We cross several cobblestone surfaces during the tour, which once spread across more than ten miles of city streets. Cobblestones are lump-shaped rocks weathered by erosion, and should not be confused with cut stone surfaces known as Belgian Block. Cobblestones are not native to coastal South Carolina, but come from places such as New England, where sailing ships built during the colonial era needed heavy ballast in their hulls to keep them upright in strong winds.
The piles of cobblestones were an easy solution to the ballast needs, but took up space that could be used for cargo. So when ships came to old Charleston to load bales of cotton or barrels of rice, there ballast was often dumped on our wharves to make room for the weighty goods. The new stone was ideal for paving Charleston’s sandy muddy streets, and for building foundations for fortifications, and providing landfill for mudflats and marshes. By the 1720’s, Charleston customs officers were offering freedom from taxes and duties on goods in return for tons of ballast, and long stretches of street benefitted from the layers of stones.
In old pictures, it is hard to see some of the cobblestones buried in soil and sand, and it has been erroneously written that many of our streets were dirt up through the War Between the States. Cobblestones were and still are rough, however, and Belgian Block, vitrified brick, and creosote planks were also used to make some streets less teeth-chattering. By the end of World War I, many city streets had been paved in the new synthetic surface of asphalt, and the cobblestone streetscape was greatly diminished.
Only five driveable thoroughfares are paved in cobblestone today – Chalmers Street, Maiden Lane, South Adgers Wharf, North Adgers Wharf, and Gillon Street. There are some still scattered in place such as Longitude Lane and Philadelphia Alley, but in areas primarily for walking. Many cobblestones survive as pavement in private driveways, obviously “borrowed” over the years from the aging streets.
Month: August 2011
Families Ties
Each day on my tour, I typically show people the work of Sweetgrass basket weavers such as Betty Manigualt and Marilyn Dingle. Both Betty and Marilyn learned this ancient African weaving method as children, carrying on a long-standing tradition that has been handed down among local families for many generations. I have also been fortunate to have as friends the Wigfall family out in Six Mile, and have been invited on several occasions to document their interesting work in keeping this art work alive. The Wigfalls showed me how they gathered sweetgrass by hand in wetlands on Dewees Island, where they had to stoop over bundles of the wispy green plant and reach down into areas where cottonmouth moccasins often lurk. The key is to twist the bundles of sweetgrass above the roots and harvest it in a way that the plant can continue to grow. The grass has to be dried before weaving, and one of the more interesting methods that the Wigfalls used was to throw bundles up on a gable roof to dry in the sun without blowing away. We also cut some palmetto fronds and bull rush as well as picking up long leaf pine, all of which complement the sweetgrass in a typical basket.
I’ve learned from all the weavers that stitching all these materials together is a laborious process that take a great deal of patience and skill. I was particularly impressed that Betty and Marilyn learned to stitch as children using 10-penny nails and beef bones. Today, most weavers stitch with a broken fork or spoon handle that is filed down to a narrow point, and they still call the tool a “nailbone”, with the obvious reference to days when all their enslaved ancestors had to work with was a discarded nail or animal bone.
The Wigfall’s have a family Marilyn sets up along the sidewalk next to St. Michael’s church, where she weaves in front of passersby. She is a very good-natured person who has been weaving for 64 years, so I tell people on the tour that she started when she was two, which always gets a laugh out of her. Betty is also a very pleasant, engaging person who sets up in front of the Historic Charleston Foundation shop at 108 Meeting Street, where she weaves each day and sometimes includes her daughter and grand daughter. She always tells the tour group “come back and let’s make a deal!”
In buying sweetgrass baskets, it is a acceptable to barter, but people should remember that some of these creations are painstakingly done by hand stitch by stitch, and that some more elaborate baskets will take weeks to weave, working until hands get aching and weary. So I hope all will remember Betty, Marilyn, and the Wigfall family and that the sweetgrass tradition will remain in such good hands.
Ghost of the Whistling Doctor
Charleston is famous for stories of ghosts who supposedly haunt houses, graveyards and alleys. One of the most often-told tales is about the “Ghost of the Whistling Doctor” at 59 Church Street. After the Revolutionary War, upstairs rooms in this house were offered for rent, and a New England physician named Joseph Brown Ladd became a tenant. Dr. Ladd quickly became a recognized figure in Charleston, writing popular poetry for local publications under the pen name Arouet. The doctor was known as a pleasant individual who whistled as he walked to his office down the street, where his practice included free medical treatment for the poor from two hours each morning.
Doctor Ladd did not get along with everyone, however, and was embroiled in a heated personal dispute that ended in a deadly duel. On October 19th, 1786, a Charlestonian named Ralph Isaacs wrote a scathing public letter denouncing Dr. Ladd as a fraud and accusing him of assault with a pistol. Two days later, Ladd and Isaacs squared off with pistols behind the old barracks at the site of the present College of Charleston. Dr. Ladd was shot in both knees, which was a particularly cruel and vengeful thing for Isaacs to do. The doctor was carried back to his room at 59 Church Street, where he died of infection two weeks later.
In a story published shortly after his death, it was written that Dr. Ladd’s “soul serenely seems to soar”, and since then 59 Church Street is legendary as being haunted by Doctor Ladd’s ghostly whistling as he comes up and down the stairs and down the street. On a recent tour, a nice family from New Jersey took a picture of the house while I told the tale, and the interesting image appeared. I have always said that I know why the house is haunted. The plaque near its door tells the story, but has Dr. Ladd’s name wrong, and I think he’s just whistling in an attempt to get his name right when people pass by and read.