KB MB'-MMJlMlilllilllllB HHWIDIlilM ¦Hlwii»iiiiiiiiiiiMrtii^wriiiirviinii.nnniiifnTTniTft-rrnr"-^ ;*** - m% w MMIIWWWMMMIW^ D \ff^Aef»tiiMihmg if a. CatUgt u± titf Colony i >YAlM°WiWlEM.BWTY< ¦ ILIIIBISAISy • BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE Alfred E. Perkins Fund JSaSBa THE DWELLING HOUSES OF CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA THIS LIMITED EDITION HAS BEEN PRINTED FROM TYPE AND THE TYPE DISTRIBUTED THE DWELLING HOUSES OF CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA BY ALICE R. HUGER SMITH AND ' ' ' D. E. HUGER SMITH WITH US ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY ALICE R. HUGER SMITH, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS BY ALBERT SIMONS tilirjii • £?fe--J PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1917 PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. TO VLOTTE ALSTON READ T RECOGNITION Or THE SYMPATHY r> HELP ALWAYS UNOBTBUSIVELY THE SERVICE OF HIS FRIENDS PREFACE IN this volume the authors have endeavored to tell the story of the older dwelling houses of Charleston and the families inhabiting them. It has not been their object to list or to describe these dwelling houses after the manner of a guide-book, but to show how the fashions of its architecture, though imported and constantly modified by new ideas brought chiefly from England, have yet maintained local char acteristics, resulting in quite a distinctive style which has steadily persisted and been developed. This development lies spread before us in the Charles ton streets, where the houses of successive periods stand side by side, so little altered that the stranger is rather struck by the atmosphere and interest of the place as a whole than by the beauty or quaintness of a few out standing edifices. In trying to convey this impression we have naturally had to select out of the many available examples houses which, by their marked type, show best this thread of architectural growth, and we have treated of the families which constructed or dwelt in these houses. It is mani festly impossible to treat, even in a volume of this size, of every historic relic, but this necessary restraint has been harder because each public or private building has a history of its own, and about no place in this country has a greater mass of historical tradition collected. PREFACE Besides the authorities quoted throughout the text, we owe thanks to many kind friends for help and infor mation, and especially so to those who have enabled us to fill our pages with illustrations of the interiors of their homes. It would be impossible to enumerate fully the many ways in which we have been helped by Miss Fitzsimons and the staff of the Charleston Library, and by Miss Mabel Webber, Secretary of the South Carolina His torical Society. The interest of these ladies in our work has been constant, and they have brought to our atten tion much that has been of value. We have been assisted too in gathering our illustrations of ironwork by Mrs. Samuel G. Stoney, who put at our disposal her own notes on that subject. By the kindness of Mrs. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney we have been allowed access to the autograph accounts of the building of Chief Justice Pinckney's house, and we owe to her a photograph of its ruins after the fire of 1861. Our thanks are also due to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to reprint a description of this house from " Eliza Pinckney," by Harriott Horry Ravenel, published by them in 1896. Also thanks are due to the following: To Messrs. Harper & Brothers for allowing the reproduction of certain of the illustrations by Alice R. Huger Smith, which appeared in Harper's Magazine, October, 1915. To Mr. Frederick F. Sherman for a similar per mission as to her drawings appearing in Art in America. Also to Hon. Henry A. M. Smith and the South Carolina Historical Society for allowing the use of his PREFACE copy of the " Grand Model of Charles Town " as it appeared in the South Carolina Historical and Genea logical Magazine, January, 1908. From Mayor Courtenay's " Year Book of Charles ton," 1884, we reproduce the Hunter Map bearing date 1739, and from that of 1883 the facsimile of an impression of the Great Seal of the Lords Proprietors. We have not considered it necessary to note such recent architectural changes and additions as those made during the past year. A.R.H. S. Charleston, S. C, August, 1917 CONTENTS PAGE CHARLESTON AND ITS STORY 17 I. THE EARLIEST BUILDINGS AND THE FREQUENT FIRES 29 II. BREWTON'S CORNER AND THE OLD HOUSES THERE ... 41 III. VANDERHORST CREEK, WHITE POINT, AND "CHURCH STREET CONTINUED" 55 IV. A GROUP OF OLD HOUSES ON MEETING STREET 75 V. THE HOUSES BmLT BY MILES BREWTON, ROBERT PRINGLE AND WILLIAM BRANFORD 91 VI. EXAMPLES OF ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT FOL LOWING THE REVOLUTION 129 VII. THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF GRANVILLE'S BASTION 157 VIII. THE FORTIFICATIONS ON WHITE POINT, AND THE DE VELOPMENT OF EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES 171 IX. SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING STREET 185 X. SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS 205 XI. TRADD, ORANGE AND BROAD STREETS 235 XII. FROM THE CITY HALL TO THE OLD EXCHANGE, COLLE TON SQUARE, AND RHETTSBURY 257 XIII. ANSONBOROUGH, LAURENS SQUARE, AND GENERAL GADSDEN'S LAND 279 XIV. MAZYCKBORO, WRAGGBORO, THE CITADEL, THE ORPHAN HOUSE, AND THE FREE SCHOOL LAND 295 XV. THE GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND THE VILLAGE OF HARLESTON 309 XVI. BUILDING MATERIALS 337 XVII. THE BUILDING OF CHARLES PINCKNEY'S HOUSE IN COLLETON SQUARE 359 7 ILLUSTRATIONS FAOE SASS GATEWAY ON LEGARE STREET Frontispiece THE GREAT SEAL OF THE LORDS PROPRIETORS OF CAROLINA 18 "THE ICHNOGRAPHY OF CHARLES TOWN AT HIGH WATER". . 21 THE "GRAND MODELL" OF CHARLES TOWN 22 THE OLD ST. PHILIP'S, FROM "THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE" OF JUNE, 1753 33 COLONEL ROBERT BREWTON'S HOUSE, BUILT BEFORE 1733 44 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith LOOKING PAST THE CORNER OF ROBERT BREWTON'S HOUSE 45 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith RESIDENCE FOR " MANY YEARS " BEFORE 1762 OF JACOB MOTTE, PUBLIC TREASURER 51 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith KITCHEN OF JACOB MOTTE'S HOUSE 53 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith FORT MECHANIC IN 1796 59 Water Color by Charles Fraser MRS. MARSHALL'S HOUSE, BUILT BY GEORGE EVELEIGH BE TWEEN 1743 AND 1753 61 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith DRAWING-ROOM OF THE EVELEIGH HOUSE 65 Photograph by St. J. Melchers PLAN OF EVELEIGH HOUSE 67 Plan to Scale by Albert Simons HOUSES BUILT BY GEORGE EVELEIGH, GEORGE MATTHEWS, AND THOMAS YOUNG IN " CHURCH STREET CONTINUED " 69 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith THE CURVE OF CHURCH STREET 71 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith STAIRCASE IN THE HUGER HOUSE 79 Photograph by St. J. Melchers DRAWING-ROOM IN THE HUGER HOUSE 83 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE. STEPS FROM HOUSE TO COURTYARD 94 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith THE BREWTON-ALSTON-PRINGLE HOUSE, BUILT SOON AFTER 1765 95 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith THE LOWER HALL OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE 96 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith THE UPPER HALL OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE 97 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith PLAN OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE AND GROUNDS 98 By Albert Simons 9 ILLUSTRATIONS CARRIAGE-HOUSE OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE 100 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith NORTHWEST ARCH IN MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE 101 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith SERVANTS' HOUSE FROM THE GARDEN— MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE 102 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith PLAN OF SECOND FLOOR OF MLLES BREWTON'S HOUSE 103 By Albert Simons DETAIL OF ROOM IN MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE, FIRST FLOOR 105 Photograph by St. J. Melchers DRAWING-ROOM IN MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE 107 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MEASURED DRAWING OF MANTEL IN MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE 109 By Albert Simons MEASURED DRAWING OF DOOR IN MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE, FIRST FLOOR 110 By Albert Simons PLAN OF PRINGLE AND HORRY HOUSES, CORNER OF MEETING AND TRADD STREETS Ill By Albert Simons PLAN OF SECOND FLOOR OF HORRY HOUSE 112 By Albert Simons THE HORRY HOUSE, BUILT BETWEEN 1751 AND 1767, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. WM. H. DUNKIN 113 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith THE LOWER FLOOR OF THE HORRY HOUSE 115 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MEASURED DRAWING OF THE ENTRANCE HALL OF THE HORRY HOUSE 116 By Albert Simons MEASURED DRAWING OF THE DRAWING-ROOM OF THE HORRY HOUSE 117 By Albert Simons MANTEL IN HORRY HOUSE 118 Photograph by St. J. Melchers PIAZZA OF THE ROBERT PRINGLE HOUSE 121 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith ENTRANCE OF HOUSE BUILT 1774 BY JUDGE ROBERT PRINGLE ON TRADD STREET, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. ARTHUR RUTLEDGE YOUNG 123 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith MANTEL IN THE ROBERT PRINGLE HOUSE, FIRST FLOOR 125 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MANIGAULT HOUSE IN WRAGGBORO, BUILT BETWEEN 1790 AND 1797, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. SIDNEY RIGGS 135 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith PLAN OF MANIGAULT HOUSE AND GROUNDS i38 By Albert Simons 10 ILLUSTRATIONS GARDEN ENTRANCE OF MANIGAULT HOUSE 139 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith MANTEL IN MANIGAULT HOUSE 140 Photograph by St. J. Melchers DOORWAY IN MANIGAULT HOUSE 141 Photograph by St. J. Melchers JUDGE KING'S HOUSE, NOW THE HIGH SCHOOL, BUILT IN 1806 143 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith PLANS OF THE NATHANIEL RUSSELL HOUSE AND THE RAD- CLIFFE-KING HOUSE 144 By Albert Simons WINDOW IN THE HIGH SCHOOL, FORMERLY THE RESIDENCE OF JUDGE KING 145 Photograph by St. J. Melchers DOORWAY IN HIGH SCHOOL, FORMERLY THE RESIDENCE OF JUDGE KING 147 Photograph by St. J. Melchers HOUSE BUILT BY NATHANIEL RUSSELL, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. F. J. PELZER, Jr 149 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith WINDOWS ON STAIRWAY OF RUSSELL HOUSE 150 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith STAIRCASE IN RUSSELL HOUSE 151 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MANTELS IN TWO OF THE OVAL ROOMS IN RUSSELL HOUSE .... 153 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MANTEL IN OVAL ROOM ON THIRD FLOOR OF RUSSELL HOUSE 155 Photograph by St. J. Melchers FRONT DOOR OF RUSSELL HOUSE 156 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith STAIRCASE IN RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE MOFFETT 163 Photograph by St. J. Melchers LIBRARY IN MR. MOFFETT'S HOUSE 164 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MANTEL IN DRAWING-ROOM OF MR. MOFFETT'S HOUSE 165 Photograph by St. J. Melchers DINING-ROOM IN MR. MOFFETT'S HOUSE 167 Photograph by St. J. Melchers A BEDROOM IN MR. MOFFETT'S HOUSE 168 Photograph by St. J. Melchers EDMONSTON HOUSE— LATER THE CHARLES ALSTON RESIDENCE 180 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith WILLIAM RAVENEL'S HOUSE, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1886 182 WILLIAM RAVENEL HOUSE, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN JUST AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1886 183 HOUSE OF GENERAL WILLIAM WASHINGTON, BUILT BEFORE 1786 188 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith GATE OF WASHINGTON HOUSE 189 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith 11 ILLUSTRATIONS MANTEL IN RESIDENCE OF MR. HENRY T. WILLIAMS l^3' Photograph by St. J. Melchers GLOVER HOUSE, NOW THE CHARLESTON CLUB, BUILT ABOUT 1800 197 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith ENTRANCE OF JOHN EDWARDS' HOUSE, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE W. WILLIAMS 201 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith MEASURED DRAWING OF MANTEL IN DRAWING-ROOM OF JOHN EDWARDS' HOUSE 202 By Albert Simons MANTEL IN JOHN EDWARDS' HOUSE 203 Photograph by St. J. Melchers STAIRCASE IN GEORGE EDWARDS' HOUSE 212 Photograph by St. J. Melchers GATEWAY OF GEORGE EDWARDS' HOUSE, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. J. ADGER SMYTH 213 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith INNER GARDEN GATE OF GEORGE EDWARDS' HOUSE 215 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith MANTEL IN GEORGE EDWARDS' HOUSE 217 Photograph by St. J. Melchers MANTEL IN RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE S. HOLMES 219 Photograph by St. J. Melchers THE THOMAS FERGUSON HOUSE, LATER THE RESIDENCE OF MRS. FREDERICK RUTLEDGE 227 Water Color Sketch by Charles Fraser MEASURED DRAWING OF MANTEL IN HUMPHREY SOMMERS' HOUSE, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MRS. F. LE JAU PARKER 229 By Albert Simons MANTEL IN MRS. PARKER'S HOUSE 231 Photograph by St. J. Melchers ENTRANCE OF COLONEL JOHN STUART'S HOUSE, BUILT ABOUT 1772, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. WALTER PRINGLE.. 241 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith DOOR AND MANTEL IN STUART DRAWING-ROOM 243 Photographs by St. J. Melchers MEASURED DRAWING OF MANTEL AND DOORS IN STUART DRAWING-ROOM 245 By Albert Simons PLAN OF COLONEL JOHN STUART'S HOUSE 246 By Albert Simons GARDEN GATE ON ORANGE STREET: CAPT. FREDERICK W. WAGENER'S RESIDENCE 248 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith PLAN OF IZARD HOUSE 250 By Albert Simons IZARD HOUSE, BUILT BEFORE 1757, NOW THE RESIDENCE] OF MR. GEORGE D. BRYAN 251 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith 12 . ILLUSTRATIONS MANTEL IN IZARD HOUSE 253 Photograph by St. J. Melchers CORNER OF DANIEL RAVENEL HOUSE ON BROAD STREET, BUILT ABOUT 1800 261 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith DRAWING-ROOM MANTEL IN DANIEL RAVENEL HOUSE 263 Photograph by St. J. Melchers CHARLESTOWN IN 1780, SHOWING THE EXCHANGE BEFORE ALTERATION 265 From An Old Print HOUSE OF COLONEL WILLIAM RHETT, BUILT BEFORE 1720, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. F. W. STENDER 274 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith DOORWAYS AND MANTEL IN DRAWING-ROOM OF COLONEL WILLIAM RHETT'S HOUSE 275 Photographs by St. J. Melchers HOUSE BUILT BY HENRY LAURENS IN 1763 286 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith HOUSE OF NATHANIEL HEYWARD, BUILT ABOUT 1788 287 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BOW OF NATHANIEL HEYWARD HOUSE, WITH KITCHEN BEYOND 289 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith STAIRCASE IN HOUSE BUILT BY DR. TOOMER 299 Photograph by St. J. Melchers STAIRCASE IN RESIDENCE OF THE MISSES BROWN, BUILT 1860 300 Photograph by St. J. Melchers THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON DURING THE REVOLUTION 303 From an Engraving of Chapel's Painting FRONT STEPS OF ST. PHILIP'S PARSONAGE, BUILT ABOUT 1770 314 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BACK STEPS OF ST. PHILIP'S PARSONAGE, BUILT ABOUT 1770. . 315 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith THREE FAN-LIGHTS 318 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith MANTEL IN RESIDENCE OF DR. THOMAS GRANGE SIMONS. ... 319 Photograph by St. J. Melchers A VIEW NEAR CHARLESTON, 1802, SHOWING WIND-MILL 323 Water Color Sketch by Charles Fraser HOUSE BUILT BY GOVERNOR BENNETT, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MRS. E. L. HALSEY 325 Photograph PIAZZA OF GOVERNOR BENNETT'S HOUSE 326 Photograph HALL DOOR OF GOVERNOR BENNETT'S HOUSE 327 Photograph by St. J. Melchers DOORWAY IN HALL OF GOVERNOR BENNETT'S HOUSE 328 Photograph by St. J. Melchers STAIRCASE OF GOVERNOR BENNETT'S HOUSE 329 Photograph by St. J. Melchers 13 ILLUSTRATIONS RESIDENCE OF THE LATE MR. JEFFERSON BENNETT 332 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith CARRIAGE-GATE AND OUTHOUSES OF JEFFERSON BENNETT RESIDENCE 333 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith RESIDENCE OF MRS. HENRY BAKER, ONCE THE RESIDENCE OF CHARLES FRASER 334 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith A QUAINT OLD HOUSE IN ST. MICHAEL'S ALLEY 335 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith ST. MICHAEL'S STEEPLE ACROSS TILED ROOFS 346 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith TILED ROOF OF AN OLD WAREHOUSE ON EAST BAY 347 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BALCONY OF HENRY MANIGAULT'S HOUSE ON MEETING STREET, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MR. E. H. BURTON 348 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BALCONIES AND AWNING SUPPORTS 349 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith FIVE BALCONIES ON CHURCH STREET 350 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BALCONIES ON BROAD STREET 351 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BALCONIES, RAILINGS AND PANELS 352 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith AWNING AND SIGN SUPPORTS, ETC 353 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BALCONIES ON MEETING AND QUEEN STREETS 354 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith TWO GRILLES ON ELLIOTT STREET NEAR CHURCH STREET 355 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith GRILLE ON CHURCH STREET 356 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith BALCONY AND GRILLE ON KING STREET 357 Drawing by Alice R. H. Smith THE RUINS OF CHARLES PINCKNEY'S HOUSE, BURNT IN THE FIRE OF 1861 373 From an Old Photograph CHARLESTON AND ITS STORY THE DWELLING HOUSES OF CHARLESTON CHARLESTON AND ITS STORY GOVERNOR SAYLE'S settlement in South . Carolina was made in 1670 at Albemarle Point, now called Old Town, which was on the Ashley, opposite to Hampton Park, and was nearly sur rounded by low ground and marshes. This site was se lected for easier defense against the Spaniards, who claimed the Southern coast and gave to Charleston Har bor its earlier name of St. George's Bay. This first settle ment was named Charles Town, which name was trans ferred to Oyster Point when Old Town in 1680 was abandoned. The name was retained until 1783, when by the act of incorporation it was changed to Charleston. The town, as originally laid out, was on the bay or the eastern shore of the peninsula. We are lucky enough to have a " survey," made in 1704, by one Edward Crisp, whose memory lives in that alone. This shows that the walls of circumvallation extended from Granville's Bastion, at the north end of what is now called the High Battery, along the north shore of Vanderhorst Creek, now Water Street, to Colleton's Bastion at its intersection with Meeting Street; thence along Meet ing Street to Carteret's Bastion somewhere about the intersection of Cumberland Street, and thence along the south shore of that Creek, which has become Market 2 17 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Street, to Craven's Bastion on the waters of the Bay. Between Craven's and Granville's ran the Curtain Line along the Bay. It is curious to read in sundry old deeds that the property conveyed lay " within the walls of Charles Town." But long before the date of Crisp's survey many lots had been granted beyond the fortifica tions, which proves that streets had been run out before that date in the territory which Crisp leaves almost blank. THE GEEAT SEAL OF THE LORDS PROPRIETORS OF CAROLINA The Bastions had been named after four of the " Lords Proprietors," who held the province as a Pa latinate after the manner of the County Palatine of Durham. Their rule continued until the revolution of 1719, from which period the province was provisionally governed by the Crown until 1729. The Crown (George II, 1729) then took over the entire control, having completed the purchase of the political and propri etary rights of the Lords, allotting, however, to Lord Carteret that part of North Carolina lying next to the Virginia line. 18 CHARLESTON AND ITS STORY The eight original Lords Proprietors under the Patent of Charles II were : 1. The Earl of Clarendon, whose daughter was the wife of James II and mother of Queens Mary and Anne. 2. The Duke of Albemarle, otherwise Gen. George Monk, of the Restoration. 3. The Earl of Craven, who had been a stalwart supporter of the Stuarts during the Great Rebellion. 4. Lord Berkeley, who had been similarly distinguished. 5. The Earl of Shaftesbury, who was the Ashley of the famous " cabal." 6. Sir George Carteret, a naval officer, made famous by his defense of the Island of Jersey, which he held for the Crown. 7. Sir John Colleton, an active officer in King Charles' army, who took refuge in Barbadoes, and whose sons were important settlers of Carolina. 8. Sir William Berkeley, brother of Lord Berkeley, and Governor of Virginia. The fortifications as shown in Crisp's survey, except those on the water front between Granville's and Craven's Bastions, were removed in 1717, and the circumvallation made to include a much larger area. For by this time many houses had been erected beyond the original " walls." The lines of the newer enceinte to the land ward sides have not been set down on any map or plan now known, until we reach that of the siege of Charles Town in 1780. This was published in England in a work called " Neptune," a copy of which is in the Charles ton Library. At that date the outer line of defense was drawn just north of Boundary (later Calhoun) Street, from river to river, and the whole water front on both 19 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON sides lined with batteries. Between 1700 and 1780 much of the low or marshy ground below Wentworth Street was filled up, and after the Revolution this process went on with increasing rapidity, so that many of the houses, which appear to us old, were in fact built upon " made land." The dread of Spanish and of piratical attack, and the numerous Indian wars, kept the little colony in a constant state of apprehension, and military service was universal. All this had its effect upon the locality and there were frequent, yet irregular, discoveries that the fortifications needed repair or improvement. Three times Colonial forces took part in expeditions against Florida — two designed to capture St. Augustine, and one against the Indian towns of Apalachia. There were also two expeditions against the Tuscaroras, end ing in the expulsion of that tribe from North Carolina in 1713. In the great Yamassee War in 1715 the con federated tribes from the northeast and southwest carried massacre and destruction very near to Charles Town. The Cherokee wars of 1759-1761 were on a large scale, but were fought at a distance from the town. Of in vasions by the Spaniards there were not a few, but only two of them wese, serious. In that of 1686 the colony of Lord Cardross at Port Royal was destroyed and the country on the Edisto was ravaged. Later, in 1706, a combined fleet of French and Spaniards sailed into the harbour of Charles Town and landed on James Island and also at the point now called Mount Pleasant. The colony was thus at war almost incessantly from 20 j*§uk jGu--u*.3o™ vuaijud^ty**"*^. THF "GRAND MODELL" OF CHARLES TOWN THE GKAIN V m (< Carolina Historical and From a copy by Hon. Henry^M. a^h^he.^bout CHARLESTON AND ITS STORY its foundation to the Revolution, yet its growth in wealth and commerce was rapid through the whole period, and the effect of this prosperity could be seen in the build ings erected up to the date of the Revolution. During that long war there was a halt in both prosperity and in building, for destruction then far exceeded erection. The rapid and immediate return of prosperity after the war seems remarkable, but is easily accounted for by the outbreak in Europe of the French Revolution with its devastating wars, producing a quick development in the export trade of the new State with an advance in the value of its productions. As a result there were built between 1790 and 1815 a large number of what were then imposing houses, many of which still remain. The peace of 1815 accelerated this growth, which continued until 1861, when the paralysis of war and ruin fell upon the place. In distinction from the prompt reaction after the Revolutionary War, that following the Confederate War has been slow and halting, and the city and the surrounding country have, in the process of reconstruc tion, lacked this impulse; in consequence even to-day they fall short of the position they held in 1860. The effect of this upon building has been a natural one. But from the artistic point of view it has not been altogether a disadvantage. The other chief cities on the Atlantic Coast have grown and spread, and the fashionable quar ters have been removed miles away from the older parts, which have been torn down, rebuilt, and renovated; but in Charleston people still occupy houses built by their predecessors of many years ago, and these houses do not 23 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON sink into insignificance by the side of more recent erections. Of all the important colonial towns of America, Charleston shares this attraction only with Quebec and New Orleans. In Quebec the older part of the town, built upon the heights, has remained little disturbed, owing to its undesirability for commercial purposes, and the modern town lies along the river below. In New Orleans the Americans built an entirely new town, both for business and residence, alongside of the old, leaving the latter undisturbed. It must be remembered that from the first settlement of South Carolina there was an influx of many well-to- do West Indian planters, members of families long settled in those islands, and especially Barbadoes. These quickly acquired plantations of considerable size, which they settled and cultivated with negroes, many of whom they brought with them from their old homes. This in a measure may account for much that we will notice in the ways of building, and also for other things marking a difference from the more northern colonies. This province up to the Revolution was to be grouped with the English West Indies, with which they early estab lished and constantly developed a considerable trade and intercourse, rather than with the settlements on the Atlantic seaboard to the northward. For between Charles Town and Philadelphia there were no urban settlements of much importance, and this produced in that day of difficult communications a certain isolation. The place was left to be developed on its own lines with 24 CHARLESTON AND ITS STORY influences chiefly drawn from the " Old Country " and the West Indian Islands. The question has often been asked whether the immi gration of French Protestants between 1680 and 1695 had any considerable influence on the architectural devel opment. To this we are inclined to answer in the nega tive, for the first of them who arrived were too impov erished and too few to alter the English trend, and with increased prosperity they became rapidly anglicized, and developed, not as a foreign element, but as an integral part of the community. It is believed that Charleston is exceptionally inter esting because in its growth, through all its vicissitudes up to 1865, there was a certain continuity. In a social sense this was well marked, for from these beginnings there followed the development of a highly organized plantation system which made it a veritable metropolis, whither the planter resorted for pleasure and for health, for business and for education. Here he lived a part of each year in his " Town House," and here his children found opportunity for professional and mercantile careers. Thus there was a constant interchange between town and country, and Charleston's social organization never became in those years purely urban, nor did the life of the country-side ever become purely rural. This is quaintly shown in many an old deed, where one of the parties described himself as " of Charles Town, planter." We even occasionally find a woman describing herself as of " Charles Town, Widow and Planter." Architecturally this continuity is especially notice- 25 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON able because expansion and growth have not brought about the destruction of the old in the assimilation of the new. To the influences already mentioned must be added that of climate, and this cannot escape observa tion. We quote from the " Travels of the Due de la Rochef oucault-Liancourt " such a comment : Some of the more opulent inhabitants prefer wooden houses, which they believe to be a good deal cooler- than those which are of brick. Everything peculiar to the buildings of this place is formed to moderate the excessive heats ; the windows are open, the doors pass through both sides of the houses. Every en deavor is used to refresh the apartments within with fresh air. Large galleries are formed to shelter the upper part of the house from the force of the sun's rays ; and only the cooling northeast wind is admitted to blow through the rooms. In Charlestown persons vie with one another, not who shall have the finest, but who the coolest house. The English architectural fashions are, in a general way, easy to trace through the modifications made by colonial needs and taste. While the great mansions of the Palladian School were being erected in England by its followers, such as Sir William Chambers (1726- 1796), there grew up in England a less pretentious style employed by the middle classes for their more modest dwellings. These houses were often square in plan and laid out symmetrically. The great skill of the English carpenters and joiners added much to the charm of their interiors by the beauty of the panelling and wood-carving. The panels were larger than those employed during the previous century and were often painted, giving a brighter and more cheerful effect than CHARLESTON AND ITS STORY the natural grain and color of the wood. This do mestic style was often met with in the American Colonies before the Revolution, and Charleston has many fine examples of it. After the Revolution we see the influence of Adam (1728-1792) in circular or elliptical rooms, or rooms terminating in a semicircular or segmental arc. We find attenuated pilasters and entablatures of very slight projection and a great deal of applied decoration, very refined and small in scale, but rather cold in its elegance, though this did not entirely supplant the more charming work of the wood-carver. In the beginning of the nineteenth century the "Greek (or Classic) Revival" was felt here as elsewhere, and intermingled with the two fashions that preceded it, the whole welded together by that dominance of climatic and local needs, which we have mentioned. Of accounts and descriptions of Charleston there have been many, and a serious difficulty has been the differentiation between " tradition " and " authority." This has induced a resort to the original sources of such history, and most of the material here used has been laboriously taken from the Registry of Mesne Convey ances, from recorded wills, from the records of the Courts, and from similar authorities. THE EARLIEST BUILDINGS AND THE FREQUENT FIRES CHAPTER I THE EARLIEST BUILDINGS AND THE FREQUENT FIRES OYSTER POINT is at the confluence of the I Cooper and the Ashley Rivers, and, almost immediately after the settlement in 1670 of Charles Town at Albemarle Point, there was a tendency among the inhabitants to remove thither on account of its superior advantages, and the seat of government was finally transferred there in 1680. Of the buildings erected between that date and 1710, not one can be asserted to exist to-day ; but in the survey by Edward Crisp in 1704 there were marked down the sites of fifteen as possibly more notable. In the same plan can be found the sites of the English Church, the Independent Meeting House, the Anabaptist Meet ing House, and the Quaker Meeting House. Not one of these buildings remains, although a church of each of the denominations named stands to-day on each site, except indeed the Quaker meeting house, which was not rebuilt after the great fire of 1861, even though the graveyard is preserved with reverential care. The dates of the many destructive fires have been listed in the Year Book of Charleston for 1880, and the date and description of each fire sets an impassable limit to claims of antiquity made in behalf of many houses. Yet about 1710 there must have existed a high grade of architectural ambition, for in 1710-1711 the Assembly 31 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON ordered the building of a new brick church for the Parish of St. Philip, and in 1720 passed an act for repairing and completing it, and appropriated for this pious purpose duties of three pence a gallon on rum and five pence a gallon on brandy and other spirits, with special duties on importation of negroes and merchandise by nonresidents. Dr. Dalcho, in his " History of the Church in Caro lina," gives a full account of all this, and quotes from Edmund Burke's account of the European Settlements in America that this church " is spacious, and executed in a very handsome taste, exceeding everything of that kind which we have in America." Whitefield was tried in 1740 in this church — " a grand Church resembling one of the new Churches in London " ( " Gillies Me moirs of Whitefield"). A reproduction of the front elevation of this building appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine of June, 1753. The taste which called for such a church-building must have shown itself also in the dwelling houses erected at the same date, but the fires of 1740, 1778 and 1796 left but little of the oldest part of the town uncon- sumed. We reproduce from the Gazettes of 1740 items about the fire of that year and a transcript of the Act of 1740 regulating the prices of the building materials and labor. Mayor Courtenay, in his year book for 1880, listed the principal fires which have devastated this town. In 1698 a fire destroyed fifty dwellings. In 1699 another destructive fire. 32 ^fy forced, tlnna, Sit a. jflotrd ' jfidl rue, WW- tn Ujvielmtui/f lk/w./anE LOOKING PAST THE CORNER OF ROBERT BREWTON'S HOUSE In local history the names of Col. Miles Brewton and of his son, Colonel Robert, constantly appear as important events are recorded. When Colonel Brough- ton, in 1710, disputed with Col. Robert Gibbes the suc- 45 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON cession to the governorship, made vacant by the death of Governor Tynte, he marched his armed adherents to the gate of the town, where he found the drawbridge, near the present Court House, raised by the supporters of Gibbes. With the help of friends within the walls he forced an entrance, and marched past the militia drawn up at the Watch House, where the old post-office stands. McCrady, in his History, gives a picturesque account of the struggle for the flag, which then took place, in which " Captain " Miles Brewton's drawn sword figures with effect. In the troublous times of the great Yamassee War of 1715 he bore his part, and in 1717 was promoted to the post of Powder Receiver. In 1718 we find him the foreman of the Grand Jury which indicted the many pirates captured by Governor Johnson and Vice Ad miral Rhett. The story of these latter events has been often told, but by none more graphically than by Mr. S. C. Hughson in his " Carolina Pirates." It is hard to resist the temptation to follow the thread of this stirring narrative, but cold sense tells us that these events had nothing to do with the architecture of their houses, how ever much they pressed upon the lives of the people, who built and lived in them. Col. Robert Brewton's house was sold by him in 1745 to Jordan Roche, who married his sister, Rebecca Brewton. She married a second time one Guthrie, and owned it at her death, intestate, before June, 1767, for at that date her nephew and heir-at-law sold it. The various conveyances of this and the adjoining lots have 46 BREWTON'S CORNER AND THE OLD HOUSES THERE been very carefully examined, and the fact seems estab lished that the present building is the same that stood there before 1733. The house has long been owned by Mrs. Arthur M. Huger. The other holdings of the Brewtons at Brewton's Corner passed to the Miles Brewton who built the Brewton- Alston-Pringle house on King Street. They are listed in his will, and were sold by his legatees. Standing next to Robert Brewton's house is a large brick house which has been so fully described in various conveyances that no doubt of its identity can exist. One description is as follows : " To the corner of the large brick house thereon erected and " built and now and for many years past possessed by Jacob " Motte esq." And again in 1762 : " So as to join the corner of " the brick house aforesaid and the north wall of the same and " the kitchen thereof in the possession of the said Jacob Motte " Esq." He does not seem to have owned the house, for the fee simple in 1752 was in Jordan Roche, before men tioned, who owned the adjoining Brewton house where he appears to have resided. In 1745 the site of this " great brick house " was owned by Richard Capers, of a well-known South Caro lina family, a planter of Christ Church Parish, who probably built the house. He had inherited the lot from his father, Captain William Capers, who owned it in 1715, and is thought to have died about 1718. Jacob Motte was for twenty-seven years the Public Treasurer of the colony. His son, Jacob Motte the 47 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON younger, married Rebecca Brewton, the heroine of Fort Motte, the story of which may be found in any history of the Revolution. The old treasurer died in 1770, and was buried in St. Philip's Church-yard, a little distance up the street. His obituary notice in the Gazette, in listing his virtues, says that " His corps was attended to the grave by a very considerable number of the in habitants who were indeed real mourners," but does not name the large group of his descendants who were present. Of his nineteen children, whose names we have, ten were grown up and nine married. Mr. Salley, Secre tary of the South Carolina Historical Commission, has collected from the Gazette many of the marriage notices which to-day read quaintly. " Last Thursday night Capt. Thomas Shubrick (a wealthy and eminent mer chant of this town) was married to Miss Sarah Motte, a beautiful and accomplished young lady, with a handsome fortune." " On Thursday last Thomas Lynch Esq., was married to Miss Hannah Motte, fourth daughter of our public treasurer, a young lady of merit and beauty." Mr. Motte's sons and sons-in-law made a remarkable group of men, coming to the front in the approaching Revolution. Of Jacob Motte, Jr., we have already spoken. He succeeded his father-in-law, Col. Robert Brewton, as Powder Receiver of the Province. Isaac, in 1756, was commissioned an officer of the Royal Amer ican, or the 60th Regiment, in which he served for a number of years. In 1775 he was made Lieutenant- Colonel of Moultrie's regiment of Continentals and be- 48 BREWTON'S CORNER AND THE OLD HOUSES THERE came the Colonel when Moultrie was promoted. In 1779 he was made a Privy Councillor, leaving his Lieutenant- Colonel, Francis Marion, in command. In 1780 he was sent to the Continental Congress, and long continued in the service of the public. His brother Charles was killed at the siege of Savan nah in 1779, then a major in the same regiment. The two husbands of Hannah Motte, " the young lady of merit and beauty," were, first, Thomas Lynch the elder, who died a member of the Continental Con gress, and, second, the famous Gen. William Moultrie. Mary Motte married William Drayton, Chief Jus tice of East Florida, when a British possession, and her tenth child was Col. William Drayton, whose public career in South Carolina closed in 1833, when he re moved to Philadelphia in resentment at the success of the Nullification Movement. The names of the other sons-in-law of Jacob Motte, viz.: Thomas Shubrick, Dr. James Irving, Henry Peronneau, John Sandford Dart, John Huger, are they not also written in the books of the chronicles of South Carolina? In 1778 the house was owned by James Parsons, an eminent lawyer and large planter. He was a member of the Provincial Congress and of the Secret Committee of 1775, and in 1778 declined, on account of his health, the office of Vice-president of the new State of South Carolina. Dying in 1779, he left the house to his widow for life. 4 49 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON The house is of the type called in Charleston a double house, but the arrangement has been somewhat altered. In such a house the hall runs from the street door through the building with the staircase at the back of it. There are two rooms on either side of this hall, and the huge chimneys stand between the rooms. A recent owner has thrown the front half of the hall into one of the rooms, and a street door has been cut into the north front room, from which the staircase hall is reached by a passage made by knocking away one of the deep closets by the chimney. The staircase runs up to the high attic rooms in easy flights, and the whole is equally well finished, with large arched windows on the land ing places. The drawing-room is on the second floor and takes up the whole width of the house, having in it nine windows. The third floor differs somewhat from most of the houses of its date, in that the ceilings are of the same height as those of the lower stories. The floors of the lowest story are about three feet from the ground with a deep cellar beneath them. The mantel pieces throughout the house are high, those in the prin cipal rooms ornamented with garlands, trees, and groups of figures, one of them showing the procession of Bac chus and Ariadne. In all the more important residences of this period the outbuildings are substantially built of brick, and the house under consideration is no exception. The kitchen is detached from the house with two large rooms below and four rooms above. Its windows, as well as those of the other outhouses and of the carriage 50 .ili'li; ,|I^P1 if r r 'fin ~ £,. ff ££ ^w^sb.*6 Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers RESIDENCE FOR "MANY YEARS" BEFORE 1762 OF JACOB MOTTE, PUBLIC TREASURER BREWTON'S CORNER AND THE OLD HOUSES THERE house at the back of the lot, have the pointed arch, which seems to have been not unusual at that time. Several shells fell upon the house during the bom bardment of the Confederate War, and some of the 4 ¦te**/<-//.SnU±/_ KITCHEN OF JACOB MOTTE'S HOUSE rooms were badly shattered. The repairs were carefully made, so as not to alter the general effect, by the present owner, Mrs. William Mason Smith, who bought it in its ruinous condition shortly after the close of the war. 53 VANDERHORST CREEK, WHITE POINT, AND " CHURCH STREET CONTINUED " CHAPTER III VANDERHORST CREEK, WHITE POINT, AND " CHURCH STREET CONTINUED " THE outlook to the south of the last-mentioned house is over the wide ancient burial ground of the " Antipasdobaptist " congregation, the gift of William Elliott, in 1699. The old church was replaced by a new building, which was opened for worship in 1822. The long iron fence of the yard, and the portico with its heavy Doric columns, add dignity to the simple character of the street. Between this and Water Street, before the Revolution, there lived many Anabaptists, and as a result of a religious quarrel another meeting house, afterwards called the Mariners' Church, was erected a little farther down the street near the creek. It has been often told how the corner of this church was carried away in the great gale of 1752 by a vessel driven up Vanderhorst Creek across Meeting Street, where it grounded. The Mariners' Church has quite recently been pulled down. At Water Street we come to the line of the old for tifications of the town, long since removed. The position of these can fortunately be traced with the help of Crisp's survey, a reproduction Of which may be found in the Charleston Year Book of 1880. (Note: This was not made from the original, but from a copy, and there are several errors in the " References " printed 57 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON below it.) At this point they followed the line of the creek with Granville's Bastion to the left on the Bay, and Colleton's Bastion to the right, where the line reached Meeting Street, beyond which the Creek headed. Granville's Bastion was the most important point in the enceinte, lying upon the water just where ends the sea wall, called to-day the " High Battery." Vanderhorst Creek, as it was called, has been long since filled up, but along its bed runs Water Street, the origin of the name being obvious. Just across the Creek was the White Point, now covered with houses, and its name only pre served in the official designation of the Battery, viz.: White Point Garden. Bordering on the Creek to the south were Lots 297 and 298 of the Grand Model, granted on September 12, 1692, to Susannah Varin, "nee a Neu Chatell en Suize, Veuve de Jacques Varin, fille de Samuel Horry et Jeanne Dubois." (See the Ravenel " Liste.") She; in 1695, sold these to Maj. John Vanderhorst, whose only son John possessed the greater part, and in 1738, by will, ordered same to be divided among his five sons. Before that date the White Point stretched from Vander horst Creek to the Ashley, unimproved and with few buildings on it. But about where the Jasper monument now stands there was an important fortification called Broughton's Battery. This point from time to time has frowned fiercely at invading foes. When Sir Henry Clinton, in 1780, lay on James Island and Admiral Arbuthnot's powerful fleet lay off Fort Johnson, Dor- rell's Fort of seven guns was near the corner of the 58 *r •/'^/fJ/. Jul* 4 /?fC FORT MECHANIC IN 1796 From the Water-color sketch by Charles Fraser Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers MRS. MARSHALL'S HOUSE, BUILT BY GEORGE EVELEIGH, BETWEEN 1743 AND 1758 VANDERHORST CREEK, WHITE POINT, ETC. Battery of to-day, while Wilkins' Fort with sixteen guns occupied the extreme point, and Gibbs' Fort with nine guns was at the foot of King Street; and it is pos sible that from these forts reply was made to the vicious ball from James Island, that carried away the arm of the Earl of Chatham's statue and shattered Magna Charta, which was held in his right hand. This mutilated statue stands now in the square of the City Hall. When the French " State of War " existed Fort Mechanic was built, where to-day are the Charles Alston house and the Holmes lot on East Battery. An old sketch by Charles Fraser, made July 4, 1796, gives an interesting view of it, as it appeared to a lad of four teen, which was his age at the time. At a later date, in 1864, the whole of White Point Garden was filled by two large earthworks with heavy guns, called Battery Ramsay, so named after Major David Ramsay, who fell on July 18, 1863, when Putnam's brigade swept gallantly over the parapet of Battery Wagner and held for a bloody hour the captured salient. But our interest in this locality has carried us far ahead of 1738-1740, at which time the Vanderhorst hold ing was divided, thus allowing the building of an in teresting group of houses which still stand in a bend of " Church Street continued," described as " a new street that leadeth from Broughton's Bastion northward to the great broad bridge over said marsh and creek." In the partition, the first lots on the west side of the new street, were made to extend from " Church Street THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON continued " to the " great street from Ashley River to the old Churchyard, market place and Meeting House." This is easily recognized as Meeting or Meeting-house Street, passing by the then abandoned yard of the earliest St. Philip's, on which site the present St. Michael's was built later. The market was later de stroyed in the great fire of 1796 and the City Hall stands in its place, while the Meeting House was, of course, the forerunner of the present " Circular " Church. One of these lots passed to John Vanderhorst, Jr., who died in 1740 and devised it to his wife. She followed him within a few months, and her brother and heir-at- law, John Hodsden, conveyed it to George Eveleigh in 1743. This lot to-day (1916) has an old house on each end of it. On Church Street stands the one belonging to Mrs. R. Maynard Marshall; on Meeting Street that of William Elliott Huger. Each has a history, and the date of neither has been fixed with absolute positiveness. George Eveleigh, the new owner, on January 12, 1753, ordered the sale of " the dwelling house on White Point late in my own occupation " together with the small spot of land fronting the same. As this small spot is a part of the little open triangle between the Marshall house and the street, it would appear that he resided there, and had built that house between 1743 and 1753. In 1759 George Eveleigh, by his attorneys, conveyed to John Bull this lot, bounded west by Meeting Street, and east partly by land " heretofore " of Arnoldus 64 THE DRAWING-ROOM OF THE EVELEIGH HOUSE A secret staircase leads from the lower part of the cupboard to a closet in the room below VANDERHORST CREEK, WHITE POINT, ETC. Vanderhorst, and partly by Church Street "con tinued "; north by land " heretofore " of Arnoldus Van derhorst, and south by land now of George Matthews. The entire lot continued undivided until, in 1795, the halves were sold separately by the executors of Mrs. iRj&f Ptam of/'f^U Cawlagji J>Ptvi, PLAN OF EVELEIGH HOUSE Elizabeth Blake, the widow of Hon. Daniel Blake, of Newington, who was of His Majesty's Council under the administrations of Governors Thomas Boone, William Bull, Lord Charles Greville Montagu, and Lord William Campbell. Mrs. Blake was the daughter and co-heiress of Joseph Izard by his marriage to Anne Bull, the daughter of Capt. John Bull, of Bull's or Coosaw Island. Gazette of June 2, 1733: At the latter's country house there, General Oglethorpe lay on 67 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON May 15, 1733, on his way back to the just settled Savannah, after dining in Charles Town with the Assem bly, and himself giving " a ball and a cold supper to the ladies at the Council Chamber." (McCrady, 1719-1776, p. 166.) By examining the titles of adjoining lots it is known that in 1763 this lot belonged to Capt. John Bull, and after his death, in 1767, to his widow, Mrs. Mary Bull, who died in 1771, after which it was owned by her grand daughter, Mrs. Blake. The Church Street house was sold in 1795 to Dr. John Lewis Polony, a refugee from St. Domingo. The Due de la Rochefoucault-Liancourt speaks of him in highest terms : "Among the emigrants from St. Domingo Dr. Polony holds a distinguished rank. He possesses an uncommon stock of profound learning and is mem ber of several literary societies in Europe." He then speaks of Dr. Polony's repeated travels in the Northern and Southern States and of his extensive information and of his correspondence with scientific men in Europe, adding that he was peculiarly esteemed as naturalist and chemist by Count Buffon, and that he had ready for the press a complete work on St. Domingo, " replete with sound argument." After Dr. Polony's death his house passed in 1807 to Simon Jude Chancognie, a French consular official, and thenceforward it has frequently changed hands. It was unroofed by the tornado of September 8, 1811, when a large beam, thirty feet long, was carried from it a distance of about a quarter of a mile and driven 68 k:;; :¦¦;}) X IMRfa r #L3H B^^^Lt^lBP*^ II fill ;sw lsJ£ ¦¦'¦¦ . rfc j . ,¦ SmLfcA. HOUSES BUILT BY GEORGE EVELEIGH, GEORGE MATTHEWS AND THOMAS YOUNG IN "CHURCH STREET CONTINUED" Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers THE CURVE OF CHURCH STREET VANDERHORST CREEK, WHITE POINT, ETC. through the roof of Mr. Ruddock's kitchen on King Street. The house that stands next south of Dr. Polony's appears to have been the residence of George Matthews, one of the younger sons of an early settler, Anthony Matthews, who left a large and notable family. George Matthews died in 1769 and his house was sold to Dr. Philip Skirving. It seems probable that it was built a few years later than the Eveleigh, or Polony, house just above it. It is a square brick house of two stories and an attic, with a bull's-eye to the east, and a large dormer window to the south. It has the light wrought-iron balcony on the second story, so characteristic of the older Charleston houses. The interest of this group is carried on by the house next south, a large three-story " single house " of the type before described, which was long the residence of Dr. Joseph Johnson, the author of Johnson's Traditions of the Revolution. This Johnson family from 1765 to this day has contributed to the history of the State. William Johnson was a leader of the Revolution in South Carolina, and his son, Justice William Johnson, of the Supreme Court of the United States, left us the " Life and Correspondence of Nathaniel Greene," accepted as a leading authority on the Revolution, while another son was Dr. Joseph Johnson, just mentioned. A grandson was Major John Johnson, a Confederate Engineer, whose " Defense of Charleston Harbor " deservedly holds as high a place in military history as his personal services. His later life as Rector of St. Philip's Church 73 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON was one of well-remembered service of another kind. Another grandson was Edward McCrady, Colonel in the Confederate Army, and author of the four volumes of South Carolina history, indispensable to every student of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods. Dr. Johnson's lot had been, on the division of the land of John Vanderhorst, assigned to the latter's son Elias, from whom it passed to John Hodsden, who con veyed same to Thomas Young in 1769. (See M.C.O., BookN. 3, p. 518.) It then extended from " New Church Street con tinued " to " old Church Street " on the west, thus in cluding the site of Col. Isaac Motte's house on Meeting Street, now occupied by the latter's great-grandchil dren, the family of Dr. Maham Haig. It is supposed that both houses were built by Young before the Revolution, for the Haig family tradition is that Colonel Motte bought his house, not quite finished, from the owner of the house on Church Street. Col. Isaac Motte's career has been already noticed when speaking of the house of his father, Jacob Motte, on Church Street. A GROUP OF OLD HOUSES ON MEETING STREET CHAPTER IV A GROUP OF OLD HOUSES ON MEETING STREET THE western end of the John Vanderhorst- Eveleigh lot seems to have been owned, as pre viously mentioned, by Mrs. Blake at the out break of the Revolution. She was a first cousin of the Sarah Izard of the following notice in the Gazette of Saturday, April 23, 1763: " On Sunday last the Right Hon. Lord William Campbell, " fourth son to his present Grace the Duke of Argyle, and com- " mander of his majesty's ship the Nightingale, was married to " Miss Sarah Izard, daughter of the late Ralph Izard, Esq., a " young lady esteemed one of the most considerable fortunes in " the province." Whether Lord and Lady William Campbell, during his troublous administration, rented this house, or whether they occupied it as the guests of their cousin, Mrs. Blake, is not known; but when in 1775 he aban doned his government and took refuge aboard H. M. S. Tamar, a boat bore him from the foot of this garden down Vanderhorst's Creek to the man-of-war in the har'bor. Lady William remained behind him for some time, and in the Proceedings of the Council of Safety may be found an account of the seizure of her chariot and horses at the instance of certain merchants in re prisal for the taking, from a vessel arriving from the 77 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON West Indies, of a sum of money by the Captain of H. M. S. Scorpion. The story is told at length by McCrady in his volume, 1775-1780, where full justice is done to the lady's indignation, which carried her so far that she actually declined to receive her property when restored to her by the messenger of the Council. This house was sold in 1795 by the executors of Mrs. Blake to Col. Lewis Morris, a Revolutionary officer who belonged to a well-known New York family, styling themselves Morris of Morrisania. He and Daniel Huger (of Rutledge's Privy Council, 1780, and Member of Congress, 1786 to 1793) married the daughters and co heiresses of William Elliott of Accabee, which may ac count for the fact that Colonel Morris remained in Caro lina after the disbandment of the army, and has left many descendants at the South as well as in his old home. Two of these, Captain Morris of the Florida, and John Grim- ball, executive officer of the Shenandoah, served in the navy of the Confederate States. Colonel Morris in 1818 sold the house to his nephew- in-law, Daniel Elliott Huger, whose career as a legis lator and jurist is a part of the history of the State. Since his death in 1854, his descendants have continually lived there, nearly completing a century of ownership and occupation. Two curiously similar accidents connected with this house brought about the serious injury of one man and the death of another. Francis Kinloch Huger, first noted for his romantic attempt to rescue Lafayette from Olmutz, narrowly escaped death on the front steps. As 78 STAIRCASE IN THE HUGER HOUSE OLD HOUSES ON MEETING STREET he was ascending them a part of the bull's-eye in the roof fell upon him and fractured his skull. The tradi tion says that his mind was saved by his cousin, Mrs. Huger, taking upon herself the responsibility of refus ing to allow him to be trepanned (then an uncertain operation) for fear of a permanent injury to his brain. He lived to become a Lieutenant-Colonel in the U. S. Army, and to join in welcoming Lafayette to Charleston in 1825, when the city presented its distinguished visitor with his miniature by Fraser. This picture is now in the collection of Mr. R. T. Haines Halsey, of New York, who recently bought it at the sale, by the present Marquis, of the historical mementos of his great predecessor. The fatal accident on the Huger steps was an inci dent of the earthquake of 1886. A parapet, which had replaced the bull's-eye, was thrown off, and a portion of it fell upon and crushed an unfortunate young Eng lishman. He was visiting at the house, and attempted to run out of it while the shock was most violent. Like others in this part of Charleston, this house suffered from shells during the bombardment, which lasted from August 22, 1863, continuing at intervals until the evacuation in February, 1865. It has not yet been definitely ascertained by whom and when the house was built; whether by Capt. John Bull, Mrs. Mary Bull or Mrs. Daniel Blake, their grand daughter, but it may be fairly suggested that it was built somewhere about 1760, when the rapidly increasing wealth of the colony was developing an ambition to imi- 6 81 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON tate more closely the larger houses of the mother country. The building we are now considering is a double house above a high cellar, and a flight of stone steps leads from the street to the front door, through which is en tered the hall. This runs through to the back door, where another flight goes down into the yard, which, in the old days, had on one side the kitchen, and on the other the carriage house and stables, both large brick buildings with second stories ; and beyond lay the garden. The general plan differs little from the description already given of such houses, but there is a marked advance in the finish and detail over the houses of a little earlier date. The hall at the back widens markedly at the expense of the back rooms, the break being made with pilasters supporting an arch. This gives space for a handsome staircase, with a broad mahogany rail, which continues unchanged to the top of the house, making two flights to each story, with a graceful triple window at the first landing and a simpler one above. The panelled drawing-rooms on the second floor, which extend across the entire front, have very handsome orna mented ceilings somewhat similar to those of the Brew ton- Alston-Pringle house and others of the same date. The broad piazzas to the south have been added recently by the present owner. Each panel of the drawing-room before 1865 was filled with a long mirror. These, with all the rest of the furniture, were shipped to the North by the invaders, when the city fell in 1865, and was thus stripped almost universally. The home was then held by the widow of Judge Huger, twenty- 82 DRAWING-ROOM IN THE HUGER HOUSE OLD HOUSES ON MEETING STREET one of whose descendants had been in the active service of the Confederate States. This story of loss of life and property is equally true of each house and family in the old town, and will not be constantly repeated here. Carolinians have for the proud motto of their State " Animis Opibusque Parati," and never, in public need, have they recked of " life and fortune." Immediately opposite to the Huger house, just de scribed, is a Bull residence, old and quaint. The quality of quaintness has been much modified by the re-modelling and additions of more recent owners as concessions to modern conceptions of comfort. These have affected chiefly the interior and back of the house, leaving the street front unchanged except for the addition of the piazzas to the south. The heavily-built chimney stands outside of the northern wall, which is unusual. The house is on a high foundation, and two narrow flights of stone steps meet on a platform, upon which the street door opens. Older people remember that one entered on a narrow hall with a narrow room on either side. The one to the north was the smaller, because at its west end space was taken for a very narrow and steep stairway of two flights, at the head of which a narrow passage, with a tiny room beside it, ran into the large drawing- room which filled the width of the house from east to west. This has all been changed. Large additions have been made to the west and the staircase has been entirely rebuilt. The lots 276 and 277, in the old plat of Charles Town, are said to have been granted to Stephen Bull, 85 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON May 19, 1694. His son, Lieut.-Gov. William Bull, in 1746 conveyed to John Drayton, Esq., for a nominal consideration, the back part of lot No. 277, bounding east on other part of said lot, " now in possession " of Thomas Drayton, Esq., and Doctor Bull. This Dr. Bull was the second Lieut.-Gov. William Bull, and the two Draytons, Thomas and John, married respectively Elizabeth and Charlotte Bull, daughters of the grantor, while the third daughter married Henry Middleton, which last in 1778 we find in possession of Lot 276 to the South. The Bulls of these three generations were leading men of the province, each in his day, the last having been Lieutenant-Governor (in Charles Town at least) until it was evacuated by the British on December 14, 1782. (Their history has been fully given in the South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. i, p. 76.) The house is believed to have been built by the first William at probably quite an early date. It is notice able that this William Bull's brother, Capt. John Bull, was the owner of the opposite lot, sold in 1795 to Colonel Morris by executors of his granddaughter, Mrs. Blake, whose sister's husband, Miles Brewton, built the Pringle house on King Street ; and that Lady William Campbell was a first cousin of these two ladies, the three of them having been born Izards. Two other granddaughters of Capt. John Bull, born Middleton, were the wives of Benjamin Guerard, Gov ernor of South Carolina, when the Revolutionary War 86 OLD HOUSES ON MEETING STREET was ending, and of Major Pierce Butler (late of H. B. M., 29th Regiment) , the Adjutant General of the new State, from whom descends Owen Wister, the well- known author of " Lady Baltimore," in the pages of which flit many types of a rapidly changing Charleston. An active imagination will at once be attracted by the queer melange of conflicting family and political inter ests that gathered 'round these old houses. Bull, a Royal Lieutenant-Governor, owning premises on one side; in the opposite house at different times, Campbell, the last Royal Governor, and a member of his council, Mr. Blake, while a square away was Miles Brewton, a member of the Provincial Congress of South Carolina. John Drayton, to whom the next lot to Governor Bull's had been given, was a member of the King's Council, while his son, William Henry Drayton, was a fiery leader of the Revolution. To a family gath ering like this, Guerard and Butler must have brought, not peace, but added discord. This is only one of many similar pictures of the period, for the Revolution was indeed a civil war of the most violent sort, with kinsman and neighbor arrayed against kinsman and neighbor in rancorous warfare. How much more happy were the conditions in 1861-1865, when the Sovereignty of Caro lina marshalled her men for another bloody conflict — in no respect a civil war, for they were all of one way of thinking. Lot 277 was thus divided by the first Lieut.-Gov. William Bull into three parts. The part with the house on it passed from Thomas Drayton's estate through a 87 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON certain Charles Goodwin in 1783 to Hext McCall, in which family it remained until 1834, when it was sold to Mrs. Elizabeth Hayne, born Peronneau, and to three of her daughters. A son of Mrs. Elizabeth Hayne was Robert Young Hayne, who in 1822 was United States Senator, and whose debate with Webster was so often delivered from school-room platforms sixty years ago. He became Governor of South Carolina, on the Nullifi cation issue, in 1832, and was one of the leading pro moters of the scheme to link the Mississippi and the Ohio to Charleston by an ambitious railroad. Old people still living can remember when a great delegation from Memphis and the West brought a hogshead of water of the Mississippi, and it was pumped, with great parade, by a fire engine over the High Battery into Charleston harbor, while in the evening visitors and natives celebrated " this marriage " by a ball given in its honor.Alas ! Not many years later a cruel war devastated the country, and to-day the Memphis and Charleston Railroad pours its trade into another port, leaving to Charleston only a memory and the huge debt incurred in its construction. With the death of Miss Susan Hayne in 1895 the house became the property of its present owner, Mr. Henry H. Ficken. At what time the portion of the lot to the South, which in 1746 (see M.C.O., CC, 260*) was in the possession of Dr. William Bull (the second Lieutenant-Governor Bull), was added to the northern * Mesne Conveyance Office, Book CC, page 260. 88 OLD HOUSES ON MEETING STREET part does not appear, but in 1790 this was still held by the trustees of his wife. The lane called Ladson's Court had been opened partly on the land of this lot and partly on that of No. 276, sold by Henry Middleton in 1778 (see M.C.O. E-5, 227) to John Deas, which last then held also the third or back part of Lot No. 277. The lane had been opened to give access to this third portion of Lot 277, which had been given in 1746 by the first Lieutenant-Governor Bull to his son-in-law, John Drayton. This Ladson's Court was recently opened through to King Street, when it was also widened on the north side of it. On this back part of the lot stands to-day the very interesting house, now (1916) the residence of Mr. Jenkins M. Robertson. The identical house is shown on a plat which accompanies the deed to Thomas Rhett Smith in 1813, but there is nothing to show when it was built, except that the appearance suggests a much earlier date. The possession was in many owners in the century following the gift to John Drayton by his father-in-law. The house next north of Mr. Ficken' s is to-day (1916) the residence of the widow of Gen. James Conner, and stands on the southern part of Lot 278. The land passed from the executor of James Simmons between his death, in 1775, and the date of Robert Gibbes' will, in 1782. Both of these speak of it as the place where they lived, but it has not so far appeared which one built the existing house. Yet it seems probable that the builder was Simmons. It was owned for about thirty-seven years by William Brisbane, and later by Mr. Otis 89 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Mills. Both of these altered and improved the house, but it was repaired and remodelled by the present owner, to whom is due its attractive appearance. The house on the upper part of Lot 278 was early in the last century owned by St. Michael's Church as a parsonage, and was sold in 1826 to Dr. William Read, who died in 1845, leaving Major James Lovell as the last surviving officer of the Continental Line of the Revolution. THE HOUSES BUILT BY MILES BREWTON, ROBERT PRINGLE AND WILLIAM BRANFORD CHAPTER V THE HOUSES BUILT BY MILES BREWTON, ROBERT PRINGLE, AND WILLIAM BRANFORD THE fine house built soon after 1765 by Miles Brewton, known to-day as the Pringle House on King Street, has been often described, for it stands but little altered. It is a square " double house " on a high basement and is reached from the street through a small courtyard paved with flagstones. A fine iron fence with a double gateway separates this from the street. The portico is very handsome in its detail and the two tiers of stone pillars are impressive. Its plat form, paved with marble, is reached at each end by two flights of marble steps with a broad landing at the turn of each. Upon this platform opens the large street door with its carved frame and fanlight. The wide flagged hall has two large rooms on either side, and is prolonged at the back so as to give additional room for the broad mahogany staircase with a triple-arched win dow. Like other houses of this date the drawing-rooms on the second floor take up the whole front. The panel ling, ceilings, cornices, mantel-pieces, and other details are noticeably fine examples of their period. We give at length from the South Carolina Historical 93 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON and Genealogical Magazine, vol. xv, p. 144, an advertise ment reproduced by the editor, Miss Webber, from the South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal of August 22, 1769: i • r • ¦*!.«. H. «.!«.«. MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE. STEPS FROM HOUSE TO COURTYARD " Architecture " Ut res gesta est Narrabo Ordine " Ezra Waite, Civil Architect, House-builder in general, and " Carver, from London, Has finished the Architecture, con- " ducted the execution thereof, viz : in the j oiner way, all taber- 94 fe, Copyright, 1914, by Alice B. Huger Smith THE BREWTON-ALSTON-PRINGLE HOUSE, BUILT SOON AFTER 176fi I fl^' .< h W/# ft Ylt :> ¦ HI Copyright, 1914, by Alice K. Huger Smith THE LOWER HALL OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE mjc R. IW, %«^ei-. Copyright, 1914, by Alice K. Huger Smith THE UPPER HALL OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE Aides Biturten House JvaMt. i^vfi uTnnRBT— — "B s s %fx*£ PLAN OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE AND GROUNDS BREWTON, PRINGLE, AND BRANFORD HOUSES nacle frames, (but. that in the dining-room excepted) and carved all the said work in the four principal rooms ; and also calculated, adjusted, and draw'd at large for to work by, the Ionick entablature, and carved the same in the front and round the eaves, of Miles Brewton, Esquire's House on White Point for Mr. Moncrieff. If on inspection of the above mentioned work, and twenty-seven years experience, both in theory and practice, in noblemen and gentlemen's seats, be sufficient to recommend; he flatters himself to give satisfaction to any gentleman, either by plans, sections, elevations, or executions, at his house in King-Street, next door to Mr. Wainwrights' where architecture is taught by a peculiar method never pub lished in any book extant. " N. B. As Miles Brewton, Esquire's, dining room is of a new construction with respect to the finishing of windows and doorways, it has been industriously propagated by some (be lieved to be Mr. Kinsey Burden, a carpenter) that the said Waite did not do the Architecture, and conduct the execution thereof. Therefore the said Waite, begs leave to do himself justice in this public manner, and assure all gentlemen, that he the said Waite, did construct every individual part and drawed the same at large for the joiners to work by, and con ducted the execution thereof. Any man that can prove to the contrary, the said Waite promises to pay him One Hundred " Guineas, as witness my hand, this 22nd day of August, 1769. Ezra Waite. " Veritas Odium Pavit." We have never heard that Mr. Waite's proffered " One Hundred Guineas " were ever claimed. The large outbuildings of brick and the garden and kitchen courtyard show the same careful finish in design and execution. These gardens originally extended through to Legare THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Street, but to-day on the west end of the lot on that street are two fine houses, erected between 1857 and 1860. Mr. Brewton did not long enjoy his new home, for he, his wife, and children were all lost at sea in 1775 on their way to Philadelphia, and his property passed to his sisters, Mrs. Charles Pinckney and Mrs. Jacob a:'*^V':. _J*SKiJ--,V* -'-^---J- ' -1 - ------ ' L~ --_l7 Copyright, 1914, by Alice E. Huger Smith -CARHIAGE-HOUSE OF MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE— SEEN FROM THE KITCHEN COURTYARD (Rebecca) Motte, along with the site of Col. Miles Brewton's house and other buildings at the corner of Church and Tradd Streets already mentioned. Mrs. Rebecca Motte occupied the house during the Revolution, when it became the headquarters of Sir Henry Clinton, whose profile, faintly scratched on a marble mantel-piece by some idle young officer, is still to be seen there. Mrs. Motte's three daughters were married respectively to John Middleton of Lee's Legion, Gen- 100 BREWTON, PRINGLE, AND BRANFORD HOUSES eral Thomas Pinckney, and Captain William Alston of the Waccamaw Company of Marion's Brigade. The latter shortly after his marriage bought the house from Copyright, 1914, by Alice K. Huger Smith MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE The Northwest Arch, looking toward the Kitchen Courtyard Mrs. Motte and her sister, and made it his town resi dence for nearly half a century. President Washington has given us in his diary an interesting picture of Colonel Alston's plantation on 101 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON the Waccamaw, where he reared thoroughbred horses on a large scale. Irving's " History of the Turf in South Carolina " shows us that the spacious stables of this house held those horses, when brought down for the annual race-meeting. A short quotation may be interesting: " I remember meeting Betsy Baker at the corner of Friend and Tradd Streets, on her return to Copyright, 1914, by Alice B. Huger Smith SERVANTS' HOUSE FROM THE GARDEN— MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE Col. Alston's stables in King Street, after having beaten Rosetta in 1791 — a great crowd following her." The owner of Rosetta was Lieut. -Col. William Wash ington, formerly commanding Baylor's Dragoons, whose gallantry in arms during the Revolution made for him a name and fame which needed no support from his kin ship to the great commander-in-chief. Of William Washington's own home mention will be made later. From Colonel Alston his house passed to his daugh- 102 BREWTON, PRINGLE, AND BRANFORD HOUSES ter, Mrs. William Bull Pringle, and a new volume of family and local history was thus opened. For when the United States Army occupied Charleston in 1865 it became a second time the headquarters of a general of an invading army. This house is one of the few the owners of which to this day have been continuously of PLcun -o/S ^j^cror M iLs Bpturten Houac J"c-Cl£l «W iffffTUtraiit ~%flu£ the family of the builder. Occupied successively by Brewtons, Mottes, Alstons, and Pringles, those of the last named have held it so long that to us of to-day it is generally known as the Pringle house. The house built by Judge Robert Pringle in Tradd Street, and the next one to it at the corner of Meeting (This account has been condensed from one to be found in the " Twenty Drawings of the Pringle House," a portfolio pub lished by Alice R. Huger Smith in 1914.) 103 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Street, are upon portions of Town Lots Nos. 87 and 88, which lots were the property of Andrew Allen. His daughter, Jane, on 18th July, 1734, married this Robert Pringle, and Mr. Allen in consideration of the marriage conveyed to them a parcel 73 feet front on Tradd Street and running across these two lots 195 feet in depth. Upon the western portion of this parcel of land Robert Pringle built in 1742 a three-story brick house recently pulled down, long used by his son, John Julius Pringle, as a law office ; and on the eastern part he built in 1774 the large three-story brick house, now the residence of Mr. Arthur Rutledge Young. The corner parcel of these two lots 87 and 88 was devised by Andrew Allen in 1735 to his eldest son, John Allen, who in 1747 sold it to Benjamin Savage. The latter bequeathed it in 1750 to his niece, Elizabeth Savage who, as " an agreeable young lady with a hand some fortune " (see Gazette), married in 1751 William Branford. It is believed that Mr. and Mrs. Branford built the house between the date of their marriage and that of his death in 1767, for we read in de Saussure's Equity Reports that soon after the death of her husband, Mrs. Branford under the deed of trust " entered into the possession of her house " and had use of it until her own death in 1801, when under the same deed Thomas Horry claimed the house in right off his wifei, Ann Branford. The piazza over the street was added by their son, Elias Horry, within the recollection of an old lady ninety-one years of age, who remembers going as a child with her father to see the alterations then in 104 DETAIL OF ROOM IN MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE, FIRST FLOOR DRAWING-ROOM IN MILES BREWTON'S HOUSE y g ZfD 1 " n n - / i ^ ^>. U M i i I 1= \ r J~'c>aM, CnaA'"l 1 1 % I &/r, »£w£ fcr/ J):-. ! ,//««* I J I Q I j 7^ i -. : .r S&*t* PLAN OF MANIGAULT HOUSE AND GROUNDS steps, from which the door opened into the bow of the hall which ran through the house to the other door. Pass ing through this to the southern piazza, another flight of 138 ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT steps and a long walk led through the garden to the entrance on Ashmead Place, under a little dome-topped pavilion called the garden-house. The steps at the northern door have been removed and it has been disused as an entrance. The house is a parallelogram with bows i%Wj*?£i%S':^ '.. fi GARDEN ENTRANCE OF MANIGAULT HOUSE on the north and east sides and a bowed piazza on the west, and a long broad piazza on the south. The hall is wide and broken by an arch, with the staircase at the north end, sweeping up with a fine curve and lighted by a triple window on the landing. On either side at the south end are the dining-room and library, while the 139 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON north side is taken up with smaller rooms and pantries. On the second floor the upper hall loses in length because there is a card-room at the south end of it, opening on the piazza through a wide door with side lights. The drawing-room extends across the whole western end of the house. The arrangement of the rest of the house is interesting, but too irregular to describe. The MANTEL IN MANIGAULT HOUSE finish of the whole is very fine. From the third floor to the second in the thickness of the wall which separates the halls from the smaller rooms to the south, there is a curious very small and narrow staircase, entered on the third floor through a movable panel, and on the second through a little closet with a door on the hall. There can be imagined no possible use for it. The third example of this group is the house which, with large additions, is to-day the High School and was long the residence of Hon. Mitchell King. It was at the 140 ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT beginning of the last century known as the Radcliffe House. It is built at the corner of George and Meeting Streets across two lots, the last of which was conveyed to the trustees of Mrs. Mary Petrie, widow of Edmund Petrie, in 1796. She sold the lots in 1800 to Thomas DOORWAY IN MANIGAULT HOUSE Radcliffe, who died in 1806, leaving to his wife a life estate in the house, which he had just finished building. She resided there until 1821, and in 1824 it was sold to Judge King. Judge King was born in Scotland and came to Charleston in 1805, where he was some years later ad mitted to the Bar. He rapidly rose to the front rank of his profession, and held his place there through a long life. His house was known as a centre of hospitality, 141 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON and the tradition of Mrs. King's annual balls, given for many years during " Race Week," lingers still around her house. At his death his fine collection of books was given to the College of Charleston and is to-day a valu able part of its library. In 1880 his house was pur chased from his executors, and was remodelled to fit it for use as a High School. As all the additions have been made at the back, the plan and finish of the original house have been little interfered with. ^Nevertheless, the eye misses the piazzas which filled the angles between the front rooms and the bay on which the street door opens The resemblance in the general plan between the Middleton-Pinckney house and this Radcliffe house is quite marked. Each is entered through a bay, and in each the hall runs through the house to a staircase in another bay at the back, the stairs rising in a curve to the next floor. The last house in this group of four was built by Mr. Nathaniel Russell and completed in 1811. It differs in many respects from the three last described, but has certain features in common with one or another of them. The beautiful staircase is an ellipse taking up the central hall and springing unsupported from each floor to the next, which gives a peculiarly graceful and airy effect to the hall. It is lighted by a triple window on the first flight and by an oval window above. The large half-octagon bay, which projects on the south of the house, contains on each story a large oval room, charm ing in proportion and finish. Each of these rooms opens on the staircase-hall and landings, through a rounded door of the exact curve of the oval both within and 142 JUDGE KING'S HOUSE, NOW THE HIGH SCHOOL, BUILT IN 1806 WINDOW IN THE HIGH SCHOOL, FORMERLY THE RESIDENCE OF JUDGE KING 10 DOORWAY IN HIGH SCHOOL, FORMERLY THE RESIDENCE OF JUDGE KING ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT without. It is only at the back of the house beyond the staircase that later alterations have been made. The rooms on the street front, the oval rooms, and the stair case are the same on each floor. The entrance from the street is into the lowest of these front rooms, and from this the staircase-hall is entered by a beautiful double door. Over the street door J \f Mi f ;»:„§, m j.-«#^ai , ., j«3 . rJTtftrr-a"!?: ^#"-*i HOUSE BUILT BY NATHANIEL RUSSELL, COMPLETED IN 1811 Now the Residence of Mr. F. J. Pelzer, Jr. the letters N. R. appear in the wrought-iron balcony which runs around the east and south of the house. The large garden to the front and to the south, and the Scotch churchyard to the north, with numerous trees, make a fine setting for this house. The extensive brick outbuildings back of the house are quite in keeping with it. Mr. Nathaniel Russell, like General Pinckney, from 149 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON whose will we have quoted to the same effect, realized that the cost of his residence far exceeded its selling value, for in his will, dated May 26, 1819, he expresses his persuasion that this cost should not be taken as the 'SC, -£ a»„.« M.u rule of valuation in the distribution of his property, but prescribes the sum at which it should be valued as $38,000. The Times of September 11, 1811, in its account of the tornado which swept diagonally across the town on the 8th of the same month, tells of the damage done to this house as follows: 130 STAIRCASE IN RUSSELL HOUSE jy*„ t-^>'wTij^«^-*'jJ^ffl MANTEL IN OVAL ROOM ON SECOND FLOOR OF RUSSELL HOUSE MANTEL IN OVAL ROOM ON FIRST FLOOR OF RUSSELL HOUSE ARCHITECTURAL DEVELOPMENT " The new and large mansion house of Nathaniel Russell, Esq. together with his extensive back buildings entirely unroofed ; the windows broken in, and his furni ture (for the most part) entirely ruined — his loss it is said will not fall short of $20,000." This fixes approx imately the date of the house. Mr. Russell came to Charleston from Bristol, Rhode / | u RfHf j \ j ¦. i; I _J ¦-:: teBM MANTEL IN OVAL ROOM ON THIRD FLOOR OF RUSSELL HOUSE Island, and had here a long and successful business career. His only two children became the wives of Mr. Arthur Middleton and Bishop Theodore Dehon, the latter a native of Boston. Bishop Dehon had been until 1809 Rector of Trinity Church, Newport, which cure he had resigned to take charge of St. Michael's in Charleston, where he died in 1817 as the highly esteemed Bishop of the Diocese. 155 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Mrs. Dehon inherited her father's house, and resided in it for many years. She died in 1857, and her chil dren, Mrs. Paul Trapier, Dr. Theodore Dehon, and Rev. William Dehon, sold the house to Hon. Robert FRONT DOOR OF RUSSELL HOUSE Francis Withers Allston, then Governor of South Caro lina. In 1870 his executors sold it to the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, and from them it passed to Dr. Lane Mullally, and later to Mr. Francis J. Pelzer, the present owner. 156 THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF GRANVILLE'S BASTION CHAPTER VII THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF GRANVILLE'S BASTION WE must remember that the fire of 1740 de stroyed the whole of East Bay from Broad Street to Granville's Bastion, while that of 1778 left only fifteen houses between Queen Street and the Bastion. Therefore it seems probable that the group of old houses on the bay below Longitude Lane may have been among those spared by the second of those fires, and that possibly some of them date back nearly to the first. Among later buildings in that part of East Bay Street below Tradd may be mentioned the two large three-story brick buildings, each holding three separate " tenement " houses at the foot of Longitude Lane. In Charleston from the earliest day a " tenement " house was understood to be one built with another within the same outer walls and under one roof, and separated from its neighbor by a partition wall, which in the old days was usually of brick, running from the ground to the roof. These two buildings were erected about 1800 by Arnoldus Vanderhorst, Governor of South Carolina, 1792-1794, and stood one on each side of the entrance to his wharf. The northern one was pulled down after the Confederate War and its material used to erect on its site a cotton shed or store-house. But the southern one still remains, and by its massive appearance gives a 159 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON striking impression of the commercial prosperity that almost immediately followed the Revolution. This also reminds us that these old houses in the business section were built to allow of the use of the lower floors as offices or salesrooms, while the upper stories . could be used as dwellings. Large warehouses still remain in the yards as evidence of this. Long since, these lower floors, as well as the warehouses at the back, have been brought into use as part of the residences. The remaining Vanderhorst building still presents a good appearance. Built of Carolina grey brick with white stone trimmings, the long line of the high-pitched roof is relieved by the bull's-eye then so commonly used. Among the older houses on the west side of the street stands the more modern residence of Mr. Rawlins Lowndes (1916) . This handsome house was built after 1818 by Mr. John Fraser, who founded the great busi ness firm of John Fraser & Co., of which a partner, Mr. George A. Trenholm, was Secretary of the Treas ury to the Confederate States. The next owner, Mr. Charles T. Lowndes, improved the property by pulling down the house to the south and adding the beautiful piazzas rising to the third story, while his son, the present owner, added further to its attractiveness by pulling down yet another house to the south, making space for a large garden. It is a handsome specimen of the single-house so often spoken of. The rooms are lofty, with large windows and with doors of mahogany. The spacious sweep of the stair case is very striking. 160 NEIGHBORHOOD OF GRANVILLE'S BASTION Next south of this is an old house of a much earlier date. This stands upon the nprthetfrihalf of Lot No. 2 in the old plan or model of Charles Town, which lot was granted in 1681 to Theophilus Patey. How this passed to Joseph Boone we cannot say, but in 1717 it is found in his possession. He married Ann Axtell, widow of John Alexander. Mrs. Alexander was the daughter of Landgrave Daniel Axtell, and sister of " the Lady Eliza beth Blake," wife of Joseph Blake, Governor and Lord Proprietor of the colony. In the proprietary period it was customary to give the courtesy title of " Lady " to the wives of the Land graves. Thus in old deeds we come across such names as the " Lady Rebecca Axtell," and the " Lady Eliza beth Blake " and others. It is probably needless to ex plain that under the " Fundamental Constitutions," writ ten by the philosopher, John Locke, in 1669, there was provision made for the creation of a Carolinian nobility with the titles of Landgrave and Cacique. With the patent of Landgrave went grants of four baronies and with that of Cacique went two — each barony containing 12,000 acres. These titles were gradually disused and seem to have been generally borne only by two genera tions, though in a few cases by three. Locke was then the Secretary of Lord Ashley, after wards Earl of Shaftesbury, and long shared the fortunes of that great statesman, " sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit." In 1671 Locke was created, a Landgrave of Carolina, but is not known ever to have visited the province. ! 11 161 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON By Boone's will in 1733 this property passed to Mrs. Boone, who devised it in 1749 as the house she " did then live in " to her husband's two nephews, Thomas and Charles Boone. This Thomas Boone was the Royal Gov ernor of South Carolina 1761-1764. The Boones sold the lot in 1753 to Thomas Smith, who in the same year conveyed it to William Roper, and the descendants of the last continued to possess it until 1836. The construction of this house gives it the ap pearance of being very old, and would lead one to sup pose that it was built by Boone. But the fact that the fire of 1740 is said to have consumed all the houses on that part of the Bay, seems to suggest a later date. However, Mrs. Boone in 1749 declares that she resided there, and therefore, if it was burnt in 1740, she must have promptly rebuilt it — possibly within the same walls, which are to-day massive enough to have resisted the fire. As an indication that this was actually done where possible, we have the following Gazette notice to show as authority : " South Carolina Gazette, Dec. 9, 1745. To be sold, a corner Lot in Charlestown, opposite to Col. Brewton's containing 103 feet front in Church Street, and 40 feet in Tradd Street. Alexander Fraser. N. B. There is upon the said Lot two very good brick Chimneys and a Foundation, which may serve another Building." The outer walls of the house on the lowest floor are of great thickness, measuring twenty-eight inches at about five feet from the ground, and a striking peculiarity 162 NEIGHBORHOOD OF GRANVILLE'S BASTION is that the partition wall which divided the house just beyond the staircase is also very massive, though not as thick as the outer walls. The house is to-day of the type called the " single-house," entered from the street on to a wide piazza and thence into a hall in the middle STAIRCASE IN RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE MOFFETT of the house. A careful examination suggests that the staircase-hall was originally a part of the large front room on the street. The fact that the middle window of this room is larger than the other two suggests also that it was the original entrance to the house. A pretty staircase leads to the upper stories and is lighted by a large arched window. The panelled rooms have in many of the window cases seats in the thickness of the walls. The drawing-room is the front room on the 163 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON second floor with a curious loss of space on the north wall on one side of the chimney, the explanation of which is left to the imagination. The few alterations that are noticed have all been made in good taste and in keeping with the style of the house. Among these are LIBRARY IN MR. MOFFETT'S HOUSE almost certainly the well-built piazzas, of which there is one to each story, and which must have been added quite early. The iron gateway to the carriage entrance at the south and the iron balcony taken from another old house, are among the improvements made by the present owner, Mr. George H. Moffett. A small branch of Vanderhorst Creek with its marshj at the time of the original grant, ran up west of this lot between it and Church Street, heading near Tradd. 164 MANTEL IN DRAWING-ROOM OF MR. MOFFETT'S HOUSE NEIGHBORHOOD OF GRANVILLE'S BASTION This was filled up at an early date, and the alley cross ing it bears the name of Justinus Stoll. The western half of this alley was apparently originally a court, but a very narrow little passage or pathway now connects it with East Bay just south of Mr. Moffett's wall. The DINING-ROOM IN MR. MOFFETT'S:HOUSE queer old houses that filled the more open part of this alley, it is sad to say, have nearly all disappeared, and those remaining have been much changed to the injury of an exceedingly picturesque spot ; but the eastern end, where two people can scarcely walk abreast, has still an old-fashioned air with a high brick wall on one side and a great brick house on the other. Between Stall's Alley and the " High Battery " all the houses of the eighteenth century have disappeared 167 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON except one that is quite noticeable for its quaintness and solid air. Its thick walls and old-fashioned in terior with the quaint cupboards mark its period, although both its date and the name of the builder are A BEDROOM IN MR. MOFFETT'S HOUSE lost. This house was bought in 1821 by John Raven Matthewes and is to-day in the possession of his grand daughter, Miss Matthewes. Nearly opposite to it is the house still called the Missroon House, which, having been recently converted into a boarding house called the Shamrock Terrace, was shattered by the gale of 1911. This stands on a portion of the site of Granville's Bastion. ( See MCO Book C-6, 33;alsoQ-6, 61.) (M.C.O. stands for Mesne Conveyance Office, where all deeds affecting real estate are or should be recorded.) 168 NEIGHBORHOOD OF GRANVILLE'S BASTION The western part of the Bastion was thrown into East Bay Street, and the eastern part was sold by the Commissioners of Public Lands to Hary (sic) Grant about 1789. By him it was conveyed in 1795 to Francis Kinloch and by him in 1799 to James Lee, who the next year sold it to the trustees of Mrs. Mary Fraser, the wife of Dr. James Fraser. From Mrs. Fraser it passed in 1807 to Captain Missroon, by whose name it is still called. The survey or plat, made for the Commissioners in 1789, is interesting, for it gives the foundations of the wall of the bastion on the north, east, and south, and at a little distance on those sides the " remains of the old Pickets." The house was apparently built by Mr. Hary Grant, for the consideration named in his deed to Kinloch was £3000, at a date when the " pound " had resumed its sterling value, the old colonial currency having been swept away by the war. THE FORTIFICATIONS ON WHITE POINT, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES CHAPTER VIII THE FORTIFICATIONS ON WHITE POINT, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES WE are not able to assert positively when the broad mouth of Vanderhorst Creek was closed, but in the minutes of the Commis sioners of Fortifications, 1755-1757, we find many details of the building of the works from Granville's Bastion to Broughton's Battery, and also of the construction of the large flood-gate on that line. This can only be the one of which the massive foundations still remain under East Battery Street where Water Street enters it. On May 25, 1756, Major de Brahm, the engineer in charge, ordered that " the line from Granville's Bastion at Mr. Roper's wharf home to Broughton's Bastion is to be carried level with the heighth of the Flood- Gate newly constructed." Broughton's Battery was originally a detached work, but became after 1756 a bastion in the new line of works. We find in the minutes of November 8, 1757, the follow ing: " The Middle Bastion between Broughton's Bat tery and Granville's Bastion being finished and Cannon Mounted therein, and his Exc'y the Governor being acquainted therewith, he Agreed with the Commissioners to meet there on Thursday next (being his Majesty's Birth Day) at four o'Clock in' the Afternoon to Drink his Majesty's Health and name the said Bastion." 173 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON The lines built at this time from Broughton's Bat tery along the south water front extended to Lamboll's Bridge, which was a pier extending just along the west line of King Street where it met the water at what is now South Bay Street. (See plat MCO X-3, p. 162, in which is laid down the line of fortifications from Meet ing Street to King Street.) In Dr. Shecut's sketch of the original " Topography of Charleston," printed by A. E. Miller for the author in Charleston, 1819, he errs as to the location of Lamboll's Bridge. The extension of the fortifications beyond this point need not be described here. This feverish activity in repairing and extending the defenses of the town was due to the then flagrant war with France. The military engineer in charge in 1755-1756 was John William Gerard de Brahm, who is said to have been a captain in the service of the Em peror before coming to America, and who was continu ously employed in such work in Georgia and South Caro lina up to and through the Revolution. De Brahm seems to have given up the personal supervision of the work in 1756, for we find him in that year in the Cherokee Country, assisting in building Fort Loudoun on the Ten nessee, the tragic fall of which in 1760 startled and alarmed the Southern colonies. An engineer officer named Hesse was then employed in supervising this work. This gentleman was an officer in the Royal Americans, at that time stationed in Charles Town. The minutes of the Commissioners are full of pic turesque details of the making of fascines and of the 174 WHITE POINT AND EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES transportation of marsh "mudd" for which many " periauguas " were bought or hired. These were usually described as of the capacity of so many barrels of rice. They were enlarged cypress canoes much used along the coast as carriers. The word is properly " piragua " and came from the Spanish of the West Indies, but the varieties of the spelling in common use were infinite. The building of gun-carriages of cypress and frequently of " mahogony " (sic) and the mounting of the guns are told in interesting detail, while the dis putes between Captain de Brahm and the Commissioners induce an occasional smile. The sources of labor were various. A large number of Frenchmen (sic) employed, caused a search for overseers who could understand and talk to them. These were the unhappy Acadian exiles, of whom over 1000 were deported to Charles Town in 1755-1756. A number of Germans also are spoken of, but it cannot be said to what special group of immigrants they belonged. Negroes too were employed, both " country-born " and " new." Also, Lieutenant- Colonel Bouquet, of the Royal Americans, in 1757, expressed his willingness to employ his soldiers on the works at three shillings and sixpence currency, or sixpence sterling, per diem to each man, who should also be given a gill of rum every day. The line of the works after crossing the flood-gate cannot now be accurately traced, but it seems evident that the middle, or Lyttleton's Bastion, was where the high ground came through the edge of marsh nearly to the water line. This was where Fort Mechanic was built 175 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON about 1795, upon the site of which the Holmes and Alston houses later stood. Although after 1757 there appears to have been an easy passage along the fortifica tions from Granville's Bastion to Broughton's Battery, it was not until 1787 that the Legislature passed an act for " making and completing East Bay Street con tinued." This made possible the filling up of Vander horst Creek and the low spots on the water front. Sev eral amending acts were passed up to 1797, at which date the street seems to have been completed. A plat by Purcell, dated 1796, shows the line of the street and the location of Fort Mechanic. The lack of stone in the low country of South Caro lina was severely felt in all attempts to bank out the sea, and the need of it was early shown by the Acts of Assembly providing for these constructions. The one passed on March 25, 1738, to build the wall from White Point to Vanderhorst Creek, ordered that the founda tions below the water should be of Bermuda stone, upon which, up to a certain height, the works should be of brick. There is also a sweeping provision that all stone ballast brought into the Province should be at the dis posal of the Commissioners for such work. This fact seems to have been forgotten or ignored in the accounts, which assume that rock or stone was not used until after the gale of 1804. It was always used, but it was a question of degree and quantity, and the sea-wall of the High Battery was not developed to its present height and solidity until after the gale of 1854, when it had been breached in several places, not only by 176 WHITE POINT AND EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES the sea, but by thepounding against the wall of a large ship which at last rounded the point of the Battery and was blown upon the marsh in the neighborhood of Plum Island. The granite sea-wall, then raised and strength ened, has passed through every subsequent gale unin jured. (See Charleston Year Book of 1880.) , It was not until between 1820 and 1830 that con tinuous building along the street was possible, and between 1835 and 1845 this was hastened by the city acquiring all the irregular and disputed parcels of land and dividing them into lots and then selling them. This same plan of improvement was continued as to what is to-day called South Battery, and by 1850 all the water lots as far as King Street had been acquired, South Bay Street had been straightened, and White Point Garden had been laid out. However, it must not be forgotten that the marsh which extended up between the west side of Meeting Street and King Street nearly to Smith's Lane (now East Lamboll Street) had been filled up even before 1770 by the enterprise of Mr. Josiah Smith " at the expense of about £1200 Sterling," and the lots sold to various people who had erected upon them handsome residences, which will later be described. Josiah Smith, Jr., was a merchant of Charles Town, and was among the group of political prisoners at St. Augustine taken at the capture of Charles Town by Sir Henry Clinton in 1780. His father, the Rev. Josiah Smith, was a clergyman of the Independent (or Circu lar) Church and he, too, was exiled at the same time, in his seventy-seventh year, when he sought refuge in 12 177 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Philadelphia, where he died and was buried within the walls of the Arch Street Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Josiah Smith was the son of Dr. George Smith and the grandson of the first Landgrave Smith. Josiah Smith, Jr., lived to the advanced age of ninety-five. We have spoken heretofore of the absorbing tale, so well told by Mr. Shirley Carter Hughson, of the various battles, the trials, and the executions of pirates captured off the coast by Governor Johnson and Colonel Rhett in 1718-1719. They, or many of them, were buried some where in this marsh at the foot of Meeting Street, near the low-water mark. The peaceful rest to which they were surely entitled after expiating a stormy life of crime and combat, has been broken by the march of modern improvements, but no complaint by the living or the dead has marked the disturbance of their resting- place. The City, between 1850 and 1860, commenced to buy the property on the south side of South Bay, with the intention of extending the Garden to the westward. The Confederate War, however, ended this scheme with many another, and the purchased land was sold. Within the last decade the scheme was revived and the reclama tion of this low ground to the foot of Tradd Street has been completed. But alas! The idea of a public Park or Garden was abandoned and the reclaimed land has been broken up into building lots, retaining for the public pleasure merely a broad drive along the extended sea wall. This account of the building of the Battery shows us that, with a few exceptions of an earlier and of a later 178 WHITE POINT AND EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES date, the group of houses facing East and South Bat teries were built between 1835 and 1860, giving very interesting examples of the ideas in Charleston as to dwelling-houses during that quarter of a century. And we find then a greater variety even where there is a continuance of certain earlier traditions. For as early as 1800 there began to appear a modification of the ancient single-house, making it somewhat wider, so as to allow the street door with a hall and the staircase to be placed on the northern side of the house, while the rooms as a rule are en suite to the south. Yet they clung to the drawing-rooms on the second floor and to the broad piazzas. The practice of putting kitchens and ser vants' accommodations outside of the main building was and even is to-day generally adhered to, this being a lesson early taught by the climate and the nature of the servant class. No experimenter, imitating dwellings and customs of other cities, where the lots are small and cramped, has failed to regret thus ignoring the lessons handed down by generations of dwellers of English traditions in a semi-tropical climate. Bearing this in mind, we will now notice certain houses on the East Battery, differing much from each other, and yet curiously alike in obedience to the gen eral law governing the Charleston architectural devel opment. The climate demands that the walls of the house be protected as far as possible from the baking rays of the sun, and that the rooms should be large and lofty, each with doors and windows on at least two sides for a free passage of air. 179 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Since 1838 the Charles Alston family has owned the house built by Mr. Charles Edmonston some years previously. Mr. Alston was the son of Col. William Alston, who owned for many years the Brewton- Alston- Pringle house on King Street. This large three-story brick house is set somewhat back from the street with a '•¦. w float ,f r#f EDMONSTON HOUSE— LATER THE CHARLES ALSTON RESIDENCE low wall surmounted by a wrought-iron railing or fence, the gates being also of wrought-iron. The house has a large extension at the back and, with its brick outbuild ings, presents a marked appearance of solidity. Look ing at it from the High Battery the roof is partly hidden by a parapet, which bears on it the Alston coat-of-arms. The wide piazzas to the south add even greater width to the house. The entrance is into a large hall on the north, and from this you pass through an arch into 180 WHITE POINT AND EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES the wide staircase-hall which runs through from north to south, where it has a door on the lower piazza. The squarely-built staircase with its wide window leads to the drawing-rooms on the second floor, which are en suite with large folding doors and include the width of the central hall, as a connecting third room. Over the en trance hall is a pretty room used as a library with a door also opening into the east drawing-room. The advantage of such a plan for coolness as well as beauty is obvious, and the simple spaciousness gives an air of quiet dignity and comfort. In writing of very many of the houses built in Charleston between 1750 and 1860, it is difficult to avoid the constant repetition of this sentence. The level of the street in front of these East Battery houses has been gradually but considerably raised. This is not altogether an advantage, for the great equinoctial cyclones drive a heavy sea over the wall and the water is piled up in the raised street and forces its way into the lower floors of adjacent houses. Several times has even the well-braced iron fence before the Alston house been overturned. This and the neighboring houses have then had strange visitors, for the street doors have been beaten in, and in one case a Spanish-bayonet tree, in others long beams, have been stranded in the halls. Next south of the Alston residence stood for many years the Holmes house, built also upon a part of the site of Fort Mechanic. Unhappily this has been very recently pulled down, for it was built on a plan of its own, and tradition tells us that the entire work was done 181 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON by Mr. Holmes' own mechanics brought down from his plantation on Cooper River. Next to it Mr. William Ravenel finished, about 1845, his striking house. He faced the problem of putting a very large house on a very narrow lot, and did it cleverly. WILLIAM RAVENEL'S HOUSE From a Photograph taken before the Earthquake The entire front of the lot was filled by a Greek portico. Four large columns sprung from arches which were as high as the first story, while the columns were of the height of the second and third stories, and supported the roof. A long hall leads from the street door to the staircase- hall in the middle of the house, having to the north two rather narrow rooms with a folding door between them, 182 WHITE POINT AND EAST AND SOUTH BATTERIES and to the south a glass partition separating it from the carriage entrance, running under the drawing-room. At the end of this long hall, to the right is the staircase and immediately in front is the door of the large dining- room. The drawing-room is the full width of the front and has two card-rooms opening off of it. This drawing- WILLIAM RAVENEL HOUSE From a Photograph taken just after the Earthquake of 1886 room is the largest, perhaps, in the town, with a fireplace at each end. The back of the house is a long extension with piazzas. The earthquake of 1886 damaged this house terribly, and brought down the great columns, which have never been replaced. Their very noticeable absence brings up constantly the story of the earthquake in explanation. The handsome house next south of it, belonging to Mrs. Siegling, was built by Mr. William Roper some years later, and the large Ionic columns, supporting the 183 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON roof of the piazza, escaped injury from the earthquake, but its next neighbor to the south, built by Mr. John Ravenel, was almost destroyed. This last had long been the residence of Mr. Ravenel's son, the noted chemist, Dr. St. Julien Ravenel, whose brother-in-law, Mr. Horry Frost, restored, or rather, practically rebuilt it, and it is now the home of his daughter, Mrs. Wilmot Porcher. When Charleston was evacuated in February, 1865, Major Bertody, of a Georgia regiment, was ordered to destroy a large gun mounted at the corner of East Bat tery and South Battery. This was of English make and said to have been the largest owned by the Con federacy. Bertody, a veteran of the Mexican War, did his work thoroughly, and in doing it, badly shattered Mr. Louis de Saussure's house on the corner. A frag ment of the gun, it is said, was thrown upon the roof, and lodged in the upper part of the house, where it was found when it was repaired. The old Major, many years after the war, visited West Point in the company of a friend who was of high rank in the U. S. Army. There he was shown and recognized with mingled feel ings the remains of this old gun, his victim. The house was a new one at the time of the war, having been built between 1850 and 1860. It is now the residence of Mr. Frank O'Neill. SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING STREET CHAPTER IX SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING .,, STREET AT the west corner of Church Street and South l—\ Bay we come to a house that is, relatively to its A % neighbors, an old one. When Baylor's 3rd Con tinental Dragoons marched to join the Southern Army it left its Colonel a prisoner, he having been captured at Tappan in 1778. But, under the command of Lieut.-Col. William Augustine Washington, this famous regiment, with its more famous commander, struck its first blow against the equally noted British cavalry leader, Tarle- ton, near Rantowles, early in 1780. This action was fought in the close neighborhood of " Sandy Hill," the home of Mr. Charles Elliott, whose daughter and heiress married the victor, on April 21, 1782. A most inter esting account is given by the Due de la Rochefoucault- Liancourt of the life led in 1796 at this plantation by his host and hostess, Colonel and Mrs. Washington. In the rapid military vicissitudes of the struggle in the Carolinas in 1780 and 1781, Washington steadily increased his fame, until, at the Battle of Eutaw, Sep tember 8, 1781, his regiment was cut to pieces, and he was wounded and captured, remaining a prisoner until the close of the war. Charles Town was evacuated by the British in De cember, 1782, and on December 27, 1785, Washington bought from Mrs. Mary' Elliott Savage this residence, which is still pointed out as his. The house is said to 187 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON have been built by Thomas Savage soon after 1768, in which year he bought the lot from James Brisbane. It is described in the deed to Washington as standing on land formerly of Garret Van Velsen. The consid eration named in the deed is £4460 sterling, which indicates that the house was then standing. HOUSE OF GENERAL WILLIAM WASHINGTON, BUILT BEFORE 1786 Now the Residence of Mrs. Dowie Washington was commissioned Brigadier General in the United States Army in 1798. He died on the sixth day of March, 1810. At the death of Mrs. Wash ington, in 1830, and the expiration of her life estate, the house passed to her daughter Jane, the wife of Mr. James H. Ancrum, who bought from the City and added to the lot, a strip twenty feet wide on Church Street, and a hundred feet on Fort Street, which was then 188 SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING straightened into South Bay. This was part of the "way thirty feet wide reserved by Act of Assembly as a public passage." The purchase included an irregular piece of low ground to the west, much enlarging the garden. ¦ ,iiii u_.n- 1. -J~: T i'r tt— ¦'"¦TT^ '¦-"' Atict-jl H-SmitA GATE OF WASHINGTON HOUSE About the same time Mr. Henry Gourdin bought the low ground to the west of it in front of his house along Meeting Street down to the new line of South Bay. The entrance to the Washington house has been 189 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON changed, and must have been originally on Church Street, for we find in the Elliott-Rowand Bible (see South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. xi, p. 66) the record of a birth in this house, which is stated to have taken place " in Church Street." The square wooden house stands on a brick basement, and is one of the " double-houses " of the period. The drawing-room is large and the rooms are panelled and well finished. An examination of the garret with its heavy beams and timbers shows how well it was built. The change of entrance has fortunately not taken away the character of the house. Instead of entering on the eastern piazza overlooking Church Street, a flight of white steps leads into a rather wider one on the west. This house was long the home of Mrs. Robert B. Dowie, and has lately passed to Mr. Julian Mitchell. Of the residences on South Battery between Meet ing and King Streets one is believed to be over a century old. This is now the residence of Mr. S. E. Welch, but is still known as the " old Ashe house." It stands on Lot No. 45 of the " Grand Model," which was granted June 18, 1694, to Francis Fidling. It was held by three of the name until, in 1713, it was sold to Captain Arthur Hall, then and for some time after a member of the Commons House, for in 1717 we find him signing an address to His Majesty, requesting his protection for the Province. (See McCrady's " Proprietary Govern ment," p. 570.) The Province was then still in the throes of the Yamassee War, and was complaining bit terly of the neglect of the Lords Proprietors. It was this 190 SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING discontent that led later to the Revolution of 1719, when the Province threw off the control of their Lords. Colonel Hall's children sold the lot to William Bran ford, who held it until 1754. This Mr. Branford it was who built the house at the corner of Tradd and Meeting Streets, already described. After passing through sev eral hands we find it in 1825 in the possession of Col. John Ashe, who owned a number of lots on South Bay, from King Street eastward. He left his " mansion house on South Bay where I now reside " to his son, Richard Coch ran Ashe, and a lot on each side of it to a daughter. The corner lot was given to his daughter Mary, who had married Capt. Christopher Gadsden of the United States Navy, son of Capt. Thomas Gadsden, of the South Carolina Continental Line, and a grandson of Gen. Christopher Gadsden, a leader in the Revolution. This house, once Mrs. Gadsden's, has recently (1916) been sold by Miss Charlotte R. Holmes to Mr. J. C. Clark. Colonel Ashe's son, John Algernon Sydney Ashe, built for himself, upon the lot given to him by his father, to the east of those just mentioned, the house now ( 1916 ) owned by Mr. W. Branford Frost. In its architecture it stands alone in Charleston. This son, also called Colonel Ashe, was an unmarried man, and built an ideal resi dence for a bachelor. It is of two stories. The eastern half appears rectangular on the outside, while west of the entrance it is rounded, with piazzas following the curve. Within the house there seem to be no corners, those being replaced by curved walls. At the back of the hall a curved staircase leads to the upper story. 191 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON The Ash or Ashe family settled at an early date in Carolina, where John Ash, in 1704, was one of the leaders of the dissenting party, which so violently op posed the establishment of the Church of England as the State Church of the Province. He was sent to London by this party to protest to the Lords Proprietors, and died there. His will,, recorded both in Charles Town and London, is curious, in that it gives to certain chil dren the product of certain Tallies, " payable out of the Exchequer " in the hands of Sir William Simpson. The advowson of Colley Vicarage in Devonshire he leaves to one of his sons. His descendants have been prominent both in South Carolina and North Carolina. Nearly opposite to Col. Ashe's house, west of King Street, stands in a prominent position an old house, the residence of Mr. Henry T. Williams. This is an ex ample of the mixture of simplicity and good finish to be found in so many of the smaller houses of its date. Two other houses on this part of South Bay are noticeable. One, belonging to Mr. Ernest H. Pringle, Jr., is large and striking, but has been altered in recent years beyond recognition and therefore does not fall within our scheme. The other belongs to Miss Ross, and was built by Mr. George Robertson between 1846 and 1850. It stands at the corner of Meeting Street and attracts attention by its massiveness and its piazzas. The house replaced by it was burned, while owned by Mr. Joseph Allen Smith. A touch of interest is given when we trace in the chain of title that Josiah Smith sold the eastern half of the present lot in 1771 to Col. Isaac Hayne, whose tragic death at the hands of Corn- 192 MANTEL IN RESIDENCE OF MR. HENRYJT. WILLIAMS SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING wallis and Balfour marked an epoch in the Revolution. This deed was not only tragic but futile, for the British cause gained nothing by an execution which created exasperation, not terror, among their enemies. The other part of the lot was sold to Major de Brahm. Col. William Washington bought Hayne's part from his executors and the half of de Brahm's from the Com missioners of Confiscated Estates, but soon sold them to that Ralph Izard, Sr., whose quarrels with Franklin loom large in Revolutionary diplomatic history. Mr. Izard and Major Pierce Butler sat as Senators from South Carolina in the first U. S. Congress. When Mr. Izard bought from de Brahm himself, in 1791, the western half of the latter's lot, this was bounded to the west by land of his senatorial colleague, Butler, who had become possessed of the lot sold in 1771 by Smith to Dr. David Oliphant, also a leading Revolutionary per sonage. Dr. Oliphant served in the Council of Safety and was continuously in the political service of the State in one or another capacity until the end of the war, hold ing also high rank in the Continental Medical Service. His descendant, Mr. Talbot Olyphant, is to-day Presi dent of the New York Society of the Cincinnati. The dry research into a land title becomes full of life and interest when a group of such noted historical names appear, almost simultaneously, in connection with a small spot of ground. The question of the metes and bounds of the land is suddenly merged into history, and history is chiefly interesting when it is personal. The lot north of Miss Ross's house, just noted at the corner of Meeting Street and South Battery, belongs 195 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON to-day (1916) to the Charleston Club. It was pur chased from Josiah Smith in 1800 by Mr. Wilson Glover, who built upon it the present club house. From Glover it passed to his daughter, Mrs. John Huger, whose hus band sold it to Miss Martha Prioleau, and she owned it until her death at a very advanced age. In this house she received, in 1871, a visit from the great-granddaugh ter of her nephew, Daniel Ravenel, with the intermediate family links still living. Next north of the club house is the large house built by Mr. Wm. C. Courtney between 1850 and 1860. This occupies the two middle parts of Lot No. 117 in the old " Modell," which had been enlarged at the back by a piece of Smith's reclaimed marsh. Lot 141, just north of which runs Smith's Lane (now East Lamboll), had been granted, with Lot 142 just north of it, to Capt. Charles Clark. At some date before 1740 this lot (No. 142) and the one west had belonged to John Rivers, who opened on their south edge a lane or passage sixteen feet wide, which he called Rivers Street, to " the little street that runs from Ashley River to John Jones." Shades of the mighty! This "little street" is King Street in its beginning! Alas, poor Rivers! His "private street I laid out" was soon known as Smith's Lane, when it was not called Dyd- cott's (Dedcott's) Alley; and a City Council, careless of its history, has recently added it to Lamboll Street, which itself began life as " Kincaid." John Edwards was a member of Rutledge's Privy Council in 1779, and had taken a leading part in the previous Revolutionary incidents. It was not surpris- 196 2- ^y _- - a? if" *fl^? > -v^;' GLOVER HOUSE, NOW THE CHARLESTON CLUB, BUILT ABOUT 1800 SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING ing, therefore, that he suffered in person and property at the fall of Charles Town in 1780, when his possessions were sequestrated by the British and he was imprisoned and shared with Gadsden and more than sixty leading men their exile at St. Augustine. He built his house on Meeting Street just above the Courtney, now Dr. Maybank's house, and is said to have finished and moved into it in 1770. After the surrender of Charles Town in 1780, we learn from Major Garden (" Anecdotes of the Revolu tionary War," printed by A. E. Miller, 1822), that the commander of the British fleet, Admiral Arbuthnot, was quartered here. Other interesting traditions linger around it. We are told that in this house the family of the Comte de Grasse was received by Mr. John B. Holmes, stepson and son-in-law of John Edwards, when the unhappy planters of St. Domingo fled in numbers to this place in 1793. In the churchyard of St. Mary's on Hasell Street are the graves of several of this de Grasse family. Mr. Edwards appears to have owned the whole of Lot 141 and the north part of Lot 117 also, giving a frontage on Meeting Street of 160^ feet and a depth of 233 feet or more. Near the middle of the frontage was his house, built of cypress on a brick basement, with this peculiarity that the weather-boarding of the front is cut to look like blocks of stone, and the brick base ment is treated in the same manner. The ascent to the portico north and south is by a double flight of stone steps, each broken by a landing, and its roof is supported by two Corinthian columns and by pilasters against the wall. The hall, broken by an arch, runs 199 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON through the middle of the house to the staircase at the back, and on either side are two rooms. The drawing- rooms were on the second floor, a larger and a smaller room extending across the whole front of the house. The house in its general plan does not differ ma terially from the usual double-house of its day, but its panelling and finish place it in the front rank. The very large semicircular piazzas to the south have been re cently added by its present owner, Mr. George W. Williams, who has also largely improved the grounds to the south by raising the front half to the level of the street, from which they are separated by an iron railing or fence, thus affording the passer-by a view of the large green lawn. In 1844 this house was sold by the Edwards family to Henry W. Conner, long President of the Bank of Charleston, which, in those days, was one of the great banks of the country, with a proud history. A son of Mr. Conner was the late Brig.-Gen. James Conner, of the Confederate Army. Distinguished as a soldier, Gen eral Conner was even more noted when South Carolina was struggling for existence in the dark days of " Re construction," which ended when Hampton, in 1876, became the Governor, with Conner as his Attorney General. Opposite to these houses there are on the east side of Meeting Street several that are noticeable. The large house built by Mr. George W. Williams, Sr., is entirely modern, but to the south of it are three old houses each of a different style. The original type of each, however, has been altered by various additions. We cannot give the history in detail of Dr. Edward F. Parker's house, 200 '#;... ENTRANCE OF JOHN EDWARDS' HOUSE, BUILT ABOUT 1770 Now the Residence of George W. Williams Drawing A&cm Man&l J"c-aM. intSTiSTTTm'TTTT' -\jU>et MEASURED DRAWING OF MANTEL IN DRAWING-ROOM OP JOHN EDWARDS' HOUSE SOUTH BATTERY AND LOWER MEETING nor of that of Mr. Henry Middleton, but the southern most of the three has been long the residence of the MANTEL IN JOHN EDWARDS' HOUSE descendants of Major Ladson, of the Continental Line of the Revolution. North of this group is the house built by Mr. Harry Manigault, which is an admirable 203 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON specimen of the more imposing single-house so much liked in this place. This was long the residence of the Rev. Thomas Smyth, of the Second Presbyterian Church. A little distance above, and after crossing Atlantic Street, is the house of Hon. Henry A. M. Smith. This house was built about 1820 by William Mason Smith, a son of the first Bishop of South Carolina, and a grand- uncle of the present owner, and had certain architectural features not previously seen here. It is on a high foun dation and the street door is reached by a broad flight of stone steps; this is at the north end of the front and opens into a hall, on the left of which rises, to the third story, a circular staircase in a projection of the wall. This staircase originally had a domed roof, but a later owner in enlarging the house found it convenient to con tinue to the east the line of the projection, and to bring the roof of the addition over the dome. The earthquake of 1886 threw down the new part of the wall, when the domed roof showed itself intact. Extensive additions have been made at the back, but the interior of the older part remains practically unchanged. The rooms on each of the two lower floors open into each other with large folding doors. The back rooms are decidedly larger, in order, probably, to make the dining-room a spacious one. The drawing-rooms are on the second floor. The house was very well built, as shown by the fact that, when it was deserted during the long bombard ment in the years 1863-1865, the lead in the valleys of the roof was stolen, and, though for many months the house was partially flooded with every rain, the ceilings and walls remained sound. i j SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS CHAPTER X SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS THE South Bay Lots from King Street west ward were also largely reclaimed land. A strip of land there originally lay between the low water lots of the Ashley, and the broad marsh on the banks of a creek which appears to have been early called Oldys' Creek, and later, sometimes, the south branch of Conseillere's Creek. There is record authority for any and every wild spelling of the name " de la Conseillere." This marsh and creek ran eastwardly, parallel to the river, and occupied the greater part of the lots on what is now called Lamboll Street, as well as those on Gibbes Street. The southern corner of the Brewton lot on Legare Street was encroached upon by this marsh, and this is now the site of the home built by Col. Cleland K. Huger between 1857 and 1860. The water lots south of South Bay Street were gradually filled in later, but a number of conveyances between 1770 and 1775 assist in giving an approximate date to the walling in and filling up of the inner marsh. Four men combined to do this work, viz.: Robert Mackenzie, Edward Blake, George Kincaid, and William Gibbes. Under date of March 9, 1770, we find an award making Brewton's south wall, lately built, the line between him and these four as tenants in com- 207 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON mon. Whenever begun, the work must have been prac tically completed by September, 1772, for then a com prehensive conveyance was made by these as tenants in common to Samuel Legare, with an explanatory plat. This conveyance carried a large area: 1st, 9 acres of low-water land, fronting lots 283 and 284, running 660 feet to low- water mark; 2nd, three-quarters of an acre of marsh land just north of Lot 283 with Legare Street to the west; 3rd, Lots 283 and 284 granted in 1694 to Thomas Bolton; 4th, Lot No. 78 (sic) ;.5th, an eighth of an acre of marsh land near the three-quarters of an acre above mentioned ; 6th, four acres of low-water land between Lots 22 and 23 and the river, which were bounded east by Lamboll's low-water lot at the foot of King Street; 7th, part of Lot 133, which lay west of Legare Street, and was bounded north and west by Wm. Gibbes. These have been here listed to show the extent of the improvement. It was at this time that Johnson's Street changed its name to Legare. A nearly simultaneous reconveyance from Legare to Edward Blake covers all the land on the west side of Legare Street from Gibbes Street to South Bay, with the west line on William Gibbes, and this includes all the present lots between the Sloan house of to-day and Legare Street. A similar deed conveys to Gibbes part of the " lands lately walled and filled in jointly by Robert Mackenzie, Edward Blake, George Kincaid, and said William Gibbes." The south boundary is given as south on said south wall fronting on Ashley River, 135 feet on said wall and on South Bay Street lSSy2 feet. 208 SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS This second conveyance undoubtedly covers the land on which the Sloan house now (1916) stands. Both Blake and Gibbes are believed to have built soon after on the land thus conveyed. Blake took a leading part in the Revolution. Among many other services he was Chairman of the Naval Board, which reminds us to add that the history of the naval warfare of South Carolina during the Revolution is yet to be written comprehensively. Blake built his own house on the west side of Legare Street, north of the corner lot, which last he gave to his son, John Blake. Legare conveyed as above to Gibbes in 1772, and, Gibbes dying in 1789, the premises were conveyed to Mrs. Sarah Smith in 1794 for a consideration of £2500, which price seems to confirm the tradition that the house had been built by Gibbes, and probably before the Revolution. A comparison in values is shown by the consideration, say $10,000, named when, in 1826, it was sold to her grandson, Thomas Smith Grimke, as the property of the estate of Mrs. Sarah Smith. Through the intervening period it is frequently spoken of as the residence of Mr. Peter Smith, who, however, does not seem to have held the fee. Mrs. Sarah Smith deserves more than passing men tion, for she was the daughter of Roger Moore by his marriage to Catharine Rhett and thus combined de scents from James Moore (Governor, 1700-1702) and from Col. William Rhett, the captor of Stede Bonnet, the pirate. Her husband, Thomas Smith, of a well- known stem, was also descended in the female line from 14 209 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Thomas Smith, Landgrave and Governor. Her son, Peter Smith, whose name seems to have been long iden tified with the house, married a daughter of Hon. Henry Middleton, sometime President of the Continental Congress. Thomas Smith Grimke was an eminent lawyer, the son of Col. John Faucheraud Grimke, of the Continen tal Line, sometime Adjutant General of the Southern Army of the Revolution, and later a judge in South Carolina. For many years past the house has been owned by Col. J. B. E. Sloan, late of the Confederate Army, and is now occupied by his family. There has been a double interest in tracing out the development of this portion of the town, paralleling as it did the work of Josiah Smith, a square to the east of it; for a most interesting part of the older residence section of the town owes its very existence to these two enterprises. This work of stopping up creeks and filling low grounds seems to have commenced in the earliest days, and to have continued steadily. In searching back into the history of some old house in the heart of the town, whose site looks as if it had emerged from the water many thousand years ago with the subsidence of the ocean, we are surprised to find that within recorded history it was the bed of a creek, or a marsh, or a mud flat. With available land for building stretching end lessly into the country what economic calculation justi fied such expenditure in the early days! The more immediate interest has been to trace out the date and history of this Sloan house, the appearance 210 SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS of, which seems to, demand such an inquiry, for it has been frequently used as a fine example of colonial, archi tecture. Built of wood upon a brick basement high enough to allow of good rooms within it, it is entered from the street by double flights of wide steps meeting upon a broad stone platform. The hall, on which the front door opens, runs, with two rooms on either side, through to the staircase at the backhand is yery^wide. It is not broken by an arch, as are so many of its date, Init the ceiling is directly supported by columns. The stair case is squarely built and of good proportions. The drawing-rooms are on the second floor across the front of the house, and the ornamentation of the woodwork is fine and delicate. To the eye of a stranger Legare Street from South Bay to Tradd Street is most" interesting, for the houses in their architectural diversity, together with their well- kept gardens separating house from house, hold the eye, and in the spring and early summer when the gardens and trees are at their best, clothe the whole street in shifting green and varied colors. Below Gibbes Street, the enterprise of Messrs. Gibbes, Blake, and others, which has just been described, opened out that end of the street. The part above Gibbes Street to Tradd was anciently called Johnson Street, and here are to be found occasional older houses interspersed among the more modern ones. Some of these cannot be passed without stopping for more than a glance. The residence of Mr. J. Adger Smyth, sometime Mayor of Charleston, with its wide 211 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON garden and iron fence, broad gates with their massive pillars, graceful piazza with semicircular marble steps STAIRCASE IN GEORGE EDWARDS' HOCSE into the street, ornamented with very handsome iron- Work, induces at once questions about the house. The 212 Mitt HM"at.r-S^:iXK _ Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers GATEWAY OF GEORGE EDWARDS' HOUSE, NOW RESIDENCE OF MR. J. ADGER SMYTH h%. -,,;J^-ifpi ¦-: JPpBP ' . Copyright, "1915, by Harper & Brothers INNER GARDEN GATE OF GEORGE EDWARDS' HOUSE MANTEL IN GEORGE EDWARDS' HOUSE MANTEL IN RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE S. HOLMES SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS gates themselves are a curious and attractive combina tion of wood and iron. The capitals of the brown brick pillars are of white marble, richly carved and surmounted by marble pineapples. The house owes all of this to a former owner (1816-1835) , Mr. George Edwards, whose initials (G. E.) appear in the iron- work, one on either side of the steps. The house itself is a fine example of the colonial single-house, so often described, with south ern piazzas to the two first stories. The rooms are large with high ceilings and the finish is pretty and delicate. The house to the north of it, the residence of Mr. George S. Holmes, also an old single-house, like many early houses of the place, is simple on the outside and surprises one by the good finish of the interior. Just across the street is the gateway of a long private lane, by which is reached another handsome gate, open ing on the garden belonging to the house once the resi dence of Col. Arthur P. Hayne. Colonel Hayne was on the staff of Gen. Andrew Jackson when he fought the extraordinary Battle of New Orleans, in which was clearly shown the superiority of a thin line armed with rifles over an enemy armed with smooth-bores and charg ing in column. Yet the heavy sporting rifle of that day, with its small ball and effective range not much exceeding a hundred yards, seems but an inefficient fore father of the modern army rifle. A recent article by Herbert Ravenel Sass in the Atlantic Monthly, called " Wild Life in a City Garden," most charmingly de scribes this secluded spot and its bird-life— both resi dent and immigrant. 221 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON For over eighty years the Misses Murden, succeeded by their nieces, the Misses Sass, have educated genera tions of the young ladies of Charleston, and for fifty of these years this house and garden have been endeared to their scholars. ( See Frontispiece of this volume. ) Walking up the street, we speculate alternately as to the dates of Mr. Pringle's large wooden house (of old the residence of Mr. Isaac Parker) and Mr. Young's much older house, long a home of a branch of the huge Elliott family of South Carolina. Also we look with interest at the two-storied wooden house of Mrs. Augus tine Smythe, in its beautiful garden. When you pass the portals of this quaint old house you are impressed by the charming way in which it has been adapted of more recent years to the demands of modern life. The very modern house of Mr. Richard Whaley, at present member of Congress, imposing with its portico and columns, marks the sharp contrast between Charles ton developments of the old English styles of houses, and the styles imported here since the Confederate War. Another example of modern importation can be seen on South Bay in the residence of Mr. Gordon McCabe, Jr. This last suggests that it was taken bodily from some Northern town. Next north of Mr. Whaley's the long brick wall with the large iron gate is, perhaps, especially attractive in what it does not let one fully see, giving to the shaded garden an air of seclusion. That is exactly why it was built, for it surrounds the ground of what was once a famous girls' school. The mistress thereof was Madame SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS Talvande, one of those who escaped massacre in St. Dommgo. There still lives an old lady who was a pupil at that school some eighty years ago, and by whom some of the school incidents are to-day told to her great-grand children. An elopement is believed to have led to the building of the wall, yet it seems strange that the dame df ecole should have thought that brick and mortar could keep apart ardent young Carolinians. Nevertheless, tradition tells of but one elopement! This house was long the home of Hon. Charles H. Simonton, United States Circuit Judge, and is now owned by his daughter, Mrs. Faneuil Alston. The west end of Tradd Street beyond Legare was not developed until after 1760, but very soon after that period a number of houses of the better style were built there. Benjamin de la Conseillere was a member of His Majesty's Council in 1721 and an Assistant Justice in 1737. He acquired by purchase sundry lots, Nos. 95, 96, 245, 246 and somewhat over six acres of marsh-land lying to the south and west thereof, between two creeks entering the Ashley near together. One or another of these had previously been called Oldys' Creek and the western one Holdring's Creek, but as he acquired the land de la Conseillere imposed his own name on both. The west branch or creek gave name eventually to Council Street, which does not seem to be a more violent change of name than that which turned Vanderhorst Creek, in Christ Church Parish, into the " Wanross " of the United States Charts of to-day. 223 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Sometime after de la Conseillere's death, say in 1754, this entire body of land was sold to Thomas Shubrick, who, quite in the style of his day and of ours, had it re- surveyed and divided into parcels for sale. There were seven of these, of which No. 1 became the property, in 1762, of Humphrey Sommers, who two years later sold same to William Williamson, later a member of the Council of Safety, who is also noted, as Ramsay tells us, for the creation, on his plantation at Rantowles, of a garden as famous then as the " Magnolia " or the " Middleton Place " gardens of to-day. Williamson died without issue, but he left two half-sisters named Grimke, one of whom married Dictator John Rutledge and the other Alexander Fraser. The latter sister be came the owner of this Tradd Street lot, and gave it to her daughter Mary, who had married Mr. Joseph Win- throp, of the well-known family of New England. One or another of this Winthrop family has resided in it for one hundred and twenty years. The next parcel (No. 2) in 1762 was sold to Rawlins Lowndes " together with the capitol mansion thereon standing." Whether he ever lived therein does not ap pear, but in 1797 he devised this lot to his three daugh ters. By descendants of these, the northern part of the lot was sold in 1851 to Mr. Wm. C. Bee, whose Ravenel grandchildren still own it. The southern part is now the property of Major Theodore G. Barker, and for this parcel a lane twenty feet wide and 227 feet long was cut off as a carriage-way to Tradd Street. In 1796 Mr. Charles Fraser, then a lad, made a sketch of this 224 SOUTH BAY, LEGARE AND TRADD STREETS " Capitol Mansion " and of the house next to it, which sketch still exists. This shows the " Capitol Mansion " as it stood until recent years. The house was wooden with a high hipped roof. In repairing an injury from a fire this was straightened, leaving the house as it remained until it was pulled down a few years ago. The other house in Mr. Fraser's sketch was built upon the next two parcels, Nos. 3 and 4, which had been bought in 1762 by James Postell and Charles Pinck ney, but within a few months were conveyed to Thomas Ferguson, who erected thereon his dwelling. The close conjunction of the three names of Charles Pinckney, Thomas Ferguson and Rawlins Lowndes gives a stimulating touch to the imagination. Col. Charles Pinckney was already a noted man in the Province ; a member of the Commons House, he became later President of the Provincial Congress and member of the Council of Safety, and still later of Rutledge's Privy Council; Rawlins Lowndes was speaker of the Commons House, Assistant Justice in 1773 and Presi dent of the new State of South Carolina in 1778 ; Thomas Ferguson was a member of the Commons House in 1769, of the Provincial Congress in 1775, of the Council of Safety, of the Legislative and the Privy Council, and at the fall of Charles Town in 1780 was sent a political prisoner to St. Augustine. Mr. Ferguson was a large planter of the Parish of St. Paul, and as this country was for years a great " war zone " of the Revolution, there were consequent enormous losses to its inhabitants, and especially to those who, like 15 225 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Ferguson, were prominent leaders of the Revolutionary party. His house in Charles Town long bore the mark of a British cannon ball fired into the town in 1780, as we are told by Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, whose grand mother, Mrs. Horry, bought the house in 1798. It was burned in the great fire of 1861 during the Confederate War. The remaining two parcels of Conseillere's land, Nos. 5 and 6, were sold in 1762 by Shubrick to the execu tors of Culcheth Golightly, who bought them as an investment. These were very large in extent, taking in much of the marsh-land granted in 1716 to John Bee, and by him sold in 1717 to Conseillere. How these were developed we will not now inquire, for the fire of 1861 enveloped their whole Tradd Street front in one black ruin. One house, however, was left, which is to-day the residence of Mr. William Henry Parker. The western branch of Conseillere's Creek, extending across Tradd Street and its marshes, ran northeast across Logan Street nearly to the corner of Broad and Friend. Mr. Fraser, in his " Reminiscences," describes its course; but better still, he shows it in his sketch of the Ferguson- Horry house previously mentioned. The house of Mrs. Francis Le Jau Parker at the corner of Tradd and Logan Streets must have looked across the Logan garden to this wide marsh, for it is believed to have been built by Humphrey Sommers, who died in 1788, leaving the house to his daughter Mary, who later married Mr. David Deas. The interior wood work of this house is excellent, and in the drawing-room 226 """ C-t*,4- crt. /}-*>?*_ *Ssi.*^?*- f< ; — 3i*t?*^ IB^Ji feiisBiiii mmw -y -. . -_ -= -vt/.;.:..!:r. ENTRANCE OF COLONEL JOHN STUART'S HOUSE, BUILT ABOUT 1772 Now the Residence of Mr. Walter Pringle DOOR IN STUART DRAWING-ROOM MANTEL IN STUART DRAWING-ROOM Jc< ilT,Sgi?si™J 1 3 * slut D/*cuwdw /loom of Colonel Joim Jtuapt House Weolt ifitfh l « i i \Jjut MEASURED DRAWING OF MANTEL AND DOORS IN STUART DRAWING-ROOM *s I ^§ « ;; " >¦ ¦• -I . w; jk,. t.rt.s-^fA HOUSE OF COLONEL WILLIAM RHETT, BUILT BEFORE 1720 Now the Residence of Mr, F. W. Stender and not the least interesting fact about the old house is the birth there on March 28, 1818, of Lieut.-Gen. Wade Hampton, the great cavalry leader of Lee's Army, some time Governor of South Carolina and U. S. Senator, who headed the white men of Carolina when they threw off the infamous black-and-tan government of reconstruction. 274 DOORWAYS IN DRAWING-ROOM OF COLONEL WILLIAM RHETT'S HOUSE MANTEL IN DRAWING-ROOM OF COLONEL WILLIAM RHETT'S HOUSE CITY HALL, OLD EXCHANGE, ETC. The house is a two-story square brick building on a basement, with a piazza to the east and one to the west, and is entered from the latter, to which the entrance from the street is by a quaint heavy flight of steps. The plan of the first floor is strikingly like that of the Izard house (now Mr. Bryan's) on Broad Street. As is usually the case in this type of house, the front or western rooms are larger than the back rooms, the space for the huge chimneys and the closets beside them having been taken from the latter. The front rooms take up the whole width of the house, north to south, while the back rooms are divided from each other by the staircase-hall. As the house now stands the northwest ern room has been lengthened, but Hunter's plat, already mentioned, shows the building as an unbroken rectangle. The southwestern room was evidently the original drawing-room, and although the mantelpiece has been replaced by one of marble, the interesting plaster decorations of the walls still remain. In laying out the land of Rhettsbury into building lots, the owners gave to the streets opened by them the names of their various families. The northern boundary was Trott Street, which has been changed to Wentworth Street, that being the name of the street running west- wardly from Meeting Street. The central street was called Hasell Street and retains the name to this day. The street to the east was named Quince Street, being a continuation of Anson Street below Society. On the south was Ancrum Street, absorbed later by Pinckney Street, which about 1819 was opened through to Meeting. 277 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON On the west was the " Broad Path " or " High Way," now King Street, which led to " Quarter House, Goose Creek and Virginia" (see inset map in Hunter's " Ichnography of Charles Town at High Water " — Year Book, 1884), until at the said Quarter House it branched, when the western fork continued " to Ashley, Dorchester, and Georgia." This Quarter House was a noted place in the military history of the town. During their occupation the British maintained here a strong outpost, which was captured by Col. Wade Hampton when he, in July, 1781, " rattled at the gates of Charles Town " during the rapid advance of Greene's cavalry under Sumter and " Light-Horse " Henry Lee of the Legion. Col. Wade Hampton, of the Revolution, became later a Major-General in the United States Army, hold ing for a time, during the War of 1812-1815, a command on the Canadian frontier. His son, also styled Col. Wade Hampton, was the father of Lieut.-Gen. Wade Hampton, of the Confederate War. ANSONBOROUGH, LAURENS SQUARE, AND GENERAL GADSDEN'S LAND CHAPTER XIII ANSONBOROUGH, LAURENS SQUARE, AND GENERAL GADSDEN'S LAND ik BOVE Rhettsbury lay Lord Anson's lands, the J—\ history of which is quite interesting. In the X Y_M.C.O., Book RR, p. 522, there is a recital of the devolution of his title. In 1696 there were granted to the immigrant, Isaac Mazyck, 90 acres and in 1706 a contiguous tract of 71 acres. Of this " plantation " Isaac Mazyck conveyed 63 or 64 acres to " Col. Edward Tynte, then Governor of South and North Carolina," who, however, soon re- conveyed same to Mazyck. In 1720, the said Mazyck and Mariana, his wife, conveyed to Thomas Gadsden this " Plantation " of 63 or 64 acres with the marsh-land adjoining, but the Mazycks reserved a way through the said plantation from the Broad Road to the bridge across the marsh to a plantation then in their possession, and also the right to use the well or spring on said plantation for their natural lives. The marsh, crossed by the bridge, was probably that at the east end of Calhoun Street, separating this property from Mazyckboro to the north of it. Gadsden very soon, say in 1726, sold to Francis Le Brasseur a lot 104 feet by 244 on the southeast part of the high land, bounding east on the marsh and south on Mrs. Sarah Rhett's pasture land, and it was probably by 281 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Le Brasseur that it was called " Petit Versailles." Did it exchange this sentimental name for the more prosaic one of the Brewery when it passed from the Frenchman to the English Thomas Shubrick? The rest of the tract was sold the following March by Gadsden to " Capt. George Anson then a commander of his Majesty's ship Scarborough." In 1747 Captain (then Lord) Anson conveyed to Jermyn Wright 23^5 acres with the marsh-land as far as low-water mark, retaining the land to the westward, which later became Ansonboro. We will first follow the fate of that por tion laid out as Ansonboro in 1746 by George Hunter, Surveyor General. The plat describes it as that portion of the plantation formerly known as the Bowling Green. It bounds to the north on Wraggboro and on the marsh, now the east end of Boundary or Calhoun Street ; on the west by the Broad Path, now King Street ; on the south by Rhetts bury; to the east on the new streets called Anson and Scarborough Streets, which divided it from the portion afterwards sold to John Rattray and by him to Chris topher Gadsden and Henry Laurens respectively. The five streets provided for in Hunter's Plat were named, 1st and 2nd, George Street and Anson Street, both destined to survive ; 3rd, Squirrel Street, which has been absorbed by Meeting Street as it was extended northward; 4th, Scarborough Street, which was an ex tension of Anson after passing George Street; 5th, Centurion Street, which later became the eastern end of Society Street. George and Anson were the names 282 ANSONBOROUGH, LAURENS SQUARE, ETC. of the great sailor who had just circumnavigated the world; the Centurion was the famous ship in which he made that famous voyage ; the Scarborough was the ship to the command of which he was appointed in 1723-1724, and in which he was long stationed on this coast; the Squirrel was his second ship, also sent to the coast of Carolina. Does it not seem a pity that these names, con necting the career of a great man with this city, should have been disused and forgotten? The part of Lord Anson's tract east of Anson Street, which was conveyed in 1747, was reconveyed to Anson in 1756 ; whereupon the latter in 1757 ( see MCO RR 522 and VV 12) sold the same, called twenty acres of high land and twenty acres of marsh, to John Rattray; this comprised the Laurens tract and that of General Gads den to the north of it. For Rattray on April 19, 1758, sold to Gadsden all that portion that lies north of the present Laurens Street and south of Calhoun and East of Anson, and later to Henry Laurens that part lying between Centurion (later Society) Street and Laurens Street. An old dilapidated plat without a date is reproduced in the Year Book of 1880. This shows on it that Gads den laid out the village of Middlesex on his land, but a plat of Purcell's of a later date shows the property divided into six wharf lots and 197 back lots. Gadsden's energy and enterprise had filled the marsh and added this great area to the town. He had also straightened the creek between him and Mazyckboro by digging a canal for the use of both properties from Anson's Land- 283 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON ing on the creek to the river. This landing was about where Washington Street crosses Calhoun Street of to-day. The wide space on Calhoun Street between East Bay and Washington Street was the site of a market to be built at the head of General Gadsden's canal. The names of the streets in Middlesex do not sur vive; but just as Anson's naval service was intended to be commemorated in Ansonboro, so Gadsden's political leanings are clearly shown in Virginia, Pitt, Wilkes, Massachusetts Streets, Corsican Walk and Hand-in- Hand Corner. We can contrast these names with those found in Wraggboro just to the north of Boundary, where we meet Mr. Wragg's sons and daughters in Elizabeth, Charlotte, John, Alexander, Mary and Ann, Henrietta and Judith. The part acquired by Henry Laurens was soon utilized by him; for here he built his home, "where Wright's Spring was in the marsh near to Lord An son's." In this letter, dated May 26, 1768, he adds: " I have now a large, elegant brick house of sixty feet by thirty-eight built there and I have damm'd in four acres of marsh." He adds, " I now live in the middle of a garden of four acres pleasantly situated upon the River near to the Old Brew House. Mrs. Laurens takes great delight in gardening — " This garden is described by Ramsay in his " History of South Carolina," as follows (Ramsay, vol. ii, 228) : " About the year 1755 Henry Laurens purchased a lot " of four acres in Ansonboro, which is now called Laurens 284 ANSONBOROUGH, LAURENS SQUARE, ETC. " Square, and enriched it with everything useful and " ornamental that Carolina produced or his extensive " mercantile connexions enabled him to procure from " remote parts of the world. Among the variety of other " curious productions he introduced olives, capers, limes, " ginger, guinea grass, the Alpine strawberry, bearing " nine months in the year, red raspberries, blue grapes; " and also directly from the South of France apples, " pears, and plums of fine kinds, and vines which bore " abundantly of the choicest white eating grape called " Chasselats blancs." Laurens had built his house on the eastern edge of the highland of his property, and on the east side of Front Street, now absorbed by East Bay. The square on the West side, bounded by Laurens, East Bay, Cen turion, and Anson Streets, was laid out in building lots in 1804 by his son, Mr. Henry Laurens, while the marsh land to the east lay for many years comparatively un improved except for wharves on the immediate water front. Within a year the house has been pulled down, and the whole marsh area is now the scene of the restless activities of a railway terminal. The house that Laurens built was of an older type than others of the same period. It was a solidly built brick house of two stories, with a high and hipped roof and with piazzas to the south and east. The windows were small and, though covering a good deal of ground, the house looked rather the comfortable house of its period than imposing. Of the Laurens men of the Revolution we need say nothing here. Their deeds are written largely in his- 285 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON tory; and the very name of Henry Laurens seems to the imaginative American linked with the Tower of London, while that of his son, Col. John Laurens, seems to bring to mind the brilliant French Court and a jew elled snuff-box, the gift of its King. In the Laurens letter (1768), already quoted, he makes an interesting allusion to the South Carolina Society which deserves to be here given: " The South v HOUSE BUILT BY HENRY LAURENS IN 1763. RECENTLY PULLED DOWN Carolina Society increases daily ... I had much diffi culty about eight years ago to persuade the members to purchase the old Brew House land for £500 sterling . . . now that land would sell for above Four thousand pounds sterling ... all this land about Ansonboro is covered with fine houses," etc. This " old Brew House land " was the Petit Ver sailles of Le Brasseur, and with several adjacent lots of Ansonboro was bought by the South Carolina So- 286 ..-: WM ill -piiiif1|ii5» l'r;J r!' , . vi L ^- Copyright, 191b', by Frederick Fairchild Sherman, "Art iu America" HOUSE OF NATHANIEL HEYWARD, BUILT ABOUT 1788. RECENTLY PULLED DOWN BOW OF NATHANIEL HEYWARD HOUSE, WITH KITCHEN BEYOND 19 ANSONBOROUGH, LAURENS SQUARE, ETC. ciety in 1759 for £3500 money of the province. As this currency had depreciated to the equivalent of about seven to one, it is easy to recognize in it Laurens' amount of £500 sterling. The total area of the purchase was nearly six acres. The continuous streets bearing the various names, Centurion, Society, and Federal, yielded to the prepotency of the Society's name, and are now called Society Street throughout. Of the fine houses alluded to by Laurens many were doubtless destroyed in the extensive fires of 1835 and 1838 and others. Probably these fires aided the march of fashion into other quarters of the town, for already the pressure of increasing commerce was checking the erection of more important dwellings on the east side. Yet there resulted from all of this the queer groupings which may be seen in all old towns. Small islands of nice houses spared by these disasters have been sur rounded by the lesser ones which replaced their neigh bors, and a stranger passing through somewhat mean streets is surprised suddenly to come upon dwellings of greater pretension. This result was further fostered by the ways of the older group of inhabitants, who loved to cling to local ities hallowed by associations with a past. Another quaint effect which strikes visitors from brand-new towns, laid out to scale, is the curious way in which the streets of these old and separated settlements were eventually connected by the constant growth of the greater town which absorbed them; or else stopped short a half square away from what were their practical con tinuations. 291 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON In the western part of Ansonboro, where Meeting (once Squirrel) and George Streets corner, are still to be found a number of residences, most of them the typical single-house so often described, but in many cases larger and handsomer than the earlier ones elsewhere in that style. Most of these seem to have been built about the end of the eighteenth or early in the nineteenth century. Among them is the house at the southeast corner of Meeting and George Streets now the residence of Mr. Henry S. Holmes. This was built for himself by Gabriel Manigault, the brother of the Joseph Manigault who built Mr. Riggs' house in Wraggboro, already de scribed. This house was long the residence of Mr. James S. Gibbes, whose bequest made possible the erection of the Gibbes Art Gallery on Meeting Street, which sup plied a pressing need in the development of the town. Mr. Holmes' house is of cypress on a high brick basement, entered by a flight of stone steps. The halls and staircase on the north of the house are especially noticeable for their good proportions, and the broad garden to the south with its high brick wall adds to the completeness of the " messuage." One looks at this and at a number of older wooden houses still in excellent preservation with a certain feel ing of sadness over the complete change to-day in the material of construction here. Of woods, gone are the cypress and the mahogany! The yellow pine with its hard heart is becoming rare, and is sawn into planks indiscriminately with its weaker cousin the " Loblolly." The hardwood trees are too valuable to be used in the 292 ANSONBOROUGH, LAURENS SQUARE, ETC. frames and panellings of houses, but are shaved by veneer-cutters into thin layers which are made to assume a merit though they have it not. The method of lining these old houses too is no longer followed. When the weather-boarding and the inside plastering of one of them is taken off, the spaces between the parts of the heavy frame are found built up with brick-work to exclude the heat in summer and the cold in winter. The tarred paper, much used to-day for lining, does not seem an improvement, though doubtless cheaper. At the northwest corner of Society and Meeting Streets still stands the residence of Alexander Shirras, whose will was proved in November, 1811. He devised his house to trustees to be occupied as a dispensary, and it is still held by this trust. He was one of the large group of Scotch merchants, who from the early days of the colony were important aids to its prosperity. Among other beneficent bequests Mr. Shirras left one thousand dollars to be used in the purchase of books for the school at Old-deer near Aberdeen, Scotland, where he had re ceived the rudiments of his education. MAZYCKBORO, WRAGGBORO, THE CITA DEL, THE ORPHAN HOUSE, AND THE FREE SCHOOL LAND CHAPTER XIV MAZYCKBORO, WRAGGBORO, THE CITA DEL, THE ORPHAN HOUSE, AND THE FREE SCHOOL LAND ¦A BOVE Ansonboro lay Wraggboro and Mazyck- A-\ boro, which were separated from it and from A m. Gadsden's land in early days by a creek and marsh. When filled up, Boundary Street was there opened, which became Calhoun Street in 1849 when the city limits were extended. Wraggboro was bounded to the west by the Broad Path, or King Street, and to the north by the tract which became the site of the village of Hampstead, from which it is to-day divided by Mary Street. Mazyckboro lies at the east end of Calhoun Street between Elizabeth Street and the water. Boundary Street followed, nearly to King Street, the marsh drained by Gadsden's Creek at its eastern end, and another bold creek drained these two boroughs and a part of Hampstead. A branch of this last headed up west of King between Ann and John Streets. The large area of marsh, bordering this creek and Hamp stead Creek to the north of it, has long since been filled up, and the eastern edge is lined with wharves and occupied by railroad yards. The old line and ware houses of the South Carolina Railroad have taken up the central part of the blocks of Wraggboro between Meet ing and King, leaving, however, a line of houses on both streets. Soon after the borough was laid out the building of 297 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON houses began, especially upon the higher ground. Among them were a number of fine houses built at different dates. Mr. Joseph Manigault, the son of Elizabeth Wragg, between 1790 and 1800 built the house already described at the corner of John and Meeting Streets; and soon after 1825 Mr. Francis Withers built nearly opposite to it the handsome residence which has met the unhappy fate of having been crushed in the embraces of the bagging factory to the west and south of it. On the corner of Judith and Elizabeth Streets stands the large house of Mrs. Burnet Rhett, whose father, Governor William Aiken, long resided in it, having im proved and added considerably to the original house. The extensive grounds run northward to Mary Street. Judith Street as originally laid out ran eastwardly from Governor Aiken's house until it reached the marsh, where it turned to the southeast and, crossing it, ended in Chapel Street opposite to where Alexander Street ended. For reasons best known to the authorities the name of this end of Judith Street has been changed to Alexander. In 1832 Mr. Elias Vanderhorst bought the lot on the western corner and his descendants still own his house upon it. Built upon a very high basement, a double flight of stone steps lead to the piazza, upon which the entrance door opens. These steps, with their iron railing in a setting of green trees, are seen through an iron gate and fence, and the whole presents a hand some appearance from the street. West of the large grounds of the Vanderhorst house stands a wooden house of two stories, built also on a high basement and entered by a flight of steps up to the 298 MAZYCKBORO, WRAGGBORO, THE CITADEL, ETC. piazza which runs around a bow on each side of the doorway. At the back of the hall the staircase rises in two flights to a landing where they unite, and ascend to the next floor in a single flight. This house was owned until 1863 by the widow of Dr. Henry V. Toomer, whose father, Dr. Anthony Vanderhorst Toomer, had bought, STAIRCASE IN HOUSE BUILT BY DR. TOOMER in 1809, from Mrs. Ann Ferguson, born Wragg, the lot just west of it, and probably built this house as well as the one next to it. A reversal of the staircase just spoken of is to be seen in a handsome house in Harleston at the corner of Ashley Avenue (formerly Lynch Street) and Wentworth Street, now the resi dence of the Misses Brown. In this the staircase rises in a single flight from the hall, and at the landing divides and ascends to the next story in two flights. 299 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON On the north side of the Mall Governor Aiken built a row of two-story square brick houses which used to be called Aiken's Row. This Mall and Wragg Square to the south of it were given to the public by the Wragg family when the borough was laid out. STAIRCASE IN RESIDENCE OF THE MISSES BROWN, BUILT 1860 To the east of Wragg Square stands the Second Presbyterian (or Flynn's) Church, and Charlotte Street, which runs along the southern edge, is lined with handsome houses. It was not until 1849 that the limits of the city were extended to include Mazyckboro, 300 MAZYCKBORO, WRAGGBORO, THE CITADEL, ETC. Wraggboro, Cannonsboro, Radcliffeboro and other settlements on the Neck. From the minutes of the Commissioners of Fortifica tions, July 20, 1758, we learn that Mr. Manigault and Mr. Wragg delivered " Titles for the land where the " new Fortifications are Carrying on, The Commis- " sioners thereupon passed the following Orders for " payment of the same, No. 1292 in fav'r of Peter Mani- " gault for 6% acres on the West side of the Road £632- "10 No. 1293 in favor of John Wragg for 8% acres on " the East side £1232-10." These " new Fortifications " included the Horn-work, otherwise called the Town Gate, through which the Broad Road passed into the country. A remnant of this remains on the parade ground to-day protected by an iron railing. When Sir Henry Clinton invested Charles Town in 1780, it was in front of this Horn- work that Major Benjamin Huger of the 5th South Carolina Continentals was killed as he was returning from a reconnaissance. The first parcel of 6^4 acres is to-day the entire square on a part of which the Orphan House stands. The second is the square between Hutson (now miscalled Hudson) Street and Boundary Street. Of the latter the City Council sold in 1789 to Commissioners, appointed by the State, the northern strip on which the Citadel now stands for the purpose of erecting public warehouses for the inspection of tobacco. This was bounded at the south by a street called Tobacco Street, which in 1882 was thrown into the square with the ex ception of the sidewalk on the south of the Citadel. This was kept as a passage-way for the public. 301 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON In 1822 a negro insurrection led by Denmark Vesey and " Gullah Jack " was crushed in its incipiency. By that time the production of tobacco bad so far decreased that the Legislature decided to convert the Inspection buildings into a guard house and arsenal, and to main tain there a force of at least 150 men to be enlisted for five years. These did not supplant the city police, but were to patrol the boroughs and country beyond the boundary on what was called the " Neck." This arsenal was almost immediately called " The Citadel," which name it retains to-day. In 1842 Gov. John Peter Richardson induced the Legislature to substitute for this guard a military school. The building has been from time to time enlarged to meet the growing needs of this military academy, whose usefulness to the State has been shown again and again. For here were educated many of the men who were to lead in the war of 1861-1865, and the roll is a long one of those who laid down their lives in the service of their country. The first gun of the war was fired by a detach ment of these cadets, when the " Star of the West " was turned back in the attempt to relieve Fort Sumter. Many times was this corps used to reinforce temporarily the sparse troops holding this coast, and under fire they well maintained their reputation. The Citadel Square was long held as a parade and drill-ground for the Fourth Brigade of Militia. At the fall of Charleston in February, 1865, the Citadel was occupied by the Federals as barracks, and held by them for seventeen years, at the end of which time the Acad emy was reopened. Thus from its occupation by the 302 THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON From the engraving of Chapel's painting in Dawson's " Battles of the United States" MAZYCKBORO, WRAGGBORO, THE CITADEL, ETC. Commissioners of Fortifications, which preceded the pur chase in 1758, until to-day it has been the centre of military activity in the town, and in warfare and peace has constantly witnessed the parade and assembhng of armed forces. The square on the west of King Street as far as St. Philip's Street, which had also been used for the fortifications of the Horn- work, had a fate in sharp con trast with the other. Here in 1792 was placed the Orphan House, which has ever since remained the pride of Charleston, for there have been in the history of its management many chapters to the honor of the place and not one to its discredit. Already in 1819 Dr. Shecut was able to say of it that " within its walls hundreds have been matured to usefulness, many to importance, and a few to high honour in the State." Nearly a century has passed since this was written, and these words have but gained greater truth and force as the years have passed. On the south side of Boundary Street, a square to the west of the Orphan House, lay the Free School lands. On Hunter's map, which purports to have been published in 1739, these are shown to the north of St. Philip's Glebe. McCrady's " South Carolina Under the Proprietary Government," pages 487-488, 511-512, gives from the Statutes an interesting account of the establishment of this school by the Act of 1709-1710, and occasional mention of it is to be found in the wills of the subsequent period. The tract acquired by the Commissioners of the Free School was a large one, and there remained of it in 1817 all the land bounded by Boundary, St. Philip's, George, and Coming Streets, of which George Street separated it from the Glebe. 20 sos THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON In view of the modern discussion about education it is interesting to notice that the master was to be known " by the name and stile of Praeceptor or Teacher of Grammar and other the Arts and Sciences " ; that he should be of the Church of England, and be capable " to teach the learned languages, that is to say, the Latin and Greek tongues, and also the useful parts of the mathematicks." These last apparently were " vulgar arithmetic and merchant's accounts as well as navigation and surveying." From the tombstone, in St. Philip's churchyard, of the Rev. John Lambert, who died in 1729, we learn that he was " late Master Preceptor and Teacher of Gram- mer and other Arts and Sciences Taught in the free school at Charlstown (sic) for ye Province of South Carolina and Afternoon lecturer of This Parish." The long list of Commissioners was headed by the name of Governor Tynte, and included the rectors of St. Philip's and of St. James' Parish, Goose Creek, and all of them were men of importance in the colony. It is evident, however, that by 1757 the use of the building as a schoolhouse had been discontinued, for we find Gov ernor Lyttleton on October 14, 1757, instructing the Commissioners of Fortifications to proceed to erect on these grounds, barracks sufficient to contain one thousand men, and in November they proceeded to repair the " old Free School House for the reception of Officers." These must not be confused with the older brick bar racks for 500 men built upon the old burying ground near the magazine, which stood where the gaol is to-day (1916), and which were repaired and improved at the same time. 306 MAZYCKBORO, WRAGGBORO, THE CITADEL, ETC. Henceforward until after the Revolution this site was occupied for military purposes, and the educational uses seem to have been abandoned for a time. There was a battalion of the Royal Americans, a famous English regiment, forming part of the garrison of Charles Town, and Lieutenant Hesse, of this regiment, was employed as engineer in charge of the building of the defences. The battalion was commanded by Lieu tenant-Colonel Bouquet, whose fame was steadily in creased and developed by his services in the French and Indian War of the period. At least two native-born Carolinians served then in this regiment. One was Thomas Pinckney, who was wounded on the Plains of Abraham when Montcalm was defeated there. Having been commissioned in 1756, he served throughout the war, taking part also in the siege and capture of Louis- bourg, of Martinique, and of Havana. Broken in health, he died in 1770, on the plantation at Ashepoo, long the property of his family. The other man was Isaac Motte, whose career has already been given. This famous regiment still exists in the British Ser vice, where it is now a part of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, and its history has been well written by Captain Lewis Butler, published in 1913 by Smith, Elder & Co., London. The friction between the military and civil author ities is amusingly shown by contrasting the different points of view found in this book and in the Journal of the Commissioners of Fortifications. In Sir Henry Clinton's map in " Neptune," pub lished in London in 1780, these barracks on the Free 307 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON School land are to be found designated as " Barracks for 1000 men," while near the Powder Magazine on the " Burying Ground " is marked the site of " Barracks for 500 men." In 1785 the Free School land was restored to educa tional uses, for in that year the College of Charleston was chartered, and the Free School lands given to it. Fraser, in his " Reminiscences," tells us that the eastern building of the old brick barracks was repaired for the purpose and the use of it commenced in 1791 ; and that he himself was a student there in 1792, when the college boys took part in the procession and listened to an ad dress by their principal, Rev. Dr. Smith, at the laying of the cornerstone of the Orphan House, where Dr. Smith stood on the declivity of the old ramparts with John Huger, the Intendant, by his side. Digging into these ramparts for bullets, expended in the siege of 1780, was, he tells us, an amusement of the students. A plat recorded in 1817 shows the college lands as they were laid out in building lots, with the " square of land reserved for the college showing the buildings and other improvements thereon of brick and covered with tiles," etc. These buildings were evidently the eastern portion of the barracks so often mentioned. The cornerstone of the new edifice was laid on January 12, 1828, when Mr. Charles Fraser delivered the address. There is a copy of this address in the Charleston Library showing a print of the proposed building, which names as the architect W- Strickland. In comparing this with the existing building, the altera tions in the plan are easily recognized. 308 THE GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND THE VILLAGE OF HARLESTON CHAPTER XV THE GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND THE VILLAGE OF HARLESTON THE Glebe land lay next south of the Free School land, divided from it by George Street. The history of this as a separate parcel of land begins on December 10, 1698, when Mrs. Aff ra Coming, widow of Capt. John Coming, made a deed of gift of seventeen acres of land to the Minister of the Church of England in Charles Town, Mr. Samuel Marshall, and to his successors in office forever. This was a part of the grant to John Coming in 1675, only five years after the first arrival of the colony. (MCO, Book G-3, p. 462. ) A plat by the Surveyor General, John Culpepper, shows this grant to hold 133 acres, extending from the Ashley to the Cooper (or Ettawan) River. From the Proceedings of the Grand Council, Feb ruary 21, 1671-1672, it is apparent that Coming was even then in possession under the warrant, for he then surrendered the half of his land on Oyster Point as a part of the site of the proposed new town, which land, however, was shortly afterwards again relinquished to him. How the eastern part of the tract passed from the Comings or their heirs is not now known, nor is it known when or how the Free School tract, presumably a part of it, passed to the Commissioners ; but the part west of 311 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON Coming Street and south of Calhoun Street long re mained in the possession of Mrs. Coming's nephew, John Harleston, and of his descendants, and continued to be called Coming's Point. In 1770 an act was passed to open streets through this and through the Glebe land, according to a plan sub mitted by the owners. This Harleston tract had already become known as Harleston-borough or the village of Harleston, as we know from the will of John Harleston (second of the name) dated 1767. He tells us there that he had agreed with his brothers, Nicholas and Ed ward, to lay out the same into lots. At that time the boundary line of Charles Town ran, as we see from Hunter's map, in a straight line across the peninsula south of Rhett's Point, the Glebe land, and Coming's Point, following the line of Beau- fairi Street of to-day. From 1698 to 1770 the Rector of St. Philip's seems to have been left in undisturbed possession of his Glebe, upon which he resided. This residence was upon the lot at what is now the corner of St. Philip's and Beaufain Streets where the Memminger School now stands (1916) (MCO, C-9, 160). The same act ordered the building of a new parsonage house on four acres to be retained for the purpose, the rest of the Glebe to be laid out in building lots. The reserved four acres lay at the north west corner of St. Philip's and Wentworth Streets, ex tending on the latter nearly to Coming Street. About the centre of these four acres were built the existing parsonage and its outbuildings. The entrance to its 312 GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON grounds was on Wentworth Street. But the place was soon to be despoiled of its fair proportions, for in 1797 lots were laid out both on St. Philip's Street and on Wentworth, leaving the house only a frontage of 131^ feet on the latter, with a large parallelogram in the middle of the square at its back. When Glebe Street was opened, there was a further curtailment, land having been taken from it both to the south and west, leaving the great brick house as it now stands close to the new Glebe Street, and with its en trance therefrom. Upon the western part stand Grace Church on Went worth Street and the Mount Zion African Methodist Church on Glebe Street. The greater part of the land between Wentworth and Beaufain was assigned to St. Michael's Church by a partition deed in 1797. The house dates, therefore, from about 1770; and both it and the outbuildings are solidly built of the hard grey-brown Carolina brick. A square house of three stories, it is entered from the garden by a massive brick flight of steps, springing with a double arch to the second story without porch or piazza. The keynote of the house is solidity and simplicity. Heavy as these steps are, they are also very graceful in line. In com parison with similar houses of its day the door is re markable as being absolutely plain, without side-lights or ornamentation, and is arched and rather narrow. This perhaps adds to the character of the steps. The steps at the back of the house are marked in their individuality. Also of brick, they too spring to the second story on 313 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON arches, but are narrow and descend sideways against the wall of the house. As usual in this style of house the hall goes through the house from one entrance to the other, holding in it, at the back, the staircase. mm*** Copyright, 1916, by Frederick Fairchild Sherman, "Art in America" FRONT STEPS OF ST. PHILIP'S PARSONAGE, BUILT ABOUT 1770 The lots on the Glebe lands had been let to tenants on long leases, and Dr. Shecut, in 1819, tells us that they had been " indifferently built upon." 314 GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON It will be remembered that Harleston was laid out in combination with it, and between Shecut's date and the year 1860 numerous fine dwellings were built there. The streets running through these two tracts do not seem to have taken the names of land-owners, as is so usual in other parts of the growing town. They were rather the names of noted men of the period. Montague '&¦ BACK STEPS OF ST. PHILIP'S PARSONAGE, BUILT ABOUT 1770 Street suggests the Governor, Lord Charles Greville Montagu. The origin of the name of Pitt is evident. Lieutenant-Governor Bull, John Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Christopher Gadsden, Barre, Wentworth, and de Beaufain seem to have been thought worthy of com memoration. But alas for poor Barre! His street is now a mud flat, and it is lucky that his name has been 315 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON better preserved in Pennsylvania in the name of Wilkes- Barre, where it was combined with the undying name of John Wilkes. De Beaufain was Collector of Customs, and some time Member of His Majesty's Council. From Stephen's Journal, vol. iii, 282, we get a contemporary notice of him: "Monsieur Hector Beranger de Beau- fain (whether German, French or Swiss by Birth, I know not) certainly had a liberal education and was well born, allied by Blood to no less a Family than that of our late gracious Queen Caroline, if his own word may be taken for it ; and was often conversant at Court, till a sudden and surprising Turn of Thought occasioned him to lay aside that polite Way of Life ; and though under no pressure of Fortune, but Master of a competent Estate, he sought solitude in America, sitting down on a Plantation adjoining to his friend and acquaintance, Mr. Samuel Montaigut, in the neighborhood of Purys- burgh in Carolina a few miles on the River above Savannah." From the account of "Purrysburgh," by Hon. Henry A. M. Smith (South Carolina Historical and Genea logical Magazine, vol. x, p. 187) , we note that the various grants to de Beaufain aggregated 1950 acres. He de vised by an invalid will two tracts of this land to his nephew and heir-at-law, the Baron de Beranger de Beau fain " of Eslang (sic) in Franconie," to whose attorney, John Rutledge, under date of March 22, 1786, the legis lature granted permission to sell said lands for the benefit of the said Baron de Beranger de Beaufain. 316 GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON We find another mention of him in the Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, vol. ii, p. 51 : "I reached Purysburg the same night, without so much as resting myself or horse, and was received there by Hector Ber- renger Beaufin Esq. a very worthy gentleman, and one ' that was a fellow passenger with me from England." The writer of this " New Voyage to- Georgia " arrived in Charles Town on December 10, 1733. We easily fill out his career in America from his tablet in old St. Philip's Church (Dalcho, p. 123) : In the Cemetery of this Church lie the Remains of Hector Beranger de Beaufain, Esq. Born at Orange in France, in the year of our Lord, 1697 ; He came from London to South Carolina in 1733 where he resided the Remainder of his life ; in 1742 He was appointed Collector of his Majesty's Customs, and in 1747, Member of His Majesty's Council for this Province. He died Oct. 13, 1766, deservedly Regretted. Then follows a long laudatory inscription which tells, among his many virtues, that he was a " Master of the Learned Languages, And tho' a Foreigner, a profound critic in the English Tongue." " Harleston," however, was but slowly covered with houses, for in 1819 Shecut speaks of it as still indented with marsh and creeks, mentioning, however, a number of houses, and among them, a handsome one then owned by Mr. William Clarkson. This was built about 1800 317 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON by Mr. William Blacklock, and is still standing on Bull Street, a striking example of the house architecture of a century ago. It is occupied to-day (1916) by Mr. E. H. Jahnz, German Consul. ' '"-../A .iM±^'$&m i 5 Copyright, 1916, by Frederick Fairchild Sherman, "Art in America" THREE FAN-LIGHTS 1, Brewton-Alston-Pringle House; 2, Blacklock House on Bull Street, now residence of Mr. E. H. Jahnz; 3, Governor Bennett's House Not far from the house just mentioned, at the corner of Pitt and Montague Streets, stands the residence of Dr. Thomas Grange Simons, which in the tornado of 1811 had a noteworthy experience. It is enough to quote from the newspaper of that day : " The mansion- " house of the Hon. Judge Desaussure was violently 318 MANTEL IN RESIDENCE OF DR. THOMAS GRANGE SIMONS • GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON " assailed, and suffered considerably. One of the chim- " neys was thrown down, and a part of the family who " were in an upper room at the time were precipitated " with the falling bricks, through two floors into the " kitchen, providentially no lives were lost, except that " of a negro girl." After 1800 that neighborhood was rapidly improved, and by 1860 was covered by a number of fine houses, in a general way partaking of the Charleston characteristics ; most of them, to repeat the quotation from " Fuller's Worthies," standing " sidewaies backward into their yards, and onely endwaies with their gables towards the street " and nearly all of them with southern " piazzas." Among the exceptions to this style are the Jefferson Bennett house near the west end of Montague Street and that of Mr. John Ficken, formerly Mayor of Charleston, at the corner of Montague and Rutledge. This last was built soon after 1853 by Mr. Jenkins Mikell, who bought the land at that date. With its street-door opening into a hall on the north, and with its columned portico on the south it is not altogether dis similar to the style which came into vogue here about 1820. The large garden to the south with its magnolia trees sets off the beauty of the house. Harleston Green to the south has long since been built up, though as late as 1818 this lot was described as situated on it. A large part of Harleston, and more especially the lots bordering upon the low ground and marshes of Coming's Creek, was early acquired by Mr. Thomas Bennett, Sr., who, with Daniel Cannon, utilized the 21 321 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON ebb and flow of the tides by establishing on these waters large lumber mills. This tidal power was also used largely upon the rice-growing rivers for pounding-mills, which separated the husk from the grain; and, though gradually superseded by steam power, the use continued down to 1865. Nor was it only the water power which was utilized, for among the lots conveyed in 1804 by Thomas Bennett, Sr., to Thomas Bennett, Jr., later Governor of South Carolina, was the lot of marsh-land on which the windmill stood near by a branch of Com ing's Creek. This possibly resembled the one sketched by Fraser in 1802. The men of three generations of this Bennett family during the period between the Revolution and the Con federate War were leaders in the development of Charleston, and their " mill establishments," though in other hands, still retain industrial importance. The reclamation of their huge mill-ponds has been hastened by the change to steam power, and many acres of this " made-land " are to-day covered with houses. Mr. Bennett, Sr., lived at the west end of Montague Street in the house now belonging to Mr. Benjamin Simmons. In his will, proved in 1814, he devised the house " where I now live "to his wife, Ann Hayes Ben nett, for life with remainder to his grandson, Wash ington Jefferson Bennett. Upon Mrs. Bennett's death, her grandson, in 1830, sold the property, and it then changed hands several times until, in 1857, it became the property of Mr. Thomas Grange Simons, after hav ing been the residence in succession of Mr. Octavius 322 A VIEW NEAR CHARLESTON, 1802, SHOWING THE WIND-MILL From the water-color sketch by CharlesTraser GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON Guerard and Alexander Moultrie. From the earliest days of Carolina these two names, Simmons and Simons, are to be found side by side with an identical pronuncia tion. Of them the Simons family were of Huguenot origin. The western boundary of this lot should be Barre HOUSE BUILT BY GOVERNOR BENNETT, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MRS. E. L. HALSEY Photographed just after the cyclone Street, later called Harleston Street, but this apparently was never improved and to-day is to the eye not dis tinguishable from the adjacent mud-flat. The house is a large three-story building with a double flight of stone steps leading into a piazza. On his grounds, through which Lucas Street has since 325 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON been opened, Governor Thomas Bennett built his own house a little distance south of Calhoun Street, looking to the south over his " Mill Establishments." This fine house is now the residence of Mrs. E. L. Halsey. It is built with two stories on a high basement. The piazza is reached at its east end by a flight of stone steps with an PIAZZA OF GOVERNOR BENNETT'S HOUSE iron railing. The posts of this piazza, with a series of segmental arches between them, are prettily finished. The entablature of the hall door, which opens on it, with its side-lights, is supported by four engaged columns, and is surmounted by a fan-light of handsome design. The hall goes through the house and is broken by an arch supported at either end by a column and a pilaster. At the back of the hall the curved staircase, as in the Russell 326 t^z^^;^"^ ' '-¦;•¦¦ .¦" "' STAIRCASE OF GOVERNOR BENNETT'S HOUSE Missing Page Missing Page GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON Consul in Charleston, who left here many descendants. Gov. Thomas Bennett conveyed by deed of gift to his son-in-law, Jonathan Lucas, in 1847, the land upon which stands the large rice pounding-mill, called the West Point Mill; and Mr. Lucas built for himself on the north side of Calhoun Street the house now called the Riverside Infirmary, which, with its beautiful gar den, looked across the spacious mill-pond to the river and beyond. To the first of this Lucas family in South Carolina, the elder Jonathan Lucas, the State was indebted for the great impetus given to the rice-planting industry, which continued to expand until the result of the Con federate War gave it its death-blow. Thenceforward, in stead of expanding, it steadily decreased, so that to-day these valuable lands have become either " duck-reserves " (!!!) or have returned to forest and swamp. This term " reserve " is of ancient use in Carolina, to designate land banked in for the retention and conservation of water. Gov. R. F. W. Allston wrote, in 1843, a valuable account of this development, with the part taken in it by Mr. Jonathan Lucas and his descendants, from the time of the erection of the first water-mill, in 1787, on Mr. Bowman's Santee plantation. Mr. Bennett found the scene of his activities already supplied with a local name, but his neighbor to the north ward, Mr. Cannon, gave his own name to his large ac quisitions which are to this day called Cannonsboro. This was north of Boundary. Street and west of Com ing's Creek, which separates it from the land granted 831 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON to Samuel Wragg between Vanderhorst and Boundary Streets, and also from Radcliff eborough, above Vander horst Street. This Wragg grant covered the land be tween Vanderhorst and Manigault Streets, which was later a part of Boundary Street. It extended to King i *" ~' 4 RESIDENCE OF THE LATE MR. JEFFERSON BENNETT Built by Theodore Gaillard, Jr., before 1815 Street, and included the Orphan House Square, here tofore described. There were many pieces of marsh-land and small creeks to be filled up in Cannonsboro, but quite early in the last century a number of good houses were erected there chiefly along Pinckney Street, which, after the city limits were extended in 1849, became Rutledge Avenue, thus distinguished from Rutledge Street in Harleston. Here on the east side of the street, after 1830, Mr. 332 GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON James Nicholson built the residence which is to-day (1916) owned and occupied by Miss McBee and her school, known as Ashley Hall. Mr. Nicholson's execu tors sold it in 1838 to Mr. James R. Pringle, sometime speaker of the House of Representatives of South Caro- ¦TK-r:-:- , ' CARRIAGE-GATE AND OUTHOUSES OF JEFFERSON BENNETT RESIDENCE lina and later Collector of the Customs. It was long the residence of Mr. George A. Trenholm, quondam Secre tary of the Treasury of the Confederate States, and it later became for many years the home of Mr. Charles Otto Witte, Consul of the German Empire. To Mr. Witte is due much of the beauty of the garden and grounds and additions to the building. When Coming's Creek, above Calhoun Street, was stopped up, he filled in and added to his grounds the marsh at the east, extend ing them to the new street then opened. 333 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON This process of laying out into city lots the agricul tural lands on the Neck still continues, and there are retained to-day not a few of the names given to them or to their streets by the projectors. We will mention only some of these. Hampstead with its mall was an ! VERY OLD HOUSE, ONCE THE RESIDENCE OF CHARLES FRASER, NOW THE RESIDENCE OF MRS. HENRY BAKER enterprise of Henry Laurens. New Market for gen erations was owned by the Blake family. The village of Washington, laid out from King Street westward just south of the Race Course, now Hampton Park, commemorated in its streets names noted in the then recent Revolution; and many of these have survived. Pinckney Street lost its name when the city limits were extended above Boundary Street, but Moultrie and 334 GLEBE OF ST. PHILIP'S AND HARLESTON Huger still remind us of two South Carolinian Continen tal generals. Gadsden had kept them company in the village of Washington, until it yielded to another Gads den Street in Harleston, but Congress holds its own. ¦v wMihmmSS ¥ i i» ¦Jmk A QUAINT OLD HOUSE IN ST. MICHAEL'S ALLEY Many other projected villages were too short-lived for history and only serve to-day to worry lawyers in examining titles of the larger tracts which have reab sorbed their lots. The last of all these projects is the North Charleston of to-day, which leaped over some six miles of country to establish itself on the old plantation 335 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON called Palmetto, which, with Yeaman's Hall, just above, were seats of the sons of the first Landgrave Smith, lying where Goose Creek enters the Cooper. The owner of " Palmetto " was Dr. George Smith, of whose son, Rev. Josiah Smith, and grandson, Josiah Smith, Jr., we have already spoken in connection with the reclamation of South Battery. BUILDING MATERIALS 22 CHAPTER XVI BUILDING MATERIALS THE reports of the very first settlers made to the Lords Proprietors dwell upon the fine growth around Charles Town of valuable timber. Maurice Matthews, in a letter to Lord Ashley (later Earl of Shaftesbury), lists: White oak, red oak, black oak, water oak, Spanish oak, and live oak, ash, hickory, poplar, beech, elm, laurel, bay, sassaphrage (sic), dogwood, black walnut, and in great abundance the pine, cedar, and cypress, which last he calls " Won- derfull Large and tall, and smooth, of a delicate graine and smells." Almost the first industry of the settlers was to pre pare for export " Timber and Pipe-staves and other Commoditys fit for ye Market of Barbadoes." But there was an even more immediate use for lumber. The Gov ernor was to have in the towns " the streets layd out as large orderly and convenient as possibly may be, and when that is done the houses which shall hereafter be built on each side those designed Streets, will grow in beauty with the Trade and Riches of the Towne." Thus an immediate local demand for lumber was created to build these houses and to fortify the settlements with " Pallisadoes." Were the very first houses the familiar log-cabins chinked with moss and clay and with clay chimneys and clap-board roofs? This particular " style of colonial 339 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON architecture " is followed to this day, and the curious may, if they please, watch an " Afro- American " landed proprietor erecting his mansion on just these lines. He does not always observe, however, the regulation that the house should be at least twenty feet long by fifteen broad. But the erection of frame houses must have quickly followed, if we are to judge by the numbers of car penters and sawyers mentioned among the early settlers. A letter of Thomas Newe, dated May 17, 1682, has been recently reprinted in Salley's " Narratives of Early Carolina." In describing the new Charles Town on Oyster Point, he says that the town hath about one hun dred houses, all of wood, " though here is excellent brick made, but little of it." The long-leaf or yellow pine, the cypress, and the cedar were the woods chiefly employed in building, the two former being especially adapted for weather-board ing, and all of them being exceedingly durable. The roofs were made of cypress shingles, or sometimes of cedar. But the making of brick increased rapidly, for the more ancient conveyances speak of brickyards either separated or as appurtenant to plantations, and vestiges of them remain scattered through the country. The sawing out of lumber in the ancient saw-pits was a slow operation, but this method long survived on the plantations. The saw-pit, and the cross-cut and rip-saws driven by the hard muscles of brawny negroes, supplied the lumber used for plantation buildings even 340 BUILDING MATERIALS to the middle of the last century. Yet as early as 1712 we find the Legislature offering the sole privilege for eight years of erecting saw-mills, whether driven by wind or water, to the one who first should bring to complete perfection such a mill as found in Holland and elsewhere. The line of legislation to limit the danger of fires runs curiously through the first two centuries of the existence of the town; and the fluctuation is queerly interesting. It was early found necessary to enforce the use of only stone and brick in the construction of chimneys; but a curious reservation, " except with leave," in the act of 1698 seems like a sop to the poorer home-builders, ap parently allowing the occasional erection of a clay chimney. Fires seem ever to have been very unreasonable things. We learn from the act bf 1713 that, in spite of the statute of 1704 to suppress them, they still " have happened to break out," and destruction followed " prin cipally by reason of nearness of houses," they being still mostly of timber. With this preamble it is not sur prising that buildings of timber were almost strictly prohibited. The use here of the word " almost " is induced by a reservation in the act, reading " Unless the said timber be upon the very spot of land." Every great fire seems to have brought about the re-enactment of such prohibitions, and every consider able period of safety produced a corresponding laxity. This has continued to our own day. Thus legislative wisdom ever bows to popular clamor! and projects " of 341 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action." There is no building stone in the low-country of South Carolina, but beds of marl underlie much of it. One attempt only to use this for house-building has been noticed. The Wadboo Barony on the headwaters of the Ashley was granted in 1683 to Landgrave James Colleton, a son of Sir John Colleton, one of the Lords Proprietors. He was Governor of the province from 1686 to 1690, when he was banished by the Sothell re bellion. The Barony remained in the possession of his family until the Revolution. At what date the house thereon was built is not to-day known. It was occupied during the Revolution ary War at one time or another by both British and Americans, and there, in August, 1782, Marion defeated the British under Major Fraser, the noted cavahy leader. It would well repay one to read in the first and second volumes of the South Carolina Historical and Genea logical Magazine the account of the Colleton family by Hon. Henry A. M. Smith and, also, that of this Barony in volume xii. We quote from the report of the Geology of South Carolina by the State Geologist, Michael Tuomey, pub lished in 1848, his account of the ruins of the Wadboo House. " We found here the ruins of a dwelling of consider- " able size, said to have been erected by Sir John Col- " leton. Of the house itself little more remained than 342 BUILDING MATERIALS the dilapidated foundation, but there was an outhouse, or office, in a pretty good state of preservation. It is evident that the walls were of stone, and at first sight I was reminded of Portland Stone, which I supposed had been imported in those early times — as I had seen in Maryland and Virginia, stone steps and window- sills, that had been brought from Europe by the first colonists. " The stone was well dressed and coursed, the win dow jambs well cut; and within the building, the fire place was decorated with a tasteful mantel, handsomely moulded, with angles quite sharp, and all composed of the same stone. Even where the wall was exposed to the weather, the marks of the tools were so well defined as if they had been impressed but yesterday. While examining these things I discovered some minute eocene fossils; and on closer examination I found that this building material was nothing more or less than marl, and the quarry in the vicinity, from which it was taken, we were not long in finding. The blocks had evidently been split out, and sawed, or shaped with the axe, into proper form. The rock is not marlstone but the ordinary compact granular and yellowish marl, found in numerous places on the river. " Seeing how well this material resists the disinte grating effects of atmospheric agencies, in many of the bluffs along the river such as the high and perpen dicular escarpment on the Creek, near the Rectory, which is even perforated with caves, it is not surpris ing that it should have suggested itself as a building 343 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON " material, and it is only strange that the experiment " should have ended here." Bermuda stone is identical with the Coquina stone used in building by the Spaniards of St. Augustine. This was brought to and used in this province, for we find frequent mention of it in the minutes of the Com missioners of Fortifications. Yet it would probably be impossible to find any of this stone in buildings now standing. A score of years ago the sidewalk in front of an old house in Church Street was paved with it, pointing back to the day when these walks were merely paths on the sides of the streets, the protection of which was left to the house-owners. One evidence of this care is the presence here and there of stone posts on the frontage of various houses, put there to keep vehicles from encroaching on the sidewalks. Those which to-day survive are of a hard stone or granite. The scarcity of stone impelled the passage of laws permitting the public authorities to take, at a valuation, all stone ballast for use on the fortifications and sea walls. The Act of 1738 to this effect was to be of force for seven years, for the Province was then reawakened to the necessity of " Preparedness," not believing in the advent of perpetual peace. An artificial stone called " tabby " or " tapia " was also largely used from an early period. This was a mixture of lime with crushed shells and gravel, which, when hardened, was very durable. On the whole line of this coast ruined colonial fortifications still remain, partly built of this material. The old fort at Dorchester 344 BUILDING MATERIALS and the one at Cole's Island are within easy reach of Charleston. The circular wall of the latter stood in its entirety a few years ago, but has recently been partly demolished by the encroachment of the sea. The flooring of the old houses was of hard yellow pine, as were the joists, etc. These planks were not always grooved and tongued as in more recent years, but were broad boards of the heart of the pine, nailed down, one very close to the other. They must have been perfectly seasoned, for there was no shrinkage after they were laid down. The panelling and lighter work was of cypress, mahogany, or of cedar, generally of the first. The halls and public rooms of the finer houses were as a rule panelled throughout, while the bed-rooms were thus finished for three or four feet from the floor, above which plaster was used up to a wooden cornice. The roofs were either of shingles or slate or tiles. The tiles of the old roofs remaining are either black or red, and, also, they differ somewhat in size. We will not attempt to suggest whence they were brought, nor when the manufacture in the Province began, but once again we will quote the Due de la Rochefoucault-Lian- court to show that they were made there in 1795: " In different places in this state tile-kilns have been erected, which yield their proprietors considerable profit. The tiles cost eleven dollars a thousand." The houses were built with high-pitched roofs, the square ones generally rising on the four sides to a peak 345 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON or nearly so. Many houses had " hipped " roofs, of which the old house at " The Mulberry," a plantation on Cooper River, is a good example. This is said to have been built in 1714. High and ornamented wooden mantelpieces pre- h III ] ' \ \ * - IP ' ,: <¦$? T^i^H'^ i?0T: JL-' M- ¦ Copyright, 191.r), by Harper & Brothers ST. MICHAEL'S STEEPLE ACROSS TILED ROOFS dominated, but there are numerous instances in which they were of marble. Undoubtedly many of the latter were of the date of the houses ; but it frequently has hap pened that a later owner has replaced the one with the 346 BUILDING MATERIALS other. A noticeable instance of this is in the old Izard house (now Mr. Bryan's), where are carved mantel pieces brought from Italy by Mrs. Pringle, afterwards Mrs. Joel R. Poinsett, as mentioned in the description of the house. Also the black marble mantel of two generations ago has obtruded its gloomy presence into many houses. TILED ROOF OF AN OLD WAREHOUSE ON EAST BAY It must be remembered that the older houses were built with open fireplaces, and that coal-grates are modern intruders, which detract from their beauty. There is a great deal of ornamental iron-work in Charleston. This usually takes the form of balconies and gateways. Although a piece of cast iron is some times seen that is pretty and decorative, it is the wrought 347 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON iron that is especially interesting. The use of this com menced at a very early date and the development of this use was continuous. It would be difficult to put dates to the various examples, the more so as in some i r ,''¦?¦- ¦ - -f- i ''-fir BALCONY OF HENRY MANIGAULT'S HOUSE ON MEETING STREET Now the residence of Mr. E. H. Burtou cases these gates and balconies have been removed from one house to another. As an instance, there can be pointed out the fine gates and fence around the lot, formerly of Dr. Horlbeck, on the southeast corner of Wentworth and Coming Streets, which were put there 348 (XujTiing Support o.? the. Cor,i'-r Tit IT IrCLGLQ, ^Irk^Z. Wt\WW ¦•',-' ! ' b a I c oiib o a jState Street mm i ??' ffif j J J ¦ I lllll ft*. n Dalcomes rn i on L nitre h bt reei betu/een Broad and CThalTnersl I'fUMft i iVVvvv\ fe^ 1?C laiiii i.2> '__ Jf-'rl-^" &£lM Iicq balconies cf tAz, Ocn feeler a^Z^Jl'omt- i [Tf^TiTrr,Tr|TriF? rrrT:rriT:7-ra-m I ! I i i ' ' ' MJr ITjIto bale o mes Cn Hrco.cl *jtr(nl~ ^fWfW? I . . _ .. -I . - •;¦ "T T -VP- "77 "- -7> ~ CfW.-np Sr .rL2_2_T' '7-T-ltl vet iS it :fTff??i ?'Jrff I KS i*»*Ff* ;-vfv « MM TJ Baleohl, af fiaipli J:afd" huusSs pattern of tunj baJcorufS on Klrvg Street near La.rn.boll. -f •Ja- Kind Sltea t K in. S3te* -":_ Copyright, 1916, by Frederick Fairchild Sherman, "Art in America" GRILLE ON CHURCH STREET Gazettaof January 31, 1774, seems a case in point : "The same day (24 Jan.) died very suddenly Mr. Samuel Cardy, the ingenious architect who undertook and com- pleated the building of St. Michael's Church in this Town." 356 BUILDING MATERIALS Mr. George S. Holmes in his account of this church is induced to believe that the plans were by James Gibbs, a noted English architect of the period, and he is of the _ . 3 .v.:_, g SUSS 3-../^._ BALCONY AND GRILLE ON KING STREET opinion that Cardy combined the building of the church with the supervision of it. Another advertisement in the Gazette of April 1, 1757, describes a house the architecture of which has 357 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON certainly not been imitated in any other now existing in Charleston. " James Reid, Proposes to sell his house and land contiguous to his rope-walk, the said house being much too large for his family (which is now reduced to only himself and wife). The said house new-built, strong and modish, after the Chinese taste which spreads 60 feet square including the balconies. It is remarkably commodius in many respects ; it is both warm in winter and deemed the most airy in Summer of any house in the province, and is open to the wholesome Seaair. The dis tance from Charles-Town is only one mile. . . . Any Person inclining to see the said house and garden will be made welcome, and may know the condition from the said Reid, who is generally, there or at his house in Broad Street, Charles- town." This was probably an echo of the Chinese taste then rampant in England, the effect of which upon furniture design has been interestingly given in the " Practical Book of Period Furniture," published in 1914 by J. B. Lippincott Company. The furniture in the larger colo nial houses of Carolina was chiefly imported from Eng land, and many pieces by Chippendale and other old makers were to be found both in town and country. Much of this was burned or carried off in 1865, and the temptation of the high prices paid by modern collectors is fast lessening what was left. THE BUILDING OF CHARLES PINCKNEY'S HOUSE IN COLLETON SQUARE CHAPTER XVII THE BUILDING OF CHARLES PINCKNEY'S HOUSE IN COLLETON SQUARE WE are fortunate enough to have had access to sundry papers connected with the build ing of his house in Colleton Square by Charles Pinckney, Attorney General in 1733, Speaker of the Commons 1736-1739, also in 1740, Chief Justice 1752-1753, and later Commissioner of the Colony in London. Mr. Pinckney seems to have decided to build this house in 1745, for under that date we find a partial estimate of the cost of materials to be used for this pur pose ; and he at once commenced to collect them. It is evident that this was not intended to cover the total cost, as many items, such as the slates for the roof, are not mentioned, nor are the extensive outbuildings included in this memorandum. The following is a copy of this estimate as it was written by himself, with a number of interpolations ap parently made at later dates but in Mr. Pinckney's own handwriting: " Cost of Materials for a House intended on the Bay 50 feet front and 44 feet deep 2 story high with a hipp'd wall ( ?) roof such as the Gover'rs to be raised on cellars 6 feet above the surface of the ground & sunk 2 feet und'r the surface. The walls to be three brick thick to the surface then 2J4 to the first floor then 2 all the way 361 THE HOUSES OF CHARLESTON up to the roof the Partition walls a brick & half thick to the first floor & the same to the second. The first story eleven foot and half clear the second story 14 or 16 foot over the dining room to be coved into the roof & 11 V2 over the others. 200,000 bricks at £5 pr. M £1000 4,000 bushells lime at 2 sh. pr. Bus. 400 4 Pettyauger load of Dorchester Sand 80 Pine Timber & Boards 400 Cypress Timber & Boards Currency \ 250 £2130-£2130 Upon the Cellar floar 9 windows each sashd with 8 Pains of glass 11x9 Upon the first floar 16 windows with 18 Pains or lights in each Upon the 2d Floar the same — Upon the Garret floar 8 windows with 8 lights in each A Venitian window on the Stairs total Pains -d 0) 72 ^ o o 00 — 288 ^<> « | 288 "°.2^ a 64 tT w 0> fe V 4> 60 a • 772 f^ N. B. this glass instead of 7 costs me lis p. foot. 105-105 14—2- 14 " 14 " 2828 16 100 Windows — p. Hinges Upon the cellar floar p 14 windows makes in all 100 p. of 1 s» 28 p. window Hinges window hinges I