Landmarks of Charleston / Including Description of an Incomparable Stroll

by Thomas Petigru Lesesne

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.

First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church