Charleston Footprints Walking Tours is the highest rated on Google reviews. I conduct all the tours as a 7th generation Charlestonian, and I have an extensive knowledge of the city’s history, architecture, legends, gardens, ironwork, fortifications, and can answer any question about Charleston with knowledge and confidence. It is a two-hour walking tour of Charleston, ideal for visitors and tourists who want to get a complete overview of the city.
The captivating color found throughout Charleston in its architecture, gardens, wildlife, and landscapes. Aesthetic beauty has both an inspiring and a calming effect, and the opportunity to immerse ourselves in this picturesque palette perhaps explains the traditional unhurried nature of Charlestonians, compelling so many to visit and embrace the abundance on display each day, while inspiring one of our own known for visual portrayals of the city to say long ago, “The slower measure which we tread has brought many to visit us who have run the race too rapidly.”
Hailed once as the tallest building in the world, the Washington monument was the brainchild of a Charlestonian who won fame for designing a lunatic asylum. The Washington Monument was designed in 1836 by Charleston-born architect Robert Mills, who had become nationally-heralded for creating imposing classical structures with innovative fireproof concepts, such as our own Fireproof Building and the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, both finished in 1827. Mills based his original design on the popularity of Roman and Greek styles that were popular at that time, and his version called for a obelisk with surrounding columns at its base. The original design was altered and completed in 1884.<img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Robert Mills”
On my walking tours of historic Charleston, I like to give visitors information from top to bottom, literally. One of the scenic aspects found in many of the older buildings in the city comes from changes made long after they were built. One such common look is the Mansard roof. The high-hipped style of this rood became very popular in the Victorian era – late 1800’s and early 1900’s. That was a time when many residents of Charleston were cash poor after the Civil War and usually could not afford to build new houses. So what they often did was to add a new detail to the house that was already there, and today you’ll see numerous Mansard roofs on buildings that were built many years before that became stylish. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Mansard Roof”
ST. PHILIP’S
St. Philip’s is the oldest congregation in the city, but not the oldest structure. The original St. Philip’s church was built in 1680, where St. Michael’s stands today, and after the parish was split in two in 1706, a new St. Philip’s was planned on what is now Church Street. The 1723 structure burned in 1835, and the current church was begun the same year.
The grand interior was designed by architect Joseph Hyde, who replicated the Mannerist style of that English architect James Gibbs featured in St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. The exception details of plasterer Thomas Weaver and wood-joiner William Axson give the church nave a spectacular appearance, and the splendor of processional ceremonies is enhanced by a more recent addition – the 1970’s antiphonal organ, with its horizontal pipes that send sound waves booming across to the chancel and back.
The 198-foot steeple was added in 1848, designed by Edward Brickell White, and all eleven of the original bells were donated to the Confederacy and melted down for cannon. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”St. Philip’s Church”
The lady in the painting is my great-great-great grandmother, Caroline Poincignon Trouche, who was born in 1810, and I would love to have heard her and other Charlestonians from that era speak. As a child I had conversations with a great aunt who was born about the time Caroline died, so I can say with some authority as to what Charlestonians like her sounded like long ago, and it was not like those phony Southern stereotypes in movies or on TV, or in the case of a New Jersey-born tour guide in Savannah, who puts on a fake accent that’s a cross between Gone With The Wind and the Beverley Hillbillies. My great aunt did not “drawl”, nor did Caroline, but spoke much the same as I do now, and anyone living in Charleston today who drawls obviously learned that way of speech from somewhere outside the old city. And by drawl I mean pronunciations like “pay-ohnds” for “pounds”….which you can hear as much in Indiana as anywhere else. The British influence on Charleston speech was very much the standard in what was a well-educated society like Caroline’s French immigrant parents, and this explains what many visitors think is a Canadian accent when we say “house” almost like “hoose” and soften consonant endings in words like “car” very much as English people do today, and many of us still add a “y” sound to certain words such as “cyar” for an automobile and “gyarden” for the place you grow flowers.
Beginning in the 1730’s there were large numbers of Scots and Irish moving to Charleston for more than a century, adding a brogue sound to the mix that is very similar to what I heard in Northern Ireland. They gave some words a double-syllable sound , as well as compressing the vowels in others. Thus “gate” sounded like “gehyet”, “boat” like “bowat” and “door” like “dowah”, while compressing “line” to sound like “loyn”, “fish” like “fush” and “to” like “toe”. What these combinations did would eventually lead to exclusively pronunciations – “Cooper” is pronounced like “look” or “cook”, “Gourdin” is pronounced “goodine”, “Gaillard” is “gilyard”, and “Horry” is “ORE-ee”. And of course “y’all” became the standard for any group of others and shows how badly Charleston speech traditions have been eroded by recent transplants who have largely replaced it with the awful “you guys” that sometimes sounds like “you gice”. Women are not “guys” and “y’all” or “you all” is much more correct and pleasant sounding. <img.src=”Charleston Culture” alt=”Local Accents”
SYMBOLIC SEALS – Our state and city seals are overloaded with Latin and Greek terms and symbols that were so popular in the late 1700’s when they were created. The state seal has the motto “Dum Spiro Spero”, meaning “while I breathe, I hope” and “Animis Opibusque Parati”, “prepared in mind and resources”. The original version featured the Roman goddess of Hope, Spes, holding a scepter of authority topped by the Phrygian cap symbolizing the French revolution and fight for liberty, while holding a laurel wreath symbolic of triumph. Beside her is a Revolutionary soldier, and above them Epheme, Greek goddess of proclamation. A later version has Spes holding a flower, symbolic of the birth of a nation, with a new dawn rising. Instead of the soldier, there is the palmetto tree standing on oak logs, symbolic of the victory on Sullivan’s Island over the British fleet when palmetto logs proved to be the difference, and the dates March 26th, the day we declared independence from England, and July 4th, the birth of our nation. The Latin “Quis Separabit” means “who separates” and “Meliorem Lapsa Locavit” means “better let free”. The state seal we have today incorporates both versions. The Charleston seal, according to the city website, features “a female figure” overlooking the town, to which I say, come on city, grab a mitt and get in the game! If mythical figures were used in the state seal, certainly the same would apply to the city. I strongly believe the woman is Athena, Greek goddess and protector of wisdom, culture, architecture, civilization, and law, and who is depicted historically holding an authoritative scepter as she does in the seal, with the Latin “Aedes Mores Juraque Curat”, meaning “she guards buildings, customs and laws”. The first city seal showed “Corpus Politicum”, meaning “body politic”, and there were several versions of the city seal over the years, evolving in what we have today with the Latin term “Civitatis Regimine Donata”, meaning “given to the rule of the citizens”, and “Carolopolis”, a combination of the Latin “Carolus”, meaning Charles and the Greek “Polis”, meaning town, above Condita A.D. 1670, which is “established year of our Lord 1670”, as well as the symbols of the lamp, books, quill and parchment, indicating culture and civilization, as well as the palm fronds, and ancient symbol of triumph, peace, and eternal life. Great irony, considering all the symbols of freedom, is that when we declared independence from England and were initially a sovereign state, all power was briefly given to John Rutledge, who was nicknamed “dictator” of South Carolina. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Government Seals”
One of the great treats that those taking my walking tour get to enjoy, is a visit to the historic High Battery overlooking scenic Charleston Harbor. This is certainly the most photographed location in the city, with a breathtaking view in every location, whether it’s the harbor and Fort Sumter, or the grand houses known as Battery Row. There is a curios look to the old Ravenel House that many visitors ask about, wondering why it protrudes at the bottom. The answer is that the 1840’s mansion was built with an enormous two-story portico of Corinthian columns, all of which came crashing down in the earthquake that struck Charleston in 1886, and has never been replaced. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Ravenel House”
Touring historic Charleston offers a wide variety of impressive architectural sights, as the city is blessed with some of the grandest buildings in America. One of the most noticeable was the longest in construction – the U.S. Custom House on East Bay Street. The building was begun in 1852 in a location that had once been a wharf slip and was mostly landfill. Seven hundred pilings were driven by steam power into the marl to support the mammoth structure of granite, marble brick and masonry. Designed by New Hampshire native Ammi Young, the design was in the popular Greek Revival style of the period, and was meant to look somewhat similar to the Acropolis with Corinthian columned porticoes intended for all four sides. Work was halted with he coming of Secession and Civil War, and it wasn’t until the 1870’s that Congress was willing to devote money to its completion, and the design was scaled back with only from and back porticoes. The Construction was finally completed in 1879. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Custom House”
Those who visit scenic Charleston and enjoy activities such as my Charleston Footprints Walking Tour are typically taken by our pronunciation of certain historic names. One such is a location we pass on the tour each day, Vanderhorst Row. The 1800 Federal style tenement is striking in itself, but most are more curious as to why we say “vandross” rather than making it 3 syllables. In fact, that is the true Dutch pronunciation of the name, and the person who had it built and for which is named played a major role in city and state history, so we want it to be correct. Arnoldus Vanderhorst was born near the city in 1748, and became a successful planter and politician, adding to the voices for liberty during the Revolution, and serving in the American forces. After the war, he dedicated himself to civic deeds, twice becoming city mayor as well as Governor of the state in 1794. He was essential in reforming the court systems, that were made into the districts we have today as well as emphasizing education, and it was during his tenure as mayor that the College of Charleston was chartered, and is the oldest municipal college in America today. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”Vanderhorst Row”
