Landmarks of Charleston / Including Description of an Incomparable Stroll

by Thomas Petigru Lesesne

Bethel Methodist Church

SITE OF INSTITUTE HALL, 134 Meeting Street: South Carolina declared itself free and independent, seceding from the United States, December 20, 1860. This bold act was taken in the hall of the South Carolina Institute. The Ordinance of Secession had been adopted in the hall of the St. Andrew’s Society, 118 Broad Street, but the delegates came to the Institute Hall because of its greater capacity; the wish was to accommodate as many as possible of the thousands who hoped to see the ordinance signed. With the great hall crowded to suffocation, after all the signatures had been affixed, President Jamison advanced to the front of the rostrum and announced, that South Carolina was an independent sovereignty, free of the United States. And the War for Southern Independence was nascent. In this hall several months before had been held the famous Democratic National Convention that adjourned without decision with respect to candidates for President and Vice President. On the site are published The News and Courier, one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States, founded in 1803, with its roots going back to 1786, and the Charleston Evening Post. They carry on the traditions of the South.

CONFEDERATE MUSEUM, at the Head of the Market: Valuable relics of the Confederacy are preserved in their hall at the head of Market Street, at Meeting Street, by the Charleston Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A gun on the porch was fashioned from Swedish wrought iron from one of the first locomotives operated by the South Carolina Railroad, the world’s oldest long-distance steam railroad. It was among the first rifled cannon made in the United States. This piece was in Columbia when General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union troops occupied that town, and Union soldiers tried to burst the cannon, cracking it near the muzzle. During riots in the period of Reconstruction the Washington Light Infantry manned the gun. The Confederate Museum is in a hall over the west end of the old City Market established between 1788 and 1804, extending from East Bay Street to Meeting Street. Through many years all household marketing was done in the stalls. Into recent years it was a common sight to see a gentleman doing the marketing, a negro with a large basket following him from stall to stall. There survive stalls in the Market, but the long low building is not congested as it was in other years. The telephone has contributed much toward the discontinuance of the good old Charleston custom of marketing in person.

MARION SQUARE, King, Meeting and Calhoun Streets: Named in honor of General Francis Marion, hero of the Revolution, affectionately called the “Swamp Fox,” this six-acre square in the very heart of Charleston was from 1882 to 1921 the parade ground of The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, giving rise to the nickname, Citadel Green. The Citadel is now at Hampton Park, on the Ashley River, but its main building and four wings stand as reminders. In Lowndes Street, from Calhoun to the Citadel sally port, is a statue of John Caldwell Calhoun, eminent South Carolina statesman, atop a tall granite shaft. On the Meeting Street side is a monument to General and Governor Wade Hampton, savior of his State in Reconstruction, and on the west side a section of “horn work,” part of the Revolutionary line of fortifications for the defense of Charlestown against the invading British. It was just outside the town, Boundary Street becoming Calhoun Street after the town limits were extended to their present line in 1849. Before the purchase by the now defunct Fourth Brigade, the square was solidly built. After the evacuation of Charleston until 1882 the United States army was in possession of the Citadel buildings. On the east side and on the west side are fountains fed by a great artesian well near King and Calhoun Streets, formerly in the waterworks system.

THE OLDEST DRUG STORE, 125 King Street: America’s oldest drug store business is in Charleston. It has had a career antedating 1781 as in that year Dr. Andrew Turnbull bought the business and began the dispensing of his own remedies. In 1792 Joseph Chouler was the proprietor, in 1806 William Burgoyne, in 1816 Jacob De La Motta. The mortar and pestle he displayed over his Apothecary’s Hall is still extant, and in the store now used. Felix l’Herminier took over the business in 1845 and soon afterward it was in the name of William G. Trott who in 1870 sold it to C. F. Schwettmann. In 1894 the style was C. F. Schwettmann & Son. This continues with John F. Huchting as proprietor. In 1920 Mr. Huchting presented much of the old Apothecary’s Hall to the Charleston Museum which has reset it and where it may be seen. More than one hundred and fifty years for a drug business is a worth-while record!

CHARLESTON LIGHTHOUSE, on Morris Island: During Colonial years the only coastal light south of the Delaware capes was the Charleston Lighthouse on Morris Island, built in 1767. The present tower was built in 1876; it is of brick, 161 feet high. The earthquake of 1886 cracked the tower and threw the lens out of adjustment. From the first Charleston Light came a copper plate in the corner stone, reading: “The first stone of this Beacon was laid on the 30th of May 1767 in the seventh year of His Majesty’s reign, George the III,” and so on. December 18, 1860, the first incident of the War for Southern Independence affecting the lighthouse service occurred at the Charleston Light. The Secretary of the Treasury was told by the Secretary of the Lighthouse Board that he would not recommend that the coast of South Carolina “be lighted by the Federal Government against her will.” December 30, the lighthouse inspector reported that “the Governor of the State of South Carolina has requested me to leave the State.” By the latter part of April, 1861, the Confederates had extinguished this and other lights; they were furnishing no aids to navigation for Union mariners. Morris Island is at the left entrance to the harbor of Charleston. From the eastern end of the Folly Beach, accessible by automobile, a clear view of the Charleston Light may be had.

MIDDLETON PLACE, Gardens on the Ashley River: This was the seat of Arthur Middleton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Henry Middleton, of The Oaks, president of the Continental Congress, obtained the land through his wife. Two English landscape gardeners were brought oversea to fashion the show place, which was completed about 1740. The fine Tudor house was put to the torch late in the War for Southern Independence. Only the left wing stands, and in it the owner, J. J. Pringle Smith, descendant of the Signer, lives. The old steps to the main building are in place, and from them a commanding view of the broad formal terraces and the winding Ashley River is had. The first japonicas brought into this country were transplanted at Middleton Place about 1805 and one of the original plants was alive in 1939. Middleton Place is famous not only for its gorgeous azalea show in spring, but for the wide variety of plants. It has been praised with lavish enthusiasm by distinguished visitors. Annually thousands of people travel many miles to walk about these wonderful gardens, a living reminder of the beauty wrought before the Revolution. The grave of the Signer is at Middleton Place. The Gardens are on the Ashley River Road, about fourteen miles from the Ashley River Bridge. If one would see gardens, terraces and hedges substantially as they were in 1740; if one would see one of the world’s most beautiful places, he should be sure of visiting Middleton Place.

Alluring Views of Magnolia-on-the-Ashley