Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

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.

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.

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.

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").

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.

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.

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."

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.