Notable Buildings | Charleston Walking Tours by Michael Trouche - Part 3Charleston Walking Tours by Michael Trouche

Bridge Beginnings

The William Gibbes House on South Battery Street in historic #Charleston, is today a fashionable residence two rows removed from the Ashley River. When it was built just prior to the American Revolution, however, the lot overlooked the water in what was then called South Bay. The namesake William Gibbes was a very successful Charleston entrepreneur who bought the lot as a ship landing for various enterprises that included the export of timber. Because the muddy, shallow bay afforded no natural slip for ocean-sailing ships, Gibbes built a “bridge”, as the early wharves were called. This was done by floating stones and debris on palmetto log rafts to deeper water, sinking them at low tide, and building or bridging wth more fill in between to create a protruding wharf, and the Gibbes built on South Bay was called “Gibbes Bridge”. The old wharf washed away long before the Civil War, and in the early 20th century, the South Bay area was filled by dredging up river bottom and creating what is now Murray Boulevard. But the bridge connection did not die with Gibbes, as a later owner of the house was Cornelia Farrow Roebling, widow of Washington Roebling, chief engineer and designer of the Brooklyn Bridge. <img.src=”Charleston Landmarks” alt=”William Gibbes House ”

High Hydration

The Middleton-Pinckney House, built in an elegant Adamasque fashion in #Charleston during the 1790’s, became a most unusual public facility in 1879, when it was made into the Charleston Waterworks. The city’s first successful artesian well was dug in 1879, tapping into massive subterranean aquifers whose positive pressure from centuries of water trickling downward, established a non-stop gushing flow upward that poured in millions of gallons each day. The old house was equipped with pumping mechanisms and just outside, a huge reservoir that would also serve the city in an unexpected capacity in 1933 by being diverted into the municipal swimming pool until 1963. <img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Middleton-Pinckney House”

Ear-ie Evolution

The massive tracker organ in St. Michael’s Anglican Church is one of the oldest, in part, and most changed ,in fact, here in historic #Charleston. The original organ, created by in 1767 by Swiss organ-builder John Snetzler, featured 21 stops and 900 pipes. The organ deteriorated in Charleston’s humid climate, and in 1834 the Henry Erben Company of new York rebuilt and refitted the organ with new word chest and pedals, and was called on again for more repairs in 1859. The organ was removed from the church during the bombardment of the Civil War and stored at St. Paul’s Church in Radcliffeborough. After image from the move and the war, English immigrant John Baker overhauled the the organ in 1871. More repairs came in 1910, as the Austin Organ Company of Connecticut refurbished and added to the mahogany case and in 1940, the manual bellows were replaced with electric motors. The last changes came in Ireland where the organ was reconstructed using parts of the original 1767 case, and today’s version has 40 stops and 2519 pipes. On most tours, I take the group into St. Michael’s for a first-hand look at the old organ.<img.src=”Charleston Curiosities” alt=”Snetzler Organ”

Colossal Custom

The building of the U.S. Custom House in #Charleston was one of the city’s most ambitious and long-unfinished projects. The site is on former wetlands and a location used by fisherman originally know as Fitzsimmons’ Wharf. The federally-financed project was begun in 1851 with steam engines driving 7,000 pilings 30 feet down into the hard subterranean marl. The edifice designed by architect Ammi Young called for tons of imported stone and a ponderous Greek Revival look with a towering four-sided colonnade. The Civil War interrupted the construction, and after hostilities, the federal government was very reluctant to spend much money on the recently-seceded state, so the design was reduced to two porticoes and not finished until 1879. Despite the lessened girth, the Custom House is nevertheless and imposing sight, standing high above it’s raised basement with its waterfront entrance steps enough to have become a popular grand stand for annual outdoor musical events.<img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Custom House”

Suave Side-hall

The side-hall single house design is fairly common in historic #Charleston, such as this 1850’s Italianate structure on Legare Street. The floor plan was a departure from the older single-house design, which featured a house with a single room width facing the street, bisected with a middle hall parallel to the street that separated rooms front and back on each floor. The problem with this kind of house is that the rooms are small and compartmentalized, which was not suit able for fancy entertaining by the 1820’s, when Charleston had become a very sociable city. The side-hall design took the hallway out of the middle of the house and put it on the side, perpendicular to the street, so that interior rooms would be interconnected by large archways, making the main floor potentially one big ballroom from the from of the house to the back. I often take my tour past our former residence on Legare Street and tell stories of what it was like growing up there. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Side-hall single house”

Paying Pews

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”

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”

Riverside Reminder

The circa 1800 Gaillard-Bennett House on Montagu Street is several blocks from the Ashley River today, but when it was built, it faced the water. The #Charleston peninsula was much different then, and on its western edge grand houses were built by prominent citizens to take advantage of the prevailing breezes that came over the Ashley. This Adam-style house built by Theodore Gaillard was designed with extensive side porches and windows to take in the cooling breezes, and it stands on a considerable lot that stretches back nearly one block. Filling of Ashley River marshes in the 1880’s left the grand old house high and dry, but it still retains its classic elegance, if not its breezy nature. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Gaillard-Bennett House ”

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”

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” alt=”Ashley Hall”