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During the Revolution, Charleston was captured by the British and occupied by English troops for two years, between 1780-82. Local families were ordered to house British officers, who also insisted upon social events in which the daughters of the city were compelled to attend and entertain. Three pre-Revolutionary houses in the South of Broad district have interesting stories involving those British officers’ interest in Charleston’s young ladies.
At 22 Legare Street, Charleston’s Elliott family was instructed to hold an event, and their young daughter Jane attended and attracted the attention of several English cavalry officers. Jane had fallen in love with an American officer, Col. William Washington, before the occupation, and was able to follow accounts of his battles with the British in the areas outside the city. Washington had famously defeated the English cavalry shortly before the social event at the battle of Eutaw Springs, where his cavalry charge caused the British to turn and run. When Ms. Elliott was approached by the English officers, she reminded them that she was engaged to Col. Washington. When one cavalryman dismissively said, “who’s he?, Jane answered by saying, “if you looked behind you during your retreat from Eutaw Springs, my fiance’ was the officer leading the charge that chased you off the field.” After that, no English officer bothered Jane Elliott again.
At the 1740’s house 2 Ladson Street, another legendary encounter took place between British officer Archibald Campbell and Charleston’s Margaret Philp. “Mad Archie”, as he was known, became so enchanted with Ms. Philp that he invited her for a carriage ride, then drove to the Goose Creek church, where he orderd the minister at gunpoint to perform a marriage ceremony. The marriage that began at gunpoint ended when a gunshot killed Campbell at the late stages of the war.
Campbell’s cousin, Lord William Campbell, fared better by actually getting a Charleston woman, Sarah Izard, to consent to marriage before the Revolution began. Campbell was appointed Royal Governor of South Carolina by King George III, and took his post in 1775, living in the house at 34 Meeting Street, which belonged to the Izard family. Lord William instantly antagonized the local sons of liberty by sending messages to the upstate to arouse loyalists. Fortunately for him, the 1760’s era house was built with a rear passageway that led to old Vanderhorst Creek (now Water Street), and it was through this back door that Lord William escaped in September, 1775, when it looked as though he might be hanged from the nearest tree.

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.

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.

We call the Romanesque Revival structure at the Northwest corner of Washington Park the Fireproof Building – even though it has actually caught fire.

 The massive building with the Roman “tetra” style portico (that’s four columns) was designed by Charleston native Robert Mills as the winning entry for a city competition to create a non-combustible structure to house official documents. The area on which the Fireproof building was finished in 1827 had been home to a brick beef market, and had burned twice in 1796, and city officials simply left it open as a fire break. In 1801, an Adamesque style Federal bank was built on the site of the old beef market, but when it closed and was sold to Charleston, it became our City Hall in 1818, and the open area behind it was designated as City Hall Park.

 An architectural competition ensued to build a structure on the park opposite the new City Hall that would be impervious to fire, and Mills’ design was the winner. He created a two-story building on a raised basement that would feature Neo-Classical features built of red sandstone, brick, iron and glass. As the Fireproof Building, the temple-like building famously survived through fire, bombardment, and earthquake as one of Charleston’s iconic structures, and became home to the South Carolina Historical Society after World War II.

  Ironically, or woodenly, the building’s simple fire insurance policy was allowed to lapse, and sure enough, an office fire swept through its furnishings, paper and interior framing in 1955, scarring the old edifice.

  The Fireproof Building survives today with name intact, but its legacy as a structure impervious to burning has certainly gone down in flames.

Performances at The Dock Street Theatre are held on Church Street at the original stage location on Queen Street – a confusing past with which I have a personal history.

  The first American structure built for theatrical performances was opened in 1736 on a street originally known for its shipping docks, but two years before, the city had flattered King George II by redubbing the street in honor of his expecting wife Anne, but the theatre continued to be called by the old street name.

  The term Dock Street lived on, but the building was short-lived, destroyed by fire in 1754. Rebuilt and damaged by fire again, the property was sold in 1809 as part of The Planter’s Hotel, whose entrance was around the corner on Church Street, but did include a small stage in keeping with other city taverns and public dining rooms of that era that often featured itinerant actors, singers and acrobats.

   The hotel was refurbished during the mid 19^th century with distinctive ribbed brownstone columns and an intricate second-floor balcony, on which Charleston horse-racing jet-set were known to gather after events for libations that local legend says included a concoction called Planters Punch.

   With a fading post-Civil War economy and more modern hotel competition, the old structure entered the 20^th century like many faded Charleston landmarks – dilapidated and ripe for demolition. A plan to revive the long-vanished theater would bring salvation in the form of a federal grant from the depression-era New Deal program, and in 1937, a The Dock Street Theatre reopened with a performance of The Recruiting Officer – the same play performed when the theatre first raised its curtains in 1736.  The new theatre has performed far better than its original namesake, as home to local stage companies and host to musical and theatrical events for more than a century. First of these community companies was the Footlight Players, and as a “footlight” I played leading roles in five plays on the Dock Street stage, incuding this picture from “The Match Maker”. That’s me in the upper right, flanked by from left to right, Kit Lyons, Jo Anne Marcell, and Oliver Bowman.

The famous Sword Gates at 32 Legare Street offer one historic case in which misinterpretation of the English language proved to be Charleston’s blessing. In 1838, city authorities commissioned German-born ironsmith Christopher Werner to create a “pair of gates” for the old Guard House at the corner of Meeting and Broad streets.

  Werner apparently assumed that meant two separate gates, rather than two halves of the same gate. He diligently went to work with his apprentices, pounding out an incredibly detailed pair of wrought iron masterpieces that featured two large swords facing inward horizontally on either side, as well as spears pointing vertically on either side. Both motifs were old Roman symbols of strength and power, well-suited for the Guard House, which was home to the city police.

  Upon presentation to the city, Werner was informed that there was only need for one set of “gates”, not two separate ones. One set was mounted at the entrance to the Guard House, and the other was put up for sale. Merchant George Hopley bought the extra gates for his home on Legare Street, replacing a large wooden gate that dated to the early 19^th century, when Madame Talvande kept the house as an academy for young girls from elite families.

  Hopley’s gates survive today as the most photographed and famed set of gates in a city renowned for wrought iron, and no doubt add significantly to the $23 million price tag on 32 Legare today. The original Guard House gates were removed from the Broad Street location after the building was severely damaged in the earthquake of 1886 that wrecked much of old Charleston. The police were moved to the Central Station on Hutson street in 1887, and the gates were put in storage, eventually to be remounted at the Citadel, when the military academy moved from Marion Square to its present site along the Ashley River. Today, those gates, painted gold, flank the entrance to the campus, but are not as imposing because they are separated by the street entrance.

 As it turns out, the unwanted extra gates are by far the most noticed and famous today, all thanks to a slight misunderstanding in 1838.

The gleaming Spire of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church stands as a great testimonial to Charleston’s ability to survive disaster. The belfry on the 1761 church was used for many years as a fire lookout. A “steepleman” was posted in the open arcaded area, and if he saw evidence of a fire, would go down the narrow stairs to the “ringing room” and pull eight strokes on a rope attached to the largest bell above. This 1900-pound bell could be heard throughout the old city, and firemen on the old “engine companies” were trained to listen for the signal. From almost any vantage point, they could have seen St. Michael’s steeple, and the steepleman’s next job was to climb back up to the arcade, light a lantern, and hang it on a pole pointing in the direction of the fire. This method was used until the city put up separate fire bell towers in the 1880’s as part of Charleston’s first municipal fire department.

  S. Michael’s steeple was also used during wars as a military look-out, manned by local soldiers during the Revolution and War Between the States to observe besieging forces around Charleston. By 1863, Union troops on Morris Island were bombarding the city regularly with rifled cannons that could easily hit the glaring target that St. Michael;s made, so the city painted church and steeple a slate gray so that it would blend in with the horizon from a distance.

  Since the bombardment in the 1860’s, the steeple survived direct hits during the earthquake of 1886, when it was supported with huge beams to prevent its collapse, and when a 1938 hurricane struck on ironically, St. Michael’s Day, Sept. 29^th.

 As we approach the sesquicentennial of the firing on Fort Sumter and the remembrance of Charleston’s Confederate history, I’d like to clarify the popular names of famous Southern flags that are often confused. Many people have heard the name “Stars and Bars” and understandably associate that name with the famed Confederate banner that features the blue cross of St. Andrews on a red field, with white trim and white stars. In fact the “Stars and Bars” is the first national Confederate flag, created in March, 1861, featuring red and white “bars”, or stripes, and seven stars inside a blue field in the dexter corner.

There were four versions of the Stars and Bars, representing differing numbers of stars for states in the Confederacy, or sympathizing with the Confederacy at different times during the War Between the States.

The St. Andrews cross flag is the Confederate battle flag, which was first unfurled in November, 1861, as a soldier’s flag. It was created to distinguish Confederates from Union troops, whose Stars and Stripes and Stars and Bars looked similar when hanging limp from a flag pole. Originally, the army battle flag was square, with navy blue in its cross, or saltire, and the rectangular version was actually first created as a naval jack for ships, with a brighter blue saltire. But the rectangular flag became popular among many infantry units, and what is commonly flown today has the navy blue cross.