, _the Military College of South Carolina_: General Charles
Pelot Summerall is now a Charlestonian and proud of it. He would add
that his pride is the greater in that he is president of The Citadel,
the military college of South Carolina, an institution whose illustrious
record goes back to 1842, which furnished distinguished officers for the
Confederacy, in the Spanish and World Wars. As the Cadet Battalion went
into the Confederate service the college was closed in 1864. From the
evacuation of Charleston to The Citadel’s reopening in 1882, it was
occupied by Union soldiers. From its establishment in 1842 to the fall
of 1922, The Citadel was on Marion Square. Because it needed more room,
it went into new quarters at Hampton Park on the Ashley River where now
it is. It was a cadet battery that fired the first gun of the War for
Southern Independence; the Union ship _Star of the West_ was driven off
while attempting to bring supplies to the garrison besieged in Fort
Sumter. Year after year the War Department of the United States
designates The Citadel as a distinguished military college. Its academic
standards are high.
PORTER MILITARY ACADEMY, _Distinguished Military School_: “Through the
noble efforts” of the Reverend Anthony Toomer Porter, D.D., then Rector
of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, the Porter Military
Academy had its origin in 1867 as the Holy Communion Church Institute,
in its genesis “a classical school for the children of parents in
straitened circumstances,” due to the War for Southern Independence. In
Dr. Porter’s absence his board of trustees named the institution for
him. Among its distinguished alumni is General Charles Pelot Summerall,
former Chief of Staff of the United States Army and now President of The
Citadel. The Porter Military Academy occupies the grounds of the United
States Arsenal; it is bounded by Ashley Avenue and Bee, President and
Doughty Streets. It continues to earn a high place among Southern
educational institutions, its boarding cadets coming from many States.
It is a fully accredited preparatory school.
COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON, _Oldest Municipal College_: To claim the
distinction of being America’s oldest municipal college is a large
order, but the College of Charleston, on George Street between St.
Philip and College Streets, earns it by the record. The institution was
founded in 1770 and takes rank as fifteenth in the list of American
colleges. Its roll of graduates sounds like a list of South Carolina’s
illustrious: John C. Fremont, explorer and candidate for the presidency;
James B. DeBow, ante-bellum economist; Edward McCrady, historian; Bishop
William Wightman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Bishop Bowen, of
the Protestant Episcopal Church; William H. Trescott, diplomat; Paul
Hamilton Hayne, poet; Chancellor Henry Deas Lesesne; United States Judge
Henry A. M. Smith, historian and scholar; the Rev. J. L. Girardeau,
eminent Presbyterian minister. On its governing board have served such
distinguished men as James Louis Petigru, Robert Young Hayne, John
Julius Pringle, Daniel Elliott Huger, Langdon Cheves, Henry Middleton,
General William Washington, Joel Roberts Poinsett, Judge Mitchell King.
In 1837 the college was taken over by the Corporation of Charleston; it
is the oldest municipal college in America. Among the founders of the
College of Charleston were the ablest men in the Royal Province of South
Carolina, among them two Signers of the _Declaration of Independence_
(Arthur Middleton and Thomas Heyward, Jr.) and three Signers of the
_Constitution of the United States_ (Charles Pinckney, Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney and John Rutledge, “The Dictator”).
[Illustration: _St. Mary’s, 79 Hasell Street; Mother Parish of
Catholics in Carolinas and Georgia_]
ORIGINAL DEPARTMENT STORE, _King Street at Market_: “Ghosts rush out
every time I pass,” said a friend. He was growing sentimental about the
Academy of Music building, razed in 1937. In 1830 in this “whale of a
building,” for its time, was opened the world’s first department store.
With great stocks from all parts of the world the Kerrisons built up an
enormous business, their customers coming from as far as the Mississippi
River! It was a massive building of massive construction. Its masonry
was notable and it may be that its great heart cypress timbers were more
notable. To the coming of the War for Southern Independence, Charleston
being capital of a far-flung slave empire, business in the building
prospered. Kerrison’s of this time is descendant of the original
Kerrison’s; it is across and higher up King Street, one of the leading
department stores of the South. After Appomattox Charleston was without
a theater. The Charleston Theater had been destroyed in the fire of
1861. John Chadwick, a school master, acquired the building and
converted the rear portion into a theater, the Academy of Music, wherein
have appeared famous actors, actresses and singers, great bands and
orchestras. Georges Barrere, solo flautist and conductor of the Little
Symphony Orchestra and the Barrere Ensemble, after playing his flute on
the stage, remarked: “Here is a veritable ‘Strad.’ of a theater!”
Barrere was justly complimenting the remarkable acoustics of the
theater. It is well to bear in mind that Charleston had a great
department store before the first of the steam railroads began operation
in America! A century ago in a mezzanine gallery on the top floor were
displayed laces, embroideries and other fine goods from the world’s
finest makers. As a theater the Academy of Music was owned for some
years by John A. Owens, nationally known for his portrayal of Solon
Shingle. It may be permissible here to say that Joseph Jefferson used to
manage a theater in Charleston, that his mother was born in Charleston.
WASHINGTON SQUARE, _Called also City Hall Park_: In the northwest corner
of this park is the first fireproof building built in America, for which
salient reason Charleston knows it as The Fireproof Building. It was
erected about 1826. Robert Mills was the architect. It is used for
county offices and records. In the southwest corner is the City Hall
which is discussed elsewhere. On Broad, Meeting and Chalmers Streets are
handsome wrought-iron gates and wrought-iron railings of great grace. In
the center of the park is a shaft of granite to the three companies of
the Washington Light Infantry which served the Confederacy valiantly on
the battlefields of Virginia in the 60’s, and in the defense of
Charleston. Southward of this is a bust to the lilting Carolina poet,
Henry Timrod, and eastward a monument to General Pierre G. T.
Beauregard, for some time in the War for Southern Independence,
commanding officer at Charleston. New Orleans paid tribute to this
illustrious soldier long after Charleston had done so. Near the west
gate is the statue of William Pitt.
WILLIAM PITT STATUE, _in Washington Park_: “The gentleman (Benjamin
Franklin) tells us that America is obstinate, America is almost in open
rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has resisted! Three millions of
people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit
to be slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the
rest!” William Pitt was speaking in the House of Commons, London,
denouncing the iniquitous stamp tax. Charlestown heard of the Pitt
speech and Charlestown applauded. Charlestown ordered a statue of the
great statesman in recognition of his noble position. The statue was
received in Charlestown May 31, 1770, and was erected in the
intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets, the most prominent position
in the town at that time. During the Revolution a shell from a British
gun on James Island struck off the right arm, explaining its absence
into this day. Years afterward, interfering with traffic, it was removed
to the yard of the Charleston Orphan House and in 1881, through the
Carolina Art Association, placed where now it is in Washington Park.
LORD CAMPBELL’S HOUSE, _34 Meeting Street_: Last of the Royal Governors,
Lord William Campbell, precipitately left Charlestown September 16,
1775, taking refuge aboard H.M.S. _Tamar_. Lord Campbell by night went
through his garden to a boat in Vanderhorst Creek (Water Street
nowadays). He had come to Charlestown June 18, 1775, and was “received
civilly, but without enthusiasm.” Fleeing, he carried with him the Great
Seal of the Province. South Carolina was on the way to independence. The
house was built about 1760 and was owned by Mrs. Blake, first cousin to
Sarah Izard who married Lord Campbell. She belonged to one of the
richest and most influential families in the Province. After the
Revolution, about 1795, Colonel Lewis Morris, a Revolutionary officer,
acquired the property. Colonel Francis Kinloch Huger, who had part in
the frustrated plot to liberate the Marquis de Lafayette from the
Austrian prison of Olmutz, was wounded on the steps of this house; a
section of the bull’s-eye in the roof fell and fractured his skull. In
the earthquake of 1886, a young Englishman was killed on the steps; a
piece of the parapet fell on him. The house has been in the Huger family
for years. The handsome piazzas on the south side were built for the
late William E. Huger, whose son, Daniel Elliott Huger, is the present
owner.
WILLIAM BULL’S HOUSE, _35 Meeting Street_: Across Meeting Street from
the Charlestown home of Lord William Campbell was the home of the first
Lieutenant Governor of the Royal Province of South Carolina, William
Bull, who is said to have erected it; he died in 1755. It was his son,
William Bull, then also Lieutenant Governor who was occupying it at the
outbreak of the Revolution. The office of Lieutenant Governor was
devised to safeguard against an interregnum between the naming of
Governors by the King of England.
MILES BREWTON HOUSE, _27 King Street_: History, romance, legend and
tradition crowd upon this famous mansion, built by Miles Brewton about
1765. Brewton and his family perished at sea and the property descended
to his sister, the famous Mrs. Rebecca Motte (whose name is perpetuated
in the Rebecca Motte Chapter of the Daughters of the American
Revolution). This gallant and patriotic lady was living in the house
when the British took possession of Charleston. Sir Henry Clinton
commandeered it as his headquarters, and Lord Rawdon did the same thing.
Lord Cornwallis was quartered in the house. Again, when the Union forces
occupied Charleston in the War for Southern Independence, the general
commanding set up his headquarters here. Later the house was the
residence of the Pringle family, hence it is commonly known nowadays as
the Pringle House. The visitor should observe the picturesque old coach
house adjoining and to the north. The old garden is behind high brick
walls, so typical of the old Charlestown. Her home in possession of the
invading British, Rebecca Brewton Motte, widow of Jacob Motte, retired
with his family to her plantation house in Orangeburg County on the
Congaree River. The British, seizing the residence, built a parapet
around it. Francis Marion and Henry Lee laid siege to it. Apprised that
British reinforcements were approaching, the officers considered the
burning of the fine property, but hesitated. Mrs. Motte, however,
overcame their scruples. Bringing out an African bow and arrows for it,
she deliberately sent flaming arrows to the roof which caught afire,
causing the British garrison to surrender with alacrity. After
independence Mrs. Motte undertook rice planting on scale and built up a
considerable property. Her two eldest daughters, in succession, were
wives of the great Thomas Pinckney.
[Illustration: _Cathedral of St. John the Baptist_]
[Illustration: _Trinity Methodist Church_]
WILLIAM GIBBES HOUSE, _64 South Battery Street_: William Gibbes came to
Charlestown direct from England and was active in behalf of the colonies
until the actual break with the Crown, when he fled to Bermuda, thence
going back to England. The handsome house was built before 1776; the
exact date is obscured. Gibbes was with others interested in reclaiming
marshy areas in that section. Five years after his death the records
show that Mrs. Sarah Smithe purchased the property, the consideration
being twenty-five hundred pounds. An elegant ballroom occupies the width
of the upper story. Within brick walls on three sides was, and is, a
beautiful garden. For years the property belonged to the Drayton family
and some years after the War for Southern Independence it was occupied
by James Petigru Lesesne, son of the Chancellor Henry Deas Lesesne and a
great-grandson of the Huguenot pastor, Jean Louis Gibert who came from
the Channel Islands leading a French colony into upper South Carolina.
It passed into the ownership of Colonel J. B. E. Sloan and in late years
is the property of Mrs. Washington A. Roebling, widow of the builder of
the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River, New York.
WILLIAM BLACKLOCK HOUSE, _18 Bull Street_: This fine mansion, built
about 1800, is considered one of the best examples of its type of
architecture. It is a two-story brick dwelling, with a double set of
steps leading to an entrance platform. The carriage gates are gracefully
ornate. There is the peculiarity that the gates are of wood, rather than
of the wrought-iron pieces that would be expected.
THE WASHINGTON HOUSE, _87 Church Street_: President George Washington,
visiting Charleston in May, 1791, was “domiciled” in the residence of
Thomas Heyward, Jr., one of the four South Carolina Signers of the
_Declaration of Independence_. Edward Rutledge, also a Signer of the
_Declaration_, was of the company that greeted the soldier-statesman
across the Cooper River and escorted him to town. A complete equipment
was organized by the City of Charleston for the President’s comfort. The
house has undergone changes. For some years a baker did business on the
ground floor. The property is now owned and maintained by the Society
for the Preservation of Old Dwellings. Down the street and on the
opposite side at No. 78, President Washington addressed citizens from
the balcony, which is a graceful reminder of the French influence in
Charleston.
MYTHICAL OLD SLAVE MARKET, _6 Chalmers Street_: Chalmers in this year is
fairly famous for two things: It is Charleston’s surviving
“cobble-stone” street, the stones coming in ballast from European shores
in the old sailing days, and on it is a building that tourists are told
was the old Slave Market. The myth has been exploded repeatedly, but it
persists, and since there are no black slaves it probably doesn’t
matter. Authorities are positive in saying that nowhere in Charleston
was there a constituted slave market for the public auctioning of blacks
from Africa. Several houses in this vicinity were used in olden times to
quarter slaves who were to be sold on the block. Authorities also agree,
propagandists to the contrary notwithstanding, that the black slaves in
the South were in better care than were the peasantry in any other part
of the world.
CHARLESTON LIBRARY, _164 King Street_: Organized in 1748 by seventeen
young gentlemen of Charlestown, third oldest in this country, the
Charleston Library Society, a private enterprise governed by a Board of
Trustees, moved into a new fireproof building in recent years. In 1835
the society bought the building of the old South Carolina Bank, at the
northwest corner of Broad and Church Streets, using this until the
transfer to King Street. The society has more than 60,000 volumes. It
owns the only surviving file of the _South Carolina State Gazette_ and
one of three files of _The Courier_ (1803). Valuable books were lost in
the fire of 1778. In the War for Southern Independence most of the
volumes were taken to Columbia for safekeeping; those left in the
society’s building were destroyed. In 1874 the old Apprentices’ Society
was merged with the Charleston Library Society. In 1900, dissolving, the
South Carolina Jockey Club transferred its property to the library; the
club and the society were about of an age. Generous bequests have
greatly assisted the society.
CHARLESTON MUSEUM, _123 Rutledge Avenue_: This, the oldest Museum in the
country, is housed in the former Thomson Auditorium, built in 1899 for
conventions, with money bequeathed by John Thomson. The Charlestown
Museum was organized in 1773 and incorporated in 1915. Very fine
collections of natural history and of the history of human culture are
owned. Lately the Museum had the great good fortune to come into
possession of the priceless collection of birds preserved by the
distinguished South Carolina ornithologist, Arthur Trezevant Wayne. A
skeleton of a large whale which found its way into Charleston harbor and
was harpooned is one of the Museum’s unique specimens, unique in that
the cetacean was caught in this harbor.
THE BATTERY, _White Point Gardens_: It is no use to call the Battery by
its proper name; even in Charleston, White Point Gardens is not
recognized as the Battery. Nonetheless the name of this famous and
beautiful park and promenade is White Point Gardens. Its sea walls are
laved on the south by the Ashley River and on the east by the Cooper
River; their confluence is at and off the southeast corner of the
Battery. This pleasure ground has been favorably compared with the
world’s most famous plazas and promenades. It is a source of
never-ending delight to visitors. East, or High Battery begins at the
old Granville Bastion, now Omar Temple of the Mystic Shrine. It is a
great promenade, with a commanding view of the harbor seaward, with Fort
Sumter in the middle-ground. South Battery, proper, is between the East
Battery and the extension of King Street to the water. Somewhat more
than eight acres constitute South Battery, which, to the westward,
becomes the Murray Boulevard, lined, as East and South Battery are, with
fine residences. In its origin East Battery had a wall of palmetto logs
with a plank walk on top. It was swept away in the great gale of 1804.
William Crafts, Jr., originated the first stone wall, with rock ballast
from incoming ships as “riprap” to strengthen the wall. The work was
completed before 1820. In the War of 1812 guns were emplaced along East
Battery, thus, it is held, accounting for its name, The Battery. Fort
Broughton and Fort Mechanic have long since disappeared. Fort Street
became South Bay Street and later South Battery for its whole length
from East Battery through the Boulevard area to the junction with Tradd
Street a mile away. It was in 1830 that the first steps toward creating
a beautiful pleasure ground were taken. By 1852 White Point Gardens was
an accomplished fact. Fine oak and palmetto trees enhance the
attractiveness of the Battery. Years ago a bathhouse was removed. The
monument to the defenders of Fort Moultrie, commonly called the Sergeant
Jasper monument because of the figure of a soldier rescuing the flag,
was unveiled June 28 (Carolina Day), 1876, the hundredth anniversary of
the repulse of Sir Peter Parker’s British fleet. The monument to William
Gilmore Simms, editor, author and historian, was erected in June, 1879.
At the foot of Meeting Street is a memorial fountain to the men of the
first submarine, Confederates. Facing Fort Sumter is a monument to the
defenders of Fort Sumter. On the Battery are relics of all the wars
Charleston has seen, the Spanish War being represented by the capstan of
the battleship _Maine_, destroyed in Havana harbor in 1898. To visit
Charleston and not to see the Battery is unthinkable. From time to time
concerts are given in the band stand. The late Andrew B. Murray
contributed generously to the improvement of the Battery and of the
driveway named in his honor.
[Illustration: _Trumbull’s Portrait of General George Washington, in
the City Hall_]
THE COLONIAL COMMON, _and Ashley River Embankment_: In Charleston
beautiful Colonial Lake is The Pond. It came into being in the 1880’s
with the reclaiming of the area. The official designation is The
Colonial Common and Ashley River Embankment. About this salt-water pond
are garden areas, and west of it is the new Moultrie Playground which
greatly improves the appearance of the neighborhood. Some of
Charleston’s most desirable residences face the pond. Off its northwest
corner is the Baker Sanatorium, one of the South’s largest and most
completely equipped private hospitals, founded by Archibald E. Baker,
surgeon. Less than fifty years ago there was a causeway at the head of
Broad Street; nowadays the whole area is populated. Colonial Lake is
bounded by Broad Street, Rutledge Avenue, Beaufain Street, and Ashley
Avenue, paramount traffic arteries. Its water is from the Ashley River,
regulated by a flood-gate.
MEDICAL COLLEGE, _16 Lucas Street_: While the Medical College of the
State of South Carolina dates from 1823, it did not move to the present
site until 1913. For years before that it was in Queen Street. The
college maintains schools of medicine, pharmacy and nursing. _The News
and Courier_ is quoted: “The early faculty included men of national and
international reputation, who gave the college a prestige which placed
it at once amongst the foremost institutions of the kind, and among its
graduates were not a few whose fame added further luster to their alma
mater.... The sessions of the college were carried on without
intermission until the outbreak of the War Between the States when
lectures had to be discontinued. In 1865 the college was reopened, and
in spite of adverse conditions has been in successful operation ever
since.” In the session of the Legislature in 1913 the college passed
under State control.
THE ROPER HOSPITAL, _15 Lucas Street_: On the site of the old City
Hospital is the Roper Hospital; riverward is its auxiliary pavilion, the
Riverside Infirmary, a high-class private hospital. The Roper is a
general hospital operated by the Medical Society of South Carolina, the
City of Charleston and the County of Charleston contributing to the care
of “free” patients. The institution includes a special building for
contagious diseases. The hospital owes its origin to the benevolence of
Colonel Thomas Roper. In 1849 the Medical Society proceeded to arrange
the building of a hospital, “prompted by the deficient and faulty
hospital accommodations of the city at that time.” The City Council
appropriated $20,000 and a lot was acquired at Queen and Mazyck Streets.
Public spirited citizens swelled the building fund. The building was
completed in 1852. Before it was completely furnished and equipped, it
had to be opened because of the yellow fever epidemic that raged in
1852. In effect, the old Roper Hospital was leased to the City of
Charleston, the arrangement between the Board of Trustees and the City
Council beginning in 1856 and terminating in 1865. With the evacuation
of Charleston by the Confederates, the Union invaders took it over; its
trustees were impotent. Next to the Roper, the city improvised and
operated its own hospital, and the Roper trustees closed their
institution in 1871. The city hospital was virtually destroyed in the
earthquake of 1886. The City Council had it transferred to Lucas Street.
On this site the present Roper building was erected. It has been greatly
enlarged in the last twenty years. Nurses’ homes are on the property,
the student nurses being enrolled at the Medical College.
ASHLEY HALL, _172 Rutledge Avenue_: Originally one of the historic
mansions of Charleston, Ashley Hall, a preparatory school for young
ladies, draws its students from many states. In the language of Miss
Mary Vardrine McBee, founder and principal: “It is but a little while
since Ashley Hall was a venturous experiment. Begun in the conviction
that South Carolina and her sister States were ready to welcome a school
for girls of high intellectual standing, while cherishing still those
amenities of feminine culture which give Southern life its distinctive
charm, Ashley Hall was welcomed in its very inception. It had hardly
been opened before the necessity of enlargement, alike of building and
staff, became apparent.” The grounds about this fine mansion are among
the most beautiful in the South. Annually a Shakespearean play is
performed in the garden, the students portraying the rôles.
PRINCESS LOUISE, _Site of the Landing Stage_: Princess Louise, daughter
of Queen Victoria, was in Charleston January 19-24, 1883, first member
of the English Royal family to come to the capital of the former Royal
Province. She was accompanied by her husband, the Marquis of Lorne, then
Governor General of Canada, later the Duke of Argyle. In residence at
the Charleston Hotel she received “pleasantly a number of our citizens,
both ladies and gentlemen.” For her convenience a landing stage was
provided at the foot of King Street, on the Battery (the Fort Sumter
Hotel is on this site). As the Princess was about to embark on H.M.S.
_Dido_, the Battery was “densely crowded with people, including a number
of ladies.” The German Artillery fired a salute and the _Dido_ answered.
“The pure splendor of the Japonicas,” said _The News and Courier_,
“reminded the Princess of the old home at Osborne, where so much of her
young life was spent.”
[Illustration: _City Hall_]
[Illustration: _College of Charleston_]
[Illustration: _The Old Exchange_]
H. A. MIDDLETON’S HOUSE, _68 South Battery Street_: Henry Augustus
Middleton, of the illustrious Middleton family, died in Charleston in
March, 1887, in his ninety-fifth year. He was at the time of his death,
_The News and Courier_ said, “the oldest living representative of a
family which for more than two centuries has been closely and
prominently identified with the history of South Carolina.... He was a
school boy when Marengo was being fought and was a young man whose
education was finished when the great Napoleon closed his career at
Waterloo.” The same newspaper further said that Mr. Middleton “was a
conspicuous representative of a society and class which are fast passing
into tradition.” He was owner and operator of many great plantations,
and before the War for Southern Independence among the leading owners of
slaves. He married Harriott, daughter of Cleland Kinloch, of Wee Haw, in
Georgetown County. The fine old property is now owned by Dr. W. J.
Pettus. Through Mr. Middleton’s life and for twenty-five years
thereafter the sea wall on the west side of the yard was washed by the
Ashley River at high tide. The marsh expanse to the west is in the
Boulevard area.
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER INFIRMARY, _264 Calhoun Street_: The principal
building of the St. Francis Xavier Infirmary was built in the bishopric
of the Right Reverend William Thomas Russell, of the Roman Catholic
Diocese of Charleston, but the wing on Ashley Avenue is much older.
Sisters of Mercy have supervision over the Xavier in all its
departments, including the school for nurses. The hospital enjoys high
rating by the national hospital authorities. The building is commodious,
convenient and fireproof.
LIBERTY TREE SITE, _22 North Alexander Street_: The Liberty Tree in old
Mazyckboro under which Christopher Gadsden, William Johnson and others
impatient with English treatment of the colonies met and debated has
gone, but a tablet marks the site. The inscription reads: “Near this
spot once stood the Liberty Tree where Colonial independence was first
advocated by Christopher Gadsden, A.D. 1766, and where ten years later
the _Declaration of Independence_ was first heard and applauded by South
Carolinians.” This tablet was erected by the Sons of the Revolution in
1905. It was under the tree in a pasture that patriots nurtured high
treason against the English Crown.
WILLIAM WASHINGTON HOUSE, _8 South Battery Street_: Here lived Colonel
William Washington, a Virginian, who achieved distinction in the
Revolution, mainly in South Carolina. The fine old house was built by
Thomas Savage about 1769 and was purchased by Colonel Washington after
independence had been recognized. His fiancée, member of a proud South
Carolina family, presented him with a flag when she learned he had none.
It was a piece taken from a handsome drapery of red silk and became
known as the Eutaw flag, for the Battle of Eutaw Springs. In 1827 Mrs.
Washington, his widow, gave this battle-stained banner to the Washington
Light Infantry which now owns it. Latterly the property has been owned
by Julian Mitchell, outstanding lawyer, president of the South Carolina
National Bank.
HAMPTON PARK, _Head of Cleveland Street_: Notwithstanding its
comparative youth Hampton Park, named for General Wade Hampton, is a
distinguished pleasure ground, its gardens developed to a high state of
loveliness. Some time after the South Carolina, Inter-State and West
Indian Exposition (1901-02) the city took over the property and
developed it into a modern park. Its sunken garden, with ducks and geese
and swans playing in the water, is appealing, and about it on all sides
are flower beds, profusely beautiful in their seasons. Large canebreaks
are growing near the sunken garden. An attractive driveway goes about
the property, but vehicles are not permitted within the garden area. A
section of the tract, bordering the Ashley River, was ceded to The
Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, after the World War. A
stroll through Hampton Park’s flowers in spring and summer is thoroughly
worth while. Features include a zoo and an aviary.
COUNTY COURT HOUSE, _Broad and Meeting Streets_: In years when
Charleston was Charles Town, when Indians were roaming these coastal
woods, the State House stood at the northwest corner of Broad and
Meeting Streets. It was burned in 1788, after Columbia, on the Congaree,
had become the capital of the State. Not long after the fire the county
built its court house here. The building was renovated and enlarged
several years ago, the court room being in the annex. Records running
back to the Proprietary era are in the offices of the Clerk of Court. A
legend persists that the Court House is the old State House, but it is a
mistaken legend, for it was burned in 1788. From its entrance Governor
John Rutledge first read the _Declaration of Independence_.
UNITED STATES POST OFFICE, _Broad and Meeting Streets_: Since 1896 the
United States post office has been in the granite building at the
southwest corner of Broad and Meeting Streets, on the site of the old
(police) Guard House which suffered heavy damage in the earthquake of
1886. Southward of the building is an attractive park which is not open
to the public. The United States court and its officials and attachés
have quarters in the building. Previously the post office was in the old
Exchange, at the foot of Broad Street. On the four corners of Broad and
Meeting Streets are: Southwest, post office; southeast, St. Michael’s
Episcopal Church, on the site of the first English church; northeast,
City Hall, the building erected for the United States Bank; on the site
of an early market place; northwest, County Court House, on the site of
the old State House. (Consult the Index.)
UNITED STATES CUSTOMS HOUSE, _East Bay Street, at Market_: Work on this,
one of the handsomest government buildings, was begun in 1850 and was
proceeding when the War for Southern Independence interrupted. After
Appomattox it was completed, but it is much smaller than the original
plans prescribed, explaining the fine esplanade effect in front. It is a
Roman-Corinthian building of white marble, and its steps, both front and
back, have elicited warm admiration from appreciative visitors. Piles,
grillage and concrete were used in the foundations. The building houses
the customs service, the army engineer offices, the weather bureau, the
public health surgeon, the immigration service, the internal revenue
offices and the bureau of steamboat inspection. In the basement from
time to time are stored quantities of “contraband” confiscated by the
Coast Guard and other federal prohibition agents. Prior to 1850 the old
Fitzsimmons wharf was on the site of the Customs House quay.
[Illustration: _Middleton Place
Surviving Wing Tudor House_]
[Illustration: _Middleton Place
Lovely Vista in the Gardens_]
SOUTH CAROLINA HALL, _72 Meeting Street_: This is the property of the
South Carolina Society, built in 1804 as a free school and meeting
place, but the society dates to 1736 when it was formed by French
Protestants for charitable purposes. In the beginning it was known as
the Two-Bit Club. Through years it has done noble work in assisting the
families of deceased members and in educating their children. The porch
over Meeting Street is notably attractive; it was added when the
building was improved and enlarged. Members have made liberal donations
to this society, as mural tablets in the hall attest. The St. Andrew’s
Society, organized by Scots in 1729, is quartered in this building,
accounting for the presence of tables and chairs used in the Secession
convention in St. Andrew’s Hall, Broad Street, burned in the fire of
1861.
THE SWORD GATES, _32 Legare Street_: Years and years ago, a famous
school for girls was on this property under the principalship of Madame
Talvande, survivor of the Domingo massacres. It is one of the most
desirable residential properties in Charleston. It was built in 1776.
Through the Sword Gates (1815-20), uncommonly fine examples of ornate
and graceful iron work, one peeps into a beckoning garden, protected by
high brick walls. The ballroom in the house is known as one of the most
elegant in Charleston. There are really two houses, the older, of brick,
on the north; the wooden building has broad piazzas on two sides,
overlooking the large garden to the south and west. For years, after the
Confederate War, Colonel Charles H. Simonton, United States Circuit
Judge, distinguished Confederate officer, and his family lived here. Now
it is the property of a granddaughter of President Abraham Lincoln, who
owns also the old Magwood Gardens in St. Andrew’s Parish on the Ashley
River Road. Kinspeople of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln have long been resident
in the Barnwell section of this State.
BETH ELOHIM SYNAGOGUE, _74 Hasell Street_: Charleston has had a Jewish
congregation since 1750. The tabernacle of Beth Elohim was dedicated in
March, 1843, and was among the first synagogues in which an organ was
installed. To this congregation is attributed the Jewish Reform movement
in the United States, which had its beginning in 1824. The Beth Elohim
congregation had a tabernacle on this site just after the Revolution; it
was destroyed in the fire of 1838. The incorporation of the congregation
dates to 1781. The present tabernacle is a fine example of the Athenian
style in architecture. Certain changes in the interior were made about
1880.
YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, _26 George Street_: While this
handsome and commodious building was completed in 1912, the association
in Charleston was organized in 1854 and is one of the oldest. Its
beginning was less than ten years after the Young Men’s Christian
Association was founded in London, England, June 6, 1844; the Charleston
date was February, 1854. The Charleston association moved into its own
building at 208 King Street in 1889 and there remained until it occupied
the present building at 26 George Street. Clarence Olney Getty has been
general secretary since 1917.
YOUNG WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, _76 Society Street_: This
Charleston branch of a great association had its beginning in 1903. Its
first quarters were in an old residence at 21 George Street, the modern
building coming with the growth of membership and the increase of
community calls.
GRACE CHURCH, _100 Wentworth Street_: Its congregation founded in 1840,
its corner stone laid in July, 1847, Grace Episcopal Church was
consecrated November 9, 1848. The Reverend Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
D.D., was its rector from 1850 to his death in 1898, nearly a half
century. The Reverend William Way, D.D., has been rector more than a
quarter of a century. Grace has one of the largest and most prosperous
Episcopalian congregations in the South.
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, _126 Coming Street_: This is frequently called St.
Paul’s, Radcliffeboro, as its site was outside the town when the edifice
was consecrated in March, 1816; the congregation was founded in 1811.
Its first rector was the Reverend Dr. Percy, an Englishman, who in 1772
took charge of the Bethesda school near Savannah, established by George
Whitefield. St. Paul’s is a handsome building with Gothic tower and an
impressive portico, with four Doric columns.
ST. PETER’S P.E. CHURCH, _Rutledge and Sumter Streets_: On this site of
Christ Church is St. Peter’s, so named from the old church at No. 8
Logan Street. Through arrangement of the two vestries, the new St.
Peter’s came into the old St. Peter’s properties. The Logan Street
church was burned in the fire of 1861. Its graveyard is maintained.
Possibly it was on this site that Hessian soldiers were drilled during
the Revolution, as Charles Fraser says they went through their military
exercises in Logan Street.
CONVENT OF OUR LADY OF MERCY, _Legare and Queen Streets_: This large
brick building is of quite recent construction, but the Sisters of Mercy
have been in Charleston more than a hundred years. Misses Mary Joseph
and Honora O’Gorman, their niece, Mary Teresa Barry, fourteen years and
six months old, and Miss Mary Burke arrived in Charleston November 23,
1829, coming on the invitation of Bishop John M. England. The Misses
O’Gorman were natives of Cork, living in Baltimore, Maryland. December
10 they accepted the habit of religion, with Sister Mary Joseph as
superioress of the new Community. In a small house on Friend (now
Legare) Street the Sisters established the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy
in December, 1830. Two years later the Bishop established a seminary and
appointed Sister Mary Martha (Miss Honora O’Gorman) to its supervision.
The Orphanage, Queen and Logan Streets, was established in 1840, under
the care of the Sisters. The St. Francis Xavier Infirmary, Ashley Avenue
and Calhoun Street, dates to 1882; it began in the McHugh residence,
Magazine Street. In 1870 the Sisters acquired the old Nathaniel Russell
house, 51 Meeting Street, relinquishing it on the completion of the new
Convent. From the Charleston Community of Sisters of Mercy have gone
other communities into both Carolinas and Georgia. Nor yellow fever nor
war nor earthquake has swerved these consecrated women. They were angels
of mercy in the yellow fever epidemics of 1835 and 1852. They nursed
friend and foe alike in the War for Southern Independence.
Notwithstanding the alarm and excitement in the time of the earthquake
(1886) they ministered calmly, sweetly, efficiently to the sick and the
injured.
[Illustration: _Miles Brewton House, 27 King Street_]
[Illustration: _“Sword Gates,” 32 Legare Street_]
[Illustration: _Gateway, Home of Herbert Ravenel Sass, Author, 23
Legare Street_]
BISHOP ENGLAND HIGH SCHOOL, _203 Calhoun Street_: Long have the
Catholics of Charleston had their parochial schools and the Academy of
Our Lady of Mercy for girls. In 1914, in the pro-Cathedral, next to the
Convent, Bishop Northrop established the Bishop England High School.
Outgrowing these accommodations, it was transferred to the former home
of the Cenacle Nuns in Calhoun Street, and on this site later the
present large building was erected. Under the principalship of the
Reverend Joseph L. O’Brien, the school has acquired a shining progress.
BIRTHPLACE OF MASONRY, _Broad and Church Streets_: Charleston has the
oldest lodge of Ancient Free Masons in this country. Chartered by the
Grand Lodge in England in 1735, Solomon’s Lodge, No. 1, was organized in
October, 1736. Its communications were held above the old Shepheard’s
Tavern, northeast corner of Broad and Church Streets, now the home of
the Citizens and Southern Bank, successor to the Germania Savings Bank.
The site is of interest also in that here was instituted the mother
council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Free Masonry in
May, 1801, the significance of which is recognized by the Supreme
Council of the Scottish Rite, its headquarters in Washington.
THE IZARD HOUSES, _110-114 Broad Street_: Some time before 1757 the
Izard House in Charlestown was built. It remained in the Izard family a
hundred years and since then has been in the possession of the family of
Judge Mitchell King. Next door to the west, Ralph Izard, in 1827, began
the erection of a house for his daughter, who sold it in 1829 to her
brother-in-law, Colonel Thomas Pinckney. It was later acquired for the
Bishop of Charleston. The Most Reverend Emmet Walsh, sixth Bishop of
Charleston, has residence here. It is but three doors from the Cathedral
of St. John the Baptist.
JOHN RUTLEDGE’S HOUSE, _116 Broad Street_: The war in which the Cherokee
Indians were humbled had not been decided when this house was built in
Charlestown. It became the home of John Rutledge, known as the Dictator,
second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
President of the independent Republic of South Carolina as the
Revolution was breaking, he was clothed by the Assembly in 1780-82 with
dictatorial powers; he was then Governor. The house, built in 1760, was
the residence of Robert Goodwyn Rhett, former Mayor of Charleston,
former president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States,
chairman of the board of the People’s State Bank of South Carolina. As
guest of the Rhetts President William Howard Taft was entertained in
this house.
CYPRESS GARDENS, _On the Coastal Highway_: Twenty-three miles north of
Charleston, on the Coastal Highway (United States No. 52) Benjamin R.
Kittredge has developed the Cypress Gardens. A cypress swamp, dark,
mysterious, witching, has been shaped into an attraction of great power.
To enjoy the Cypress Gardens to the full the visitor should use a boat.
In their seasons the azaleas on this property are gorgeous, and in late
spring the show of lotus is exquisite. Mr. Kittredge more than twenty
years ago acquired the Dean Hall property, an old-time plantation on the
Cooper River, from James Petigru Carson, grandson of the eminent lawyer
and Unionist, James Louis Petigru.
CHARLESTON ORPHAN HOUSE, _160 Calhoun Street_: When the City of
Charleston was incorporated in 1783, it was provided that poor orphan
children should be cared for by the town. At first boys and girls were
boarded in private homes and educated at Charleston’s expense. In
November, 1792, the corner stone of the orphanage on the present site
was laid, and in October, 1794, it was occupied. At that time the roll
of orphans numbered more than a hundred. In 1855, the building was
greatly improved and enlarged. In the belfry is one of Charleston’s
fire-alarm bells and above the belfry the figure of Charity. Clergymen
of Charleston take turns in officiating in the orphans’ chapel, on the
Vanderhorst Street side. Distinguished visitors to Charleston have
inspected the Orphan House, among them Grover Cleveland when he was
here, with Mrs. Cleveland, in 1888. The Charleston Orphan House is one
of the oldest in the country. Generous gifts and legacies have greatly
assisted the Board of Commissioners, the chairman of whom at this time
is the Honorable John F. Ohlandt.
FIRST WHITE CHILD, _Born at East Bay and Tradd_: The site of the Tradd
home is at the northwest corner of East Bay and Tradd Streets. Here was
born the first white child of the colony, a boy, Robert Tradd. The Tradd
family has perished in Charleston. It is perpetuated in the street so
named.
JOHN EDWARDS’ HOUSE, _15 Meeting Street_: John Edwards came from England
and prospered as a merchant in Charlestown. In 1770 he built the fine
mansion at what is now 15 Meeting Street. Edwards cast his lot with the
patriots and contributed of his fortune to the cause of independence. “I
would rather lose my all, than retain it subject to British authority,”
he is reported to have said. During the British occupation in the
Revolution, this house was quarters for Admiral Arbuthnot (Sir Henry
Clinton was in the Miles Brewton house, 27 King Street). When in 1793
the French fled from San Domingo, the illustrious Compte de Grasse was
entertained in this house. (Members of his family are interred in old
St. Mary’s Churchyard, Charleston). The Edwards home is the property of
the family of George W. Williams, banker.
GIBBES ART GALLERY, _131 Meeting Street_: “For the erection or purchase
of a suitable building to be used as a hall or halls for the exhibition
of painting and for necessary rooms for students in the fine arts,”
James S. Gibbes bequeathed about $125,000. The memorial building was
erected on the site of the old Grand Opera House, opposite the site of
the South Carolina Institute Hall in which the _Ordinance of Secession_
was signed December 20, 1860. It is under supervision of the Mayor and
the Carolina Art Association, chartered in December, 1858.
[Illustration: _Lord William Campbell House, 34 Meeting Street_]
[Illustration: _William Washington House, 8 South Battery_]
HIBERNIAN HALL, _105 Meeting Street_: Says the bronze tablet at the
gateway: “Founded March 17, 1801. Met in Corbett’s Tavern until
construction of this hall. Dedicated 1841. Long a center of civic life
in disasters as in prosperity. Its presidents alternate Catholic and
Protestant. Hibernian Society.” Prominent among its founders was Judge
Aedanus Burke, of whom many merry stories survive. Through many years
the St. Cecilia Society gave its balls in this hall. At the St.
Patrick’s Day banquets of the Hibernian Society men of lustrous national
and international reputation have spoken.
THE ENSTON HOME, _720 King Street_: “To make old age comfortable,”
William Enston, native of Canterbury, England, left his estate, after
life tenures, for an institution for old and infirm persons. In 1882, in
the life-time of the widow, arrangements for constructing the Enston
Home were begun and in February, 1899, the memorial hall, a chapel and
meeting place was formally dedicated. Cottages occupy about a half of
the property. The Board of Trustees is watchful of the conditions
warranting further growth. The Enston Home is an exemplary practical
charity.
BETHEL METHODIST CHURCH, _Calhoun and Pitt Streets_: Elsewhere is
reference made to the visits of John and Charles Wesley to Charleston in
1736 and 1737. John Wesley preached in St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in
1737. It was in 1785 that Bishop Asbury and his associates came to
Charleston. Bethel, one of the strongholds of Methodism in South
Carolina, dates to 1850. The church building was dedicated in 1853. It
stands on the site where Wesley once preached and the pulpit from which
he preached is still in use. The Sunday school building was erected in
1912. The earlier Bethel, known as Old Bethel, moved from the site, is
used by a negro congregation at 222 Calhoun Street.
ST. LUKE’S CHURCH, _20 Elizabeth Street_: For the convenience of
Episcopalians in the northeastern section of Charleston, St. Luke’s
Church was founded in December, 1857. The corner stone of the present
building was laid in 1859 and the church, though partly completed, used
in February, 1862. During the War for Southern Independence Union
soldiers sacked the building and a negro female school was held in it.
In the fall of 1865 it was repossessed by the vestry. In 1880 the
congregation of St. Stephen’s chapel, Anson Street, united with St.
Luke’s. For a time after 1900 the church was closed, but reopened by a
section of the congregation of St. Paul’s.
YEAMANS HALL, _Club on Goose Creek_: On property taking its name from
Sir John Yeamans, second Governor at Charles Town, is the Yeamans Hall
Club, an exclusive organization, the members of which are mainly from
the East. A number of the members have their own cottages on the
property. Most of them are interested in hunting preserves in coastal
South Carolina. The club property is not open to the public. It is on
Goose Creek, some distance above its mouth. The late Walter Camp, in a
letter said: “The combination of golf and other sports, with fishing,
hunting and the close proximity of a large town for supplies renders the
situation particularly attractive.” Golfers of wide experience have
pronounced the links at Yeamans Hall among the very best. It is
appropriate as Charleston boasted a golf club late in the eighteenth
century, on the Harleston Green.
UNITED STATES NAVY YARD, _on the Cooper River_: The development of this
naval base and station grew out of a recommendation by a special board
in 1901. Of particular interest to the visitor is the old frigate
_Hartford_, flagship of Commodore Farragut in the Battle of Mobile
Bay—“Damn the torpedoes; go ahead.” For some years the cruiser
_Olympia_, flagship of Commodore Dewey in the Battle of Manila Bay, was
a receiving ship at the Charleston yard, but it was recommissioned in
the World War. The destroyer _Tillman_, the gunboat _Asheville_ and
other naval craft have been built at this yard, which is equipped with a
dry dock large enough to accommodate modern battleships, and with marine
railways of considerable capacity. One of the navy’s most powerful
radio-telegraph stations is at the yard. Charleston’s is the only navy
yard on the Atlantic Coast south of Norfolk, of peculiar strategic value
in relation to the Panama Canal. During the World War thousands of
bluejackets were trained here, and the navy maintained a clothing
factory with two thousand operatives.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, _Broad and Church Streets_: Having begun in 1773
the Charleston Chamber of Commerce is the oldest in the United States.
With the removal of the Charleston Library to its building in King
Street, the Chamber of Commerce acquired the building, formerly the home
of the old South Carolina Bank.
THE COUNTRY CLUB, _on James Island_: On picturesque property on James
Island, on one side washed by Wappoo Creek, the Charleston Country Club
has a handsome and comfortable house and an excellent golf course. The
club had its beginning in the Belvedere property on the Cooper River,
northward of Magnolia Cemetery. Charleston, according to advertisements
in the _Charleston City Gazette_ in the late 1790’s, had the country’s
first golf club. The Country Club is accessible by yacht as well as by
motor, as it is on the inland waterway. A mile from this club are the
municipal links, near the Stono River bridge, open to the public.
CHARLESTON’S BANKS: Oldest banking house in the South, dating to 1834,
the main office of the South Carolina National Bank is at the northeast
corner of Broad and State Streets. The old Bank of Charleston was the
parent of the banking system with offices in Columbia, Greenville,
Sumter and other South Carolina towns.
The Carolina Savings Bank’s main offices are at the southwest corner of
Broad and East Bay Streets.
The Citizens and Southern Bank of South Carolina is in a new home at the
northeast corner of Broad and Church Streets, site of the first Masonic
lodge in this country.
The Miners and Merchants’ Bank is at 23 Broad Street.
Branch Offices of the banks are at convenient places in King Street, the
principal retail area.
THE FIRE OF 1861: This conflagration is given prominence because of the
great number of important buildings that were destroyed. The Charleston
City Year Book of 1880 says that this fire began in a large sash and
blind factory near the foot of Hasell Street on the night of Wednesday,
December 11, 1861. A gale blowing from the north-northeast the flames
swept through the town to the then west end of Tradd Street, laying
waste an area of 540 acres and inflicting property damage of about seven
millions of dollars. The fire was not due to the war. Among the
buildings burned were the Cumberland Methodist Church, the Circular
Church, the building of the South Carolina Institute, the Charleston
Theater, the building of the St. Andrew’s Society, the Catholic
Cathedral of St. Finbar and St. John, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, the
Quaker Meeting House.
CHARLESTON’S BEACHES: Charleston is fortunate in possession of resort
beaches which are easily accessible. Sullivan’s Island, on which is old
Fort Moultrie, has been a popular summering place for many many years.
Beyond it is the Isle of Palms, with its nine-mile strand. A notable
pavilion has been a feature since 1899. Both of these islands are
reached by way of the Cooper River Bridge and the bridge over Cove
Inlet, between Mount Pleasant and Sullivan’s Island. The latter and the
Isle of Palms are separated by Breach Inlet, over which is a modern
bridge. By way of the Ashley River Bridge, thence through James Island,
is the route to Folly Beach, with its seven-mile strand. An
entertainment pier was built in time for the season of 1931; this is
over the water at high tide. To the east of Folly Beach is Morris Island
where stands the Charleston Light, the first and only Colonial light
south of the Delaware capes. To the west is the desirable Island of
Kiawah, property of the late Major Arnoldus Vanderhorst.
PETIGRU’S GRAVE, _in St. Michael’s Yard_: When Woodrow Wilson was
attending the peace conference at Paris, a message came to Charleston
that the president wished the inscription from the grave of James Louis
Petigru in St. Michael’s Churchyard. It was furnished at once by Joseph
M. Poulnot, then postmaster at Charleston. Mr. Petigru was an eminent
South Carolinian. Notwithstanding that he opposed Nullification and
Secession he held the high opinion of the community, and commanded its
respect. Mr. Petigru, through his mother, was a grandson of the French
Protestant Pastor Jean Louis Gibert, who led French settlers to the
Abbeville section in the late 1760’s. The inscription on his tomb which
is widely quoted says in part:
Future Times will hardly know
How great a Life
This simple stone commemorates;
The tradition of his Eloquence,
His Wisdom, and his Wit may fade:
But he lived for Ends more durable than Fame.
His learning illuminated the principles of Law:
His Eloquence was the Protection of the Poor and Wronged.
In the Admiration of his Peers:
In the Respect of his People:
In the Affection of his Family,
His was the highest Place:
The just Mead
of his Kindness and Forbearance,
His Dignity and his Simplicity,
His brilliant Genius and his unwearied Industry.
Unawed by Opinion,
Unseduced by Flattery:
Undismayed by Disaster,
He confronted Life with antique Courage:
And Death with Christian Hope:
In the great Civil War
He withstood his People for his Country:
But his People did Homage to the Man
Who held his Conscience higher than their Praise:
And his Country
Heaped her Honours upon the Grave of the Patriot,
To whom, living,
His own righteous self-Respect sufficed
Alike for Motive and Reward.
Mr. Petigru’s funeral took place March 10, 1863. To a Unionist who went
with his people into Secession, highest honors were paid even while the
forces of the United States were battering away at Charleston!
A HOUSE OF TRAGEDIES, _the Hanging of Lavinia Fisher_: In 1820
lawlessness on the “Neck” northward of Charleston was regnant. “Gangs of
white desperadoes occupied certain houses and infested the roads leading
to the city. To such an extent did these outlaws carry their excesses
that wagoners and others coming to the City were under the necessity of
carrying rifles in their hands for their defense. Travelers passed these
houses with fear and trembling. More dreaded than others of these haunts
was that known as the Six-Mile (?) house, occupied by John Fisher and
Lavinia, his wife,” says King’s _Newspaper Press of Charleston_. Fisher
and his wife were taken into custody and high crimes and misdemeanors
charged against them. In the cellar of their roadhouse were found the
bones of guests they had murdered. Their motive was robbery. Their house
was on the Meeting Street Road, a section of the Old State Road,
Charleston to Columbia. The Fishers were tried and convicted in
Charleston. According to King they were hanged February 18, 1820, “at 2
o’clock, just within the lines, on a hill east of the Meeting Street
Road, about eight hundred yards north of the street known as Line Street
continued.” Mrs. Fisher was unnerved and “called upon the immense throng
assembled to rescue her and implored pity with outstretched and
trembling hands.” King is mistaken about the Six-Mile house, as
authorities say that it was the Four-Mile house, the site of which is
readily located; it is four miles from the Charleston Court House on the
Meeting Street Road, about a mile north of Magnolia Crossing, and
visible from the King Street Extension which is the Charleston approach
by the Coastal Highway, United States 52.
[Illustration: _Monument to Defenders of Fort Moultrie on The
Battery_]
[Illustration: _Colonial Powder Magazine, 23 Cumberland Street_]
WESTMINSTER CHURCH, _Rutledge Avenue and Maverick Street_: This
Presbyterian congregation sold its building at 273-75 Meeting Street to
the Trinity Methodist Episcopal congregation and erected a new church
about two miles from the other site. The congregation derives from St.
Andrew’s, or the Third Presbyterian, Church in Archdale Street, built in
1814. It was due to a separation from the First (Scotch) Presbyterian
Church. The Reverend Dr. Buchan was the first pastor. About 1850 this
church was razed, the congregation building anew on the west side of
Meeting Street; the new church was called the Central and for more than
twenty years was under the pastoral charge of the Reverend W. C. Dana.
With it merged the Glebe Street Presbyterian Church of which the eminent
Reverend Dr. J. L. Girardeau was pastor. The Central Church became
Westminster. The old yard in Archdale Street is not now used for
burials.
OLD THEATER SITE, _Joseph Jefferson, Manager_: In 1793 the Charleston
Theater was built in a corner of Savage’s Green and about the same time
New Street was built. Years afterward Joseph Jefferson, famous and
beloved American comedian, managed a theater in Charleston. He told the
writer that it was at New and Broad Streets, but authorities say that
Mr. Jefferson was mistaken; that he meant another old theater at Friend
(Legare) and Broad Streets. The late Reverend Dr. Robert Wilson told the
writer that this was another mistake, as Mr. Jefferson managed Placides
Theater in Queen Street! Mr. Jefferson’s mother was born in Charleston.
SUGAR FACTORY SITE, _Later a Home of Correction_: According to _The
Courier_ (May 16, 1868) at the west end of Broad Street was Savage’s
Green on which, before the Revolution was built a manufactory for loaf
sugar. For this reason it was known as the Sugar House. It became a Work
House or House of Correction. “The lot, together with the building,”
says _The Courier_, “was afterwards owned by Dr. Le Seignieur, who, in
1807, contemplated the establishment of a cotton manufactory. The plan
was abandoned in consequence of the machinery having been lost on its
passage from Europe.”
SECOND (FLINN’S) CHURCH, _Meeting and Charlotte Streets_: Presbyterians
in Charleston growing in number it was decided that another church was
necessary and thus the Second Church was organized in 1811. Its site is
the highest place within the City of Charleston, about fifteen feet
above mean low water. The tower behind the portico was intended to be
surmounted by a steeple, but this addition has yet to be erected. From
its first pastor, the church is often alluded to as Flinn’s.
ST. MATTHEW’S CHURCH, _403 King Street_: At Christmas, 1867, the corner
stone for St. Matthew’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church was laid. The
church building was dedicated in March, 1872. The tallest spire in
Charleston surmounts the church. An impressive representation of the
Crucifixion is in a stained glass window.
CITADEL SQUARE CHURCH, _328 Meeting Street_: Offspring of the old First
Baptist Church in lower Church Street, the Citadel Square was founded in
1854 and the building dedicated in November, 1856. Members of the
Wentworth Street Baptist Church joined with the Citadel Square. In the
cyclone of 1885 the steeple fell in such manner as to carry away the
front walls of the residence at the northeast corner of Meeting and
Henrietta Streets. Several years ago the church building was renovated,
the already large auditorium made larger. The Citadel Square, deriving
its name from the nickname of the Marion Square which it faces, has one
of the largest Baptist congregations in the South.
CHURCH OF THE HOLY COMMUNION, _Cannon Street and Ashley Avenue_: From
this church went its rector, the Reverend H. J. Mikell to become
Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta. The late Anthony Toomer Porter, D.D., was
its rector for years and this gave the name of Holy Communion Church
Institute to what is now the Porter Military Academy. St. Timothy’s
Chapel at Porter is more or less attached to the Holy Communion.
ST. ANDREWS LUTHERAN, _37 Wentworth Street_: This church building was
severely damaged by Union shells in the War for Southern Independence.
It was then a Methodist property. After Appomattox this congregation
joined with a Morris Street Lutheran congregation under the pastorate of
the Reverend Dr. W. S. Bowman. It has had a succession of able, eloquent
Lutheran ministers, including the Reverend James A. B. Scherer and the
Reverend M. G. G. Scherer.
ST. JOHANNES CHURCH, _48 Harrell Street_: This building was first used
by the St. Matthew’s congregation which later built on King Street
opposite Marion Square. As St. Johannes, it was organized in 1878,
though the earlier Lutheran congregation was there in 1841.
SHAW MEMORIAL SCHOOL, _22 Mary Street_: Charleston’s tolerance as a
community may be illustrated in the Shaw school for negroes. Since 1874
this institution has been in the Charleston city school system. It is a
memorial to Colonel Robert G. Shaw, Union officer, who fell at the head
of his regiment of negro troops in the assault on Battery Wagner, Morris
Island, in the War for Southern Independence. His family provided the
“spacious school house” for negroes, the land having been bought in
1868. The Shaw Monument Fund was supported entirely from the North until
1874.
[Illustration: _Strawberry, Chapel of Ease to Biggin_]
[Illustration: _St. James Church, Goose Creek_]
POINSETTIA PULCHERRIMA, _Named for Joel Roberts Poinsett_: The
Poinsettia is commonly known as Charleston’s flower. It was brought from
Mexico by Joel Roberts Poinsett, about 1828. “There is some difference
of opinion,” says Dr. Gabriel Manigault, “as to whether Mr. Poinsett
discovered it himself or simply introduced it to this country.” After
his retirement from a busy and distinguished public service, Mr.
Poinsett’s home “had always been in the City of Charleston.” His
residence was “situated upon what is now Rutledge Avenue, on the east
side, a few squares above Calhoun Street. The house ... was recessed
some distance from the street, and stood in the midst of a grove of live
oaks; it was generally known as Poinsett’s Grove.” Mr. Poinsett was
representative in congress, minister to Mexico in an eventful period,
Secretary of War under President Van Buren, a rice planter who
contributed much to the improvement of the grain.
CHARLESTON’S HOTELS: The Francis Marion, at King and Calhoun Streets, in
the heart of the retail shopping district, facing Marion Square, was
opened in the spring of 1924. Its building was a community enterprise.
The Fort Sumter, facing the Battery, at the foot of King Street, on the
Ashley River, was opened in 1924. It maintains a dock for yachts. It is
in the exclusive residential section.
The St. John Hotel, built by Otis Mills, a caravansary with a long and a
distinguished record, is at the southwest corner of Meeting and Queen
Streets. President Theodore Roosevelt stayed here in the winter of 1902.
The Timrod Hotel, opposite Washington Square, is a comfortable and
convenient place in the building formerly occupied by the Commercial
Club.
The Charleston Hotel, Meeting between Hayne and Pinckney, has housed
many notable guests, including the Princess Louise, daughter of Queen
Victoria.
The Argyle, northwest corner of Meeting and Hasell Streets, was
renovated and newly outfitted some years ago. It was formerly the St.
Charles.
Villa Margharita, South Battery and Church Street, was the former home
of Andrew Simonds, banker.
CABBAGE ROW, _Supposed Home of “Porgy”_: Everybody coming to Charleston
inquires about “Porgy,” the deformed negro of whom DuBose Heyward wrote
a best seller, which was translated into a successful play. Cabbage Row,
on Church Street, near Tradd, west side, is the supposed Catfish Row.
Cabbage Row has been renovated and restored. “Porgy” was a well-known
Charleston character whose home was in the former Village of Cool Blow,
on upper Meeting Street. His last days were tragedy. It would spoil a
reading of “Porgy” to discuss him at length.
WASHINGTON RACE COURSE, _August Belmont Moved the Pillars_: Memories of
the old Washington race course survive, but the Jockey Club has been out
of existence these forty years. Decades have elapsed since races were
run on the course. The track was on property entered from Rutledge
Avenue near present-day Hampton Park. In 1901 the old pillars in the
ornate gateway were purchased by August Belmont and reërected at his
Belmont Park, near New York City. There are now no traces of the famous
race course to which in the season the South Carolina aristocracy went
in force and regalia. Notable races were run.
OLD ’BORO BOUNDARIES: Should a visitor stay in Charleston long enough to
ramble out of the beaten paths, these boundaries to old divisions may be
of interest:
Savage’s Green, west of Logan and Broad Streets.
Harleston’s, bounded by Beaufain, Coming and Calhoun Streets, and the
Ashley River.
Mazyck’s Lands, bounded by Archdale, Beaufain, Broad, Smith and Trapman
Streets.
Cannonboro’, bounded by Smith, Bull, and Spring Streets and Ashley
Avenue.
Gadsden’s Green, bounded by Cannon and President Streets, the old public
cemetery (the Stadium) and the Ashley River.
Gadsden’s Square, bounded by Congress, Payne, Mount and Line Streets.
Elliottboro’, within Spring, Line, and Coming Streets and Rutledge
Avenue.
Radcliffeboro’, within Radcliffe, Vanderhorst, Smith and King Streets.
Wraggboro’, eastern part of the Wragg Lands about the old Northeastern
Railroad station.
Mazyckboro’, bounded by Chapel, Elizabeth and Calhoun Streets and the
Cooper River, running into Wraggboro’ as a wedge.
Ansonboro’, south of Wraggboro’, bounded by Calhoun Street, a line
between Society and Wentworth, King Street on the west, Anson Street on
the east.
Glebe Lands, extending from Beaufain to George Streets, between St.
Philip and Coming Streets.
Hewatt Square, bounded by Friend (now Legare), Broad Mazyck (now upper
Logan), and Queen Streets.
Archdale Square, bounded by Meeting, Broad, King, and Queen Streets.
Schenking’s Square, north of Queen, between King and Meeting Streets,
half-way to Horlbeck Alley.
“City Mudpond,” East Battery, South Battery, Church, half-way to
Atlantic Street (nowadays a most fashionable residential area).
Village of Hampstead, between South, Blake, Meeting and Bay Streets;
owned by Henry Laurens and the Bampfield family.
Village of New Market, north of Hampstead.
“There are other smaller divisions of land which are too numerous to
mention here.”—_Wilmot G. de Saussure._
_Index_
A
PAGE
Academy of Music 55
Academy of Our Lady of Mercy 80
Aiken, William 16
Allston, Robert F. W., Governor 8
Apothecary’s Hall 46
Arbuthnot, Admiral 85
Archdale, John, Quaker, Governor 15
Argyle, Duke of 28
Art Gallery, Gibbes Memorial 85
Municipal 40
Ashley Hall, Colonial Seat 35
School 70
Ashley River, Bridge 51
Road 35
Attakullakulla, Cherokee Chief 35
Audubon, J. J., Naturalist 30
B
Baker Sanatorium 68
Banks 90
Battery 65
Beaches 91
Beauregard, P. G. T., General 58
Belle Isle Gardens v
Beth Elohim Synagogue 78
Birthplace of Masonry 82
Bishop England High School 82
Bishop’s House 83
Blacklock, William, House 63
Bonnet, Stede, Pirate 41
’Boros, Boundaries of 102
Brewton, Miles, House 60
Bull, William, House 59
C
Cabbage Row 101
Calhoun, Grave 10, 26
Monument 46
Campbell, William, Lord, House 59
Cassique of Kiawah 2
Castle Pinckney 37
Chamber of Commerce 89
Churches:
Baptist—
Citadel Square 97
First 28
Congregational, Circular 26
French Protestant (Huguenot) 27
Lutheran—
St. Andrew’s 98
St. Johannes 98
St. John’s 50
St. Matthew’s 97
Methodist Episcopal—
Bethel 87
Cumberland 29
Trinity 29
Presbyterian—
First (Scotch) 28
Second 96
Third (St. Andrew’s) 95
Westminster 95
Protestant Episcopal—
Grace 79
Holy Communion 97
St. Andrew’s 34
St. James, Goose Creek 33
St. Luke’s 88
St. Michael’s 38
St. Paul’s 79
St. Peter’s 80
St. Philip’s (Mother Church) 24
Roman Catholic—
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist 39
St. Mary’s (Mother Church) 32
Synagogue, Beth Elohim 78
Unitarian 32
Citadel, Military College 53
Green 46
City Hall 40
Park 57
Cleveland, Grover, President 84
Clinton, Sir Henry 60
College of Charleston 54
Colonial Common 68
Lake 68
Lighthouse 7
Powder Magazine 1
Confederate Museum 46
Convent, Sisters of Mercy 80
Cooper River Bridge 52
Cornwallis, Lord 60
Country Club 90
County Court House 74
Cradle of Presbyterianism 26
Custom House, United States 75
Colonial 41
Cypress Gardens 84
D
De Grasse, Compte 85
Dock Street Theater 9, 24
Dorchester, Ruins of 37
Drayton Hall 35
E
Edwards, John, House 85
England, John M., Bishop 39
English Church 24
Enston, William, Home 87
Exchange, Colonial 41
F
Fenwick Hall 51
Fire of 1861 91
Fireproof Building 58
First White Child 85
Fisher, Lavinia, Hanging 93
Folly Beach 91
Fort Bull 35
Johnson 19
Moultrie 21
Sumter 22
Fraser, Charles, Artist 40, 44
G
Gardens, Belle Isle v
Cypress 84
Magnolia-on-Ashley 50
Middleton Place 48
Runnymede 35
Gateway Walk of the Garden Club 16
Gibbes, Memorial Art Gallery 85
William, House 62
Gilman, Samuel, Reverend 32
Golf 88
Goose Creek Church 33
H
Hall, Hibernian Society 87
St. Andrew’s Society, Site 17
South Carolina Institute, Site 44
South Carolina Society 77
Hampton, Park 74
Wade, General, Born 14
Hartford, Famous Frigate 89
Heyward, Thomas, Jr., Signer 63
“Horn Work” Remnant 46
Hotels 100
Huger, Francis Kinloch 17
Huguenin, Thomas A. 23
I
Isle of Palms 91
Izard Houses 83
J
Jasper, Sergeant 66
Jefferson, Joseph, Actor 96
K
King’s Highway 52
L
Lafayette, General 17
Lee, Robert E., General 10
Liberty Tree, Site 73
Library, Charleston, Society 64
Lighthouse, Morris Island 47
Lincoln, Abraham, President 78
Lucas, Eliza 52
Lutheran, First Church 30
Lynch, Patrick Nielsen, Bishop 39
M
Magnolia-on-Ashley 50
Marion, Francis, General 19, 46
Square 46
Masonry, Birthplace of 82
Mass, First at Charleston 33
Medical College 68
Middleton, Arthur, Signer 48
Henry A., House 72
Place, Gardens 48
Monroe, James, President 17, 26
Motte, Rebecca, Heroine 60
Moultrie, Fort 21
Monument 66
Playground 68
Municipal Golf Links 90
Museum, Charleston 65
Confederate 45
N
Navy Yard, United States 89
Northrop, Henry Pinckney, Bishop 39
O
Oaks, The, Colonial Seat 34
Oldest Building 13
Chamber of Commerce 89
Department Store 55
Drug Business 46
Library 64
Municipal College 54
Museum 65
Steam Railroad 16, 45
Theater 24
Orphan House, Charleston 84
P
Parker, Sir Peter 20
Petigru, James Louis, Grave 92
Pinckney, Castle 37
Charles 55
Charles Cotesworth 17, 52
Thomas 17, 52, 62
Pitt, William, Statue 58
Planters Hotel 9, 24
Poinsett, Joel Roberts 100
“Porgy” 101
Porter Military Academy 54
Postoffice, United States 75
Powder Magazine 15
Princess Louise 70
Q
Quaker Graveyard 15
Quaker Governor, John Archdale 15
R
Race Course, Washington 101
Rawdon, Lord 60
Rhett, William, House 14
Roosevelt, Theodore, President 10
Roper Hospital 69
Royal Arms, British 33
Runnymede 35
Rutledge, Edward, Signer 11, 26
John, House 83
S
Saint Cecilia Society 19
Sandford, Robert, Off Coast 1
Scotch Church 28
Secession Convention 17, 44
Chairs 77
Shaw Memorial School 98
Sherman, William T., General 38, 45
Sisters of Mercy 80
Slave Market 63
Smith, Robert, Bishop 24
“Solon Shingle,” John E. Owens 57
Stuart, John, House 19
Sugar Factory, Site 96
Summerall, Charles Pelot, General 53
Sutherland, Duke of 28
Sumter, Fort 22
“Sword Gates” 77
Synagogue, Beth Elohim 78
T
Taft, William Howard, President 83
Theater, First in Charlestown 24
Thomas, Albert Sidney, Bishop 39
Thomson, John, Auditorium 65
William, Colonel 21
Timrod Monument 58
Trott, Nicholas, House 13
U
United States, Custom House 75
Navy Yard 89
Postoffice 75
V
Victoria’s Daughter, Queen 70
W
Walsh, Emmet, Bishop 83
Washington, George, President 40, 63
Race Course 101
Square 57
William, House 73
Wesleys, John and Charles 30
White Meeting House 26
White Point Gardens (Battery) 65
X
Xavier, St. Francis, Infirmary 73
Y
Yeamans Hall Club 88
Young Men’s Christian Association 78
Young Women’s Christian Association 79
[Illustration: An Incomparable Stroll]
1. Site of Granville Bastion, now Omar Temple of the Shrine.
2. The Battery (White Point Gardens).
3. Villa Margharita.
4. William Washington House.
5. Fort Sumter Hotel; site of Princess Louise’s Landing Stage.
6. Miles Brewton House.
7. William Bull House.
8. Lord William Campbell House.
9. Nathaniel Russell House.
10. First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church.
11. Horry (Branford) House.
12. South Carolina Hall.
13. Postoffice (park to the south).
14. County Court House (site of State House burned in 1788).
15. City Hall (former United States Bank).
16. St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.
17. Site of Lee’s Hotel (Mansion House).
18. Confederate Home (former Carolina Hotel).
19. Chamber of Commerce.
20. Site of Shepheard’s Tavern; birthplace of Masonry.
21. Huguenot Church.
22. Ruins of Planters’ Hotel, including site of First Theatre.
23. Pirate Houses.
24. St. Philip’s Episcopal Church.
25. Grave of John Caldwell Calhoun.
26. Nicholas Trott’s House.
27. Colonial Powder Magazine.
28. Circular Congregational Church.
29. Site of Institute Hall in which Secession was signed.
30. Gibbes Memorial Art Gallery.
31. Charleston Library Society.
32. St. John Hotel.
33. Unitarian Church.
34. St. John’s Lutheran Church.
35. Convent of Our Lady of Mercy.
36. Crafts Public School.
37. Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
38. Formal garden of Irving K. Heyward.
39. Site of St. Andrew’s Hall in which Secession was adopted.
40. John Rutledge House.
41. The Izard Houses.
42. James Louis Petigru House.
43. Customs House.
44. Zig-Zag Alley.
45. Catholic Orphanage.
46. Site of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.
47. The “Sword Gates.”
48. John Edwards House.
49. The Old Exchange.
50. Carolina Savings Bank.
51. South Carolina National Bank.
52. People’s State Bank.
53. Hibernian Hall.
54. Timrod Hotel.
55. Quaker Graveyard.
56. John Stuart House.
57. Fireproof Building.
Prints and Plants of Old Gardens, by Kate Doggett Boggs.
A book for those who would like to produce a border, or a fence, or a
complete garden and want an old design. The drawings and illustrations
were taken from rare prints and books difficult to find and expensive to
buy. The author gathered her data from American and English gardens of
the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. The
appendix contains a list of thousands of plants. The botanical names
were traced and arrangement into groups made by Dr. and Mrs. Bayard
Hammond of the Botanical Department of Johns Hopkins University. 10 × 13
inches. Drawings and illustrations. $5.00.
* * * * * * * *
Southern Antiques, by Paul H. Burroughs.
This book covers the field of furniture-making over a period of two
hundred years, from 1620 to 1820, and is concerned with that part of the
old South which comprised the original colonies of Maryland, Virginia,
North and South Carolina and Georgia. The text is arranged by sections
according to the kinds of furniture illustrated and described. Profusely
illustrated. 8½ × 11 inches. Drawings and illustrations. $5.00.
* * * * * * * *
Homes and Gardens in Old Virginia, edited by Susanne Williams Massie and
Frances Archer Christian for the Garden Club of Virginia.
This book tells of more than one hundred and fifty homes and gardens in
every part of the Old Dominion. The authors include H. J. Eckenrode,
Lyon G. Tyler, Rosewell Page, Alexander Weddell, Harold Jefferson
Coolidge, Arthur Kyle Davis, Robert A. Lancaster, Amélie Rives (Princess
Troubetzkoy) and many others. 6¾ × 9½ inches. 130 full-page
illustrations. $5.00.
* * * * * * * *
Thomas Jefferson: Architect and Builder, by I. T. Frary.
This is the first book published covering Jefferson’s complete work as
an architect. The unusually fine photographs were made by the author and
include exteriors, interiors, detail studies and landscapes, as well as
reproductions of Jefferson’s original drawings. I. T. Frary, author,
lecturer, teacher, is an authority on architecture. Covers stamped in
gold. Introduction by Fiske Kimball. 8½ × 11 inches. 96 full-page
illustrations. $5.00.
* * * * * * * *
In the Picturesque Shenandoah Valley, by Armistead C. Gordon.
The story of the great Valley of Virginia told as only Armistead Gordon
could tell it—of its scenery, its streams and mountains, its many
caverns, and better than all, its famous people. 6 × 9 inches. Maps and
illustrations. $2.50.
GARRETT & MASSIE, _Publishers_
Richmond, Virginia
$1.00
It is said that from the tops of the highest buildings in Charleston
come under the eye more historic places than come under it from any
other point in the United States. The book tells the history of those
places. The Charles Town that was and the Charleston this is are brought
before the reader. Names of eminent Carolinians pass in review and the
greatness of the lustrous past is linked with the present.
In Charleston survive scars of wars and storms and fires that raged in
the long ago. It has had part in Indian, Spanish and French wars. It has
had bold adventure with pirates. It was conspicuous in the Revolution
and in the War for Southern Independence.
The fame of Middleton Place, Magnolia, and Cypress gardens is
world-wide. Annually thousands of people visit Charleston to walk about
these wonderful gardens that are a living reminder of the beauty wrought
before the American Revolution.
* * * * * * * *
Thomas Petigru Lesesne, author and editor, is a member of a family that
has been distinguished in South Carolina since Charleston was a British
outpost in a savage land.
Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
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