In last week’s cliffhanger, we were listening in on a committee meeting of the colony’s rebellious shadow government, when they were interrupted by the unexpected arrival of breaking news from Britain. Let’s return to that scene on Broad Street now, rewind our Time Machine, and pull up a chair at the beginning of that important meeting.
At the same time Paul Revere was making his famous midnight ride, and British soldiers were battling Massachusetts militiamen at Lexington and Concord, events were taking place right here that represent South Carolina’s first acts of rebellion.
Long before the invention of email, and long before the advent of the U.S. Postal Service, how did the people of early Charleston exchange letters and news with other towns, other colonies, and across the Atlantic Ocean?
In 1897, Charleston's leading cyclists prevailed in their fight for a bicycle path connecting the city to St. Andrew's over the Ashley River bridge.
A century ago, this community was just beginning to emerge from a social, economic, and cultural rut created by backward-looking politics. To move Charleston forward, we needed to embrace new, progressive ideas and policies, especially those recognizing the equal rights of women and of the African-American population.
During its brief tenure, this organization embarked on a promotional campaign to lure Europeans to settle in the Palmetto State. Who was the Emigrant Society, and what were their motivations?
James Hoban, Irish architect of the White House, was introduced to George Washington in Charleston in 1791. Their fortuitous meeting here in Hoban's adopted home propelled the Irishman to international fame in the new city of Washington, D.C.
Between 1670 and 1783, urban Charles Town evolved by degrees from a lawless market town to a corporate city with a robust municipal government.
Drafted here in Charleston 150 years ago, the South Carolina Constitution of 1868 was a "radical" document created in the midst of an important, but largely forgotten struggle for civil rights equality.
What do Denmark Vesey, Charleston lotteries, and the iconic "High Battery" have in common? Plenty. You can't tell the story of one without mentioning the others.
Rhettsbury or "Rhett's Point" was a colonial-era, suburban plantation that in the nineteenth century became homogenized into Ansonborough, but it has separate history and identity that deserve to be remembered.
President George Washington came to Charleston in 1791 with three objectives in mind: to increase support for the new Federal government, to view the area's Revolutionary battle sites, and to indulge the thousands of admirers who wished see the hero of the War of Independence in the flesh.
Let's explore the evidence behind the story of how, why, and when Gadsden's Wharf played a significant role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade to North America.
A brief survey of the timeline of importing Africans into the port of Charleston, from 1670 to the Constitutional end of the trade in January 1808.
Long before the advent of modern air conditioning, tenacious investors at the turn of the nineteenth century surmounted great challenges to create a viable business of selling Northern ice to customers in Southern cities. By 1817, Charleston was receiving a continuous annual supply of natural ice that transformed the city’s culture of food and beverages.
Firewood was once a basic necessity of life in all seasons of the year. Let's explore some of the details of the firewood business to connect our senses to the sights and smells of Charleston past.
"Lady Day" (March 25th) was "New Year's Day" for the first 81 years of Charleston, until we switched to the "New Style" calendar in 1752.
Since 1866, local citizens have celebrated the first of January as Emancipation Day—a joyous holiday featuring parades, pageantry, singing, dancing, orations, and religious thanksgiving. The day marks the demise of slavery and the liberation of those who once formed the majority of South Carolina’s population. Now one of Charleston’s oldest public events, Emancipation Day is a noble occasion worthy of general acknowledgement and applause, regardless of one’s creed or color.
Let’s pick up the story in early December 1782, when the end of the long war was quite literally in sight. Most of the American army in South Carolina, consisting of several hundred men under the leadership of General Nathanael Greene, was camped on a number of plantations on the west side of the Ashley River.
Let's explore the events leading up to the British evacuation of Charleston on 14 December 1782, a momentous day in South Carolina history.
In the autumn of 1927, Susan Dart Butler opened a free library in a building known as Dart Hall in downtown Charleston, and the present Dart Library is hosting a celebratory event this Saturday to commemorate ninety years of service to the community
At the turn of the seventeenth century, England was very keen to get involved in the European real estate bonanza in the New World. By that time, Spain and Portugal had already claimed nearly the entire continent of South America, the southern parts of North America, and most of the islands known as the West Indies, or Caribbean Islands.
It’s Thanksgiving season again, and for most people that means a day of rest, relaxation, and feasting with close friends and family. As a historian working in an old city, I have learned that Thanksgiving also includes at least ten people asking me the same question: “When was the first Thanksgiving in Charleston?” I don’t mind the question at all, but the answer is generally more complex than most people care to hear. If you don’t mind a quick stroll through the historical record of early Sout...
If you pick up any book about the origins of South Carolina in the late 1600s, you’ll be sure to find references to the island of Barbados and the great influence it exerted on our early history. Nearly 350 years later, in November 2017, a number of Lowcountry residents are collaborating with officials in Barbados to commemorate the cultural ties that continue to bind our two communities together.
When Charles II of England granted the colony of Carolina to a group of Lords Proprietors in 1663, the province included all the land between English Virginia and Spanish Florida. On paper, at least, the southern border of Carolina included the northern part of Florida, all the way down to what is now Jacksonville. Conversely, Spain considered the northern boundary of Florida to extend as far north as Saint Helena Sound, in modern Beaufort County, South Carolina.
At the close of the year 1856, the City of Charleston was just wrapping up the extensive repairs to the High Battery seawall and White Point Garden made necessary by the destructive hurricane of 1854. Immediately to the west of these expensive public projects, jutting out into the Ashley River, stood a series of rather unsavory private wharves, which the city viewed both as a nuisance and a potential liability to the public park.
I think it’s important to look back at the many generations of labor that led to the creation of the present “High” and “Low” battery seawalls. Our brief journey begins nearly 300 years ago, when the entire area in question was just a bit of underwater, imaginary real estate.
It’s time for our annual ShakeOut.! No, I’m not talking about some retro-themed dance contest, I’m talking about the Great Southeast ShakeOut of 2017, which is sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to promote earthquake awareness in seismically-active areas–like Charleston.
Philadelphia Alley is not the shortest or narrowest thoroughfare in the city of Charleston, but it is sufficiently small to escape the attention of many residents and tourists. For those who have stumbled into its entrances on Queen and Cumberland Streets in the past, they have discovered a picturesque yet historically mute piece of Charleston.
The story of Dutch Town begins in the middle of the eighteenth century, but I’d like to begin our tour of the neighborhood in the 1670s. Why? Because the physical location of Dutch Town is rooted in a series of mathematical errors made long before the first Germans arrived in South Carolina.
