Branch Offices of the banks are at convenient places in King Street, the principal retail area.
THE FIRE OF 1861: This conflagration is given prominence because of the great number of important buildings that were destroyed. The Charleston City Year Book of 1880 says that this fire began in a large sash and blind factory near the foot of Hasell Street on the night of Wednesday, December 11, 1861. A gale blowing from the north-northeast the flames swept through the town to the then west end of Tradd Street, laying waste an area of 540 acres and inflicting property damage of about seven millions of dollars. The fire was not due to the war. Among the buildings burned were the Cumberland Methodist Church, the Circular Church, the building of the South Carolina Institute, the Charleston Theater, the building of the St. Andrew’s Society, the Catholic Cathedral of St. Finbar and St. John, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, the Quaker Meeting House.
CHARLESTON’S BEACHES: Charleston is fortunate in possession of resort beaches which are easily accessible. Sullivan’s Island, on which is old Fort Moultrie, has been a popular summering place for many many years. Beyond it is the Isle of Palms, with its nine-mile strand. A notable pavilion has been a feature since 1899. Both of these islands are reached by way of the Cooper River Bridge and the bridge over Cove Inlet, between Mount Pleasant and Sullivan’s Island. The latter and the Isle of Palms are separated by Breach Inlet, over which is a modern bridge. By way of the Ashley River Bridge, thence through James Island, is the route to Folly Beach, with its seven-mile strand. An entertainment pier was built in time for the season of 1931; this is over the water at high tide. To the east of Folly Beach is Morris Island where stands the Charleston Light, the first and only Colonial light south of the Delaware capes. To the west is the desirable Island of Kiawah, property of the late Major Arnoldus Vanderhorst.
PETIGRU’S GRAVE, in St. Michael’s Yard: When Woodrow Wilson was attending the peace conference at Paris, a message came to Charleston that the president wished the inscription from the grave of James Louis Petigru in St. Michael’s Churchyard. It was furnished at once by Joseph M. Poulnot, then postmaster at Charleston. Mr. Petigru was an eminent South Carolinian. Notwithstanding that he opposed Nullification and Secession he held the high opinion of the community, and commanded its respect. Mr. Petigru, through his mother, was a grandson of the French Protestant Pastor Jean Louis Gibert, who led French settlers to the Abbeville section in the late 1760’s. The inscription on his tomb which is widely quoted says in part:
Future Times will hardly know
How great a Life
This simple stone commemorates;
The tradition of his Eloquence,
His Wisdom, and his Wit may fade:
But he lived for Ends more durable than Fame.
His learning illuminated the principles of Law:
His Eloquence was the Protection of the Poor and Wronged.
In the Admiration of his Peers:
In the Respect of his People:
In the Affection of his Family,
His was the highest Place:
The just Mead
of his Kindness and Forbearance,
His Dignity and his Simplicity,
His brilliant Genius and his unwearied Industry.
Unawed by Opinion,
Unseduced by Flattery:
Undismayed by Disaster,
He confronted Life with antique Courage:
And Death with Christian Hope:
In the great Civil War
He withstood his People for his Country:
But his People did Homage to the Man
Who held his Conscience higher than their Praise:
And his Country
Heaped her Honours upon the Grave of the Patriot,
To whom, living,
His own righteous self-Respect sufficed
Alike for Motive and Reward.
Mr. Petigru’s funeral took place March 10, 1863. To a Unionist who went with his people into Secession, highest honors were paid even while the forces of the United States were battering away at Charleston!
A HOUSE OF TRAGEDIES, the Hanging of Lavinia Fisher: In 1820 lawlessness on the “Neck” northward of Charleston was regnant. “Gangs of white desperadoes occupied certain houses and infested the roads leading to the city. To such an extent did these outlaws carry their excesses that wagoners and others coming to the City were under the necessity of carrying rifles in their hands for their defense. Travelers passed these houses with fear and trembling. More dreaded than others of these haunts was that known as the Six-Mile (?) house, occupied by John Fisher and Lavinia, his wife,” says King’s Newspaper Press of Charleston. Fisher and his wife were taken into custody and high crimes and misdemeanors charged against them. In the cellar of their roadhouse were found the bones of guests they had murdered. Their motive was robbery. Their house was on the Meeting Street Road, a section of the Old State Road, Charleston to Columbia. The Fishers were tried and convicted in Charleston. According to King they were hanged February 18, 1820, “at 2 o’clock, just within the lines, on a hill east of the Meeting Street Road, about eight hundred yards north of the street known as Line Street continued.” Mrs. Fisher was unnerved and “called upon the immense throng assembled to rescue her and implored pity with outstretched and trembling hands.” King is mistaken about the Six-Mile house, as authorities say that it was the Four-Mile house, the site of which is readily located; it is four miles from the Charleston Court House on the Meeting Street Road, about a mile north of Magnolia Crossing, and visible from the King Street Extension which is the Charleston approach by the Coastal Highway, United States 52.
Monument to Defenders of Fort Moultrie on The Battery
