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.