The Middleton-Pinckney House on George Street represents the high-water mark of Charleston wealth in the post-Revolutionary period, and ironically was literally pumping tons of water daily one hundred years later.
The 1796 Federal-style structure was built for wealthy widow Frances Motte Middleton, who later married Gen, Thomas Pinckney. Both came from powerful, influential families that prospered from rice plantations that made Charleston among the wealthiest cities in colonial America.
The outer elegance would survive Civil War and Charleston’s economic decline, but the spacious interior was gutted for steam powered shafts that pumped water through pipe mains first created throughout the city by the early 1880’s, as the old mansion became home to the city water utility. Until the post-Civil War period, shallow wells and rainwater had been Charleston’s water supply, and the populace suffered from water-borne diseases spread by germs that festered in the city’s heat. A new artesian well system was successfully completed in 1878, allowing for the pumping of 3 million gallons daily from a huge reservoir behind the house.
In 1933, a public swimming pool was built on the property, and was used until 1963. By that time, Charleston’s water supply was primarily derived from the Edisto River, but the artesian flow continued until the 1980’s when the underground aquifer dried up.
The Middleton-Pinckney House is now home to administrative offices for Spoleto USA, Charleston’s annual international arts and music festival, and presumably it is a welcome signal from the past if the roof springs an occasional leak.