The boxed pews, such as these made of red cedar in old St. Michael’s Church, were a common method of raising money for congregations in historic #Charleston. The boxes were considered the property of those families who leased them, and the lease money would pay for church maintenance and salaries. There are records throughout Charleston’s history of advertisements for pew leases, and in many cases, sub-leases. The concept lasted until the 20th century, when pews were made available to the public in houses of worship all over town, and the collection plate or basket became the method of gathering cash. An old joke among some parishioners at places such as St. Michael’s is that the most sought-after pews were the boxes behind the pulpit, making it easier to go unnoticed if dozing off during a sermon. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Boxed Pews”
Category: Curiosities
Picturesque Piazzas
Many of the historic houses in #Charleston are graced with full-length side porches known by the Italian name piazza. The meaning and the pronunciation are different in Charleston however. We say “pee AH zuh”, while the Italians pronounce it “pee AHTSA”. It literally is translated as “square” referring to the open inner courtyards of public buildings in historic Italy that were bordered by covered breezeways, creating what the Italians called a “salotto a cielo aperto” or “open air living room”. Not lost in translation is the purpose of the covered area, which was to shade and cool the breezes that swept through them and into windows. This became an effective method for enduring the heat of Charleston in the days before electricity, and on most streets in the historic areas of the city, the piazza is still as notable feature.<img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”The Piazza”
Gorgeous Greens
The Village of Harleston was created asa suburb of #Charleston in the 1770’s, the name coming from the large tract of high land that bordered the Ashley River, known as Harleston Green. A handful of homes were erected in the late 18th century by planters who wanted to escape the summer sizzle, but the open breezy meadows were largely used for recreation by a large contingent of Scottish merchant immigrants, who brought with them the new game called golf. Whacking away with odd-shaped clubs with names like the niblick, they swatted balls made of sheep and goat skin into appointed holes. And thus the first golf association in America was formed by 1786 as the Harleston Green Golf Club. Today, the green spaces in what’s now called Harleston Village are as beckoning, but the only thing that swings these days are the gates to the garden areas that replaced former fairway. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Harlesto
n Green”
Fearsome Fortress
The imposing District Jail looms over Magazine Street in downtown #Charleston with its fortress-like crenelations that make for a very forbidding facade. The jail first opened in 1802 as a much smaller structure, and was extensively remodeled in the 1850’s to stand four stories high as a stark example of punishments that was harsh in those days, and made to look like an imposing castle. It was severely damaged by the 1886 earthquake, and restored at the current height of three stories. Among the famous and infamous held here were murderer Lavinia Fisher, hanged in 1822 and who supposedly still haunts the jail today; Denmark Vesey, whose attempted slave uprising also earned him a place on the gallows; as well as hundreds of Federal soldiers, some brought up from Andersonville prison when Sherman marched through Georgia, who were briefly kept here as captives during the Civil War. The building was never used as a city jail, which is commonly told to visitors, but as a district and then county jail, and closed in 1939. <img.src=”Charleston Landmarks” alt=”Old District Jail
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Scot Spot
The First Scots Presbyterian Church on Meeting Street in historic #Charleston is among the oldest in the city, completed in 1814. The church replaced the original Scottish “Kirk” built on this site in 1731, which was too small for the expanding congregation by the 19th century. The builders were also Scots, John and James Gordon, who in the frugal Scottish tradition, saved the cost of a steeple with a pair of domed towers, The concept had come from another pair Scots, Robert and James Adam, whose Adam style swept America in the early 1800’s. One tower had a bell that was donated to the Confederacy and melted down for cannon, and the church went without chimes until the current bell was installed in 1999. We go past the First Scot church on my walking tours, and often hear organ or bagpipe music. <img.src=”Charleston Landmarks” alt=”First Scots Presbyterian Church
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Washington’s Warriors
The Washington Light Infantry Monument in #Charleston #SC is and obelisk very reminiscent of, in a smaller scale, the Washington monument. The irony is not only that they are both named in honor of George Washington, but that the Washington Monument was designed by Charleston-born Robert Mills, the same architect who designed the building in background of this picture, the Fireproof Building. The obelisk stands in Washington Square, erected in 1892 in honor of the Washington Light Infantry, a volunteer military organization created in 1807. Soldiers of the WLI have served in every American conflict from the War of 1812 until World War II. <img.src=”Charleston Landmarks” alt=”Washington Light Infantry Monument 
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Factually Fictional
This idyllic image of the grand Regency-style mansion on Rutledge Avenue in #CharlestonSC seems to come from some dream of the past when it was owned by the man many believe Margaret Mitchell fashioned her character of Rhett Butler in “Gone With The Wind”. The house built for Patrick Duncan in 1816, was bought in 1845 by Charleston banker George Alfred Trenholm. Trenholm was everything the novel and movie portrayed in Butler, who was said to be from Charleston – dashing ladies’ man, expert with dueling pistols, and financer of blockade-running ships that brought in supplies during the #Civil War. Ironically, the house of the ladies’ man has been home since 1909 to Ashley Hall School – a girls school. My mother taught school at Ashley Hall for many years. <img.src=”Charleston Landmarks
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Eventual Edifice
The first Catholic cathedral in the South was begun in #Charleston in 1850, with a brownstone, Gothic Revival design by Irish-born architect Patrick Keely of Brooklyn, New York. The church was finished an consecrated in 1854 as the Cathedral of St. John an St. Finbar, but was destroyed seven years later in a great fire that swept the city in 1861. Keely was called on again to design a replacement structure on the same site, but it was nearly 30 years later. Charleston’s fortunes were decimated by the Civil War, the the Catholic diocese had barely enough money to build at all, and the replacement church, named the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist was constructed piece-meal over 17 years and after Keely’s death in 1896. Consecrated in 1907, the cathedral opened unfinished, lacking a steeple that cost too much, and for more than a century, it was a flat-topped structure until the current steeple was finally completed in 2010. We go past the church on my tour on most days, and I point out that my parents were married in the structure. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
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Prehistoric Peculiarity
A common sight along the scenic coast of #SouthCarolina this time of year is the helmet-shaped shell of the Horseshoe Crab. This unusual creature, whose real name is Limilus Polyphemus, is actually not a crab at all, but closely related to spiders and other arachnids. Scientists have evidence that Horseshoe crabs have existed for millions of years and benefit from having no natural enemies. The outer shell, called a prosoma, has two eyes, but the creature is mostly nocturnal, feeding and mating in shallow ocean beachfronts. It also displays a long sharp tail, or telson, that is used primarily for flipping the crab over if waves turn it upside down in sand. The unusual look is not the only thing odd about the Horseshoe crab. It’s rare copper-based blood contains elements that are extremely important in human medicine, and are commonly used to test sterility of syringes and surgical tools. Visitors wandering area beaches such as Sullivan’s island and Isle of Palms will often see the horseshoe crabs washed up near the dunes. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Horseshoe Crab”
Consumption Conundrum
Prior to Prohibition in the 1920’s and 30’s, South Carolina had experienced its own form of alcohol control with the Dispensary Act of 1893, which banned private sales of alcoholic beverages. The state of South Carolina took over the sale of what was termed “alcoholic merchandise” with state-operated dispensaries and all alcohol was sold in bottles with the insignia of the era, a Palmetto tree with crossed palmetto logs from the South Carolina state seal. The dispensary system was marked with corrupt officials as well as a new wave of bootlegging, mostly in the #Charleston area, all of which led to the system being repealed in 1907. Today, the old dispensary bottles are collector’s items, and one new distillery has adopted the old insignia for its new product. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”The Dispensary System
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