Charleston, South Carolina - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

My Commentary: Charleston is known as the "Holy City" as there are over 300 churches within the city. The peninsula is absolutely studded with huge church spires that seem to reach to the sky. Charleston is known for the architecture - the closer one walks to the Battery Point, the older the houses and architecture. Charleston is also known for history - it was captured by the British in the Revolution; it was the site of the first shot of the Civil War; and even recently it has had the spotlight for a very unfortunate church shooting. Charleston is a tourist town with great sites to see; great people to meet; and great food to eat.

CHARLESTON (9 alt., 62,265 pop.), on a narrow peninsula extending into a broad bay, with the Atlantic Ocean about three miles distant, is almost detached from the State in which it has always been the chief city. 'Charleston is the place where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet to form the Atlantic Ocean,' is the traditional geography lesson of a Charleston child — a lesson as significant as it is descriptive.

From the height of 152 feet on the double-spanned Cooper River bridge, a view of the city below discloses ancient and lovely homes facing southward, trade depots on the two river fronts, between which run three railroad lines and a double-lane highway to connect 'The City' with the interior. Along narrow crooked streets, a few still cobble- stoned, rise block after block of two- and three-story buildings, topped by old-fashioned chimney pots. Three church spires, soaring above the others, and two modern skyscrapers break the low skyline. Southward lies the old city, and northwest is 'The Neck,' as the strip from Calhoun Street to the crook in the Ashley River was originally called. Scarified now by railroads, and congested with phosphate plants, oil refineries, and other industrial establishments, with their accompanying laborers' homes and garish eating places, 'The Neck' has its traditions of former suburban plantation homes, and of Indian, British, and Federal attacks.

King Street, the principal thoroughfare, follows the old King's Highway through the entire length of the city, its upper stretch a region of odd little shops operated by proprietors representing the 2 per cent foreign population. Meeting Street, the companion mercantile artery, parallels King through Charleston, joining it north of the limits in a national highway. The southern extremities of both thoroughfares are lined with distinguished residences and begin at South Battery.

In Charleston, it is important to live 'below Broad Street,' and outsiders believe that to live on, or to claim relationship with one who lives 'on the Battery,' is a Charlestonian's prime distinction. Here the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet to form the water front noted even in Europe for its beauty, and called since the War of 1812 'The Battery.' The high east seawall was built before 1820 of ballast rocks from trading vessels, replacing a barrier of palmetto logs swept away in 1804; between 1848 and 1852 the south wall was added. An oyster-shell beach that tipped the peninsula gave way in 1830 to White Point Gardens, now sharing the more familiar name of this locality. Since the first seaside boardwalk in the United States was only rough boards atop the log barrier, this has been Charleston's fashionable promenade.

Above the driveways, sentineled by swishing palmettos, the railed sidewalks along both East and South Battery are still a favorite place to stroll, to pause and look out over the landlocked harbor at Castle Pinckney, Fort Sumter, and the site of old Fort Johnson on James Island — which have all helped to defend the seaport against invasion. As a grim reminder, a man-of-war rides the waves beside a masted schooner; saucy little sailboats glide between. Under the live- oaks in the landscaped gardens, Charleston children, guarded by white-turbaned Negro 'maumas,' play among monuments and guns that recall the city's war-torn history of more than 250 years. Near this peaceful park in 1718, 49 pirates swung from the gallows in one month; 22 ghastly figures, including the notorious Stede Bonnet's, dangled there one day. This was the visible proof that Colonel William Rhett and Governor Robert Johnson had rid the coast of these persistent buccaneers. A modern tourist hotel towers over the Battery — evidence that its visitors are of economic importance to Charleston.

The westward marshlands of the Ashley have been reclaimed in the twentieth century for a fashionable residential section. Along South Battery old houses, with lawns formerly stretching to the seawall, now find themselves separated from the water by a block of modern homes. Murray Boulevard, an extension of the sea drive, forms a continuous avenue of palmettos, with a landscaped parkway between traffic lanes.

Charleston architecturally retains its eighteenth-century aspect, showing the character of the best English work of the time, with certain later concessions to the subtropical climate, chiefly the gallery, or piazza, and the high basement, forming a full story on the ground level. Many tall old dwellings, with steep slate roofs, are of stuccoed brick. Most of them, locally known as 'single houses,' are built flush with the sidewalk, turning their shoulders to the street to insure the occupants that privacy that is as sacred to the Charlestonian's soul as his ancestors or his rice. Their paneled and transomed outer portals, cut through a curtain wall, lead into a long open piazza at one side. The piazzas, with from one to three superimposed galleries, usually face south to catch the breeze. Long ago a visitor to the city gave an apt description: 'Houses stand sidewaies backward into their yard and only endwaies, with their gables toward the Street.' 'Double houses,' of the symmetrical center hall type, face the street.

Wrought-iron gateways in high brick walls give inviting glimpses of old gardens, sleeping in the sun. Almost the year round Charleston is a city of flowers. In the mild winter the green lawns of 'Charleston (sea island) grass' are bordered with pansies and daffodils, camellia-japonicas burst into bloom, sweet olives and the tiny golden fluff-balls of opopanax trees scent the soft air. Tourists throng the city in spring when wisteria, roses, feathery tamarisk, and magnolias join the riot of azaleas. Summer brings a profusion of oleanders, the lavender racemes of spikenard trees, crape myrtles, and altheas; the branches of celestial fig trees curve over the walls and drop their lush fruit on the sidewalks.

Owing to losses suffered during the Confederate era, some old residences have fallen into the hands of outsiders, though many are still owned by the descendants of the builders; and some have lapsed into disrepair. The salvaging efforts of the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings have borne visible fruit during the past decade, but the old period of plenitude has never returned. Numerous antique shops, sometimes operated by 'the quality,' indicate the compromise that Charleston has been forced to make with formerly abhorred 'trade.' It is said that the city was spared a golden-oak period because its residents, lacking money to buy the popular atrocities of the nineties, necessarily clung to their rosewood and mahogany.

In spite of its latter-day commercial traits, the city exhibits an old-fashioned courtesy even in its casual contacts with visitors, but the real Charleston is seldom touched or discovered by the stranger. There are few commercial places of entertainment and social life is centered in the homes of the people to a degree rarely found in America today.

The city is honeycombed by fascinating alleys that have now been reclaimed and are eagerly sought by white residents, though formerly they were occupied by Negroes, who compose 46 per cent of the population and live in scattered areas, many of them in upper Charleston. The Negroes earn a livelihood on the city's outskirts as small truck farmers, plantation hands, sawmill or fertilizer plant workers. Those near the salt rivers supplement their small earnings by fishing. Along streets no longer fashionable, clothes lines flap above abandoned gardens, and several Negro families are crowded into some tumble-down big houses, spilling their progeny out on the sidewalk. Few old dwellings occupied by the wealthier white families are without their servants' quarters in the rear. Many of these are now renovated for occupancy by white people with a love of the unusual; others are still used by the many domestics who have served Charlestonians in successive generations.

There are also many well-educated, prosperous Negroes in various professions and businesses. None of these was more respected by both races than the Reverend Daniel J. Jenkins, who founded the Jenkins Orphanage for destitute Negro children in 1891 and for a time person ally supported it. The upkeep proved so expensive that the founder organized his more musical inmates into a band, which has become a permanent feature, and its street concerts, at which collections are taken, up, invariably draw a delighted crowd. The smaller Negro boys, tooting their horns and wearing brass-buttoned uniforms, are supple mented by a quartette in evening regalia. The band makes annual tours of the United States and has made several to Canada and Europe. Since 1928 the Duke Endowment has contributed annually to the orphanage.

Of all the many slaves in ante-bellum Charleston, the Gullah Negroes spoke the most peculiar jargon, which through the years has passed from 'mauma' to white child, to stamp itself on the language of Charleston. It is fitting, however, that the speech of the city, like the atmosphere, should be just a little different. 'Charleston accent' is famous throughout the South. Though the native Charlestonian takes his time to think and to live, he talks with inconsistent rapidity. 'Garden' here is characteristically 'gyarden,' and 'car,' 'cyar,' while the 'a' of Charleston is fully as distinctive as that of Harvard. The genuine Gullah speech is easily discernible in the chants of street criers.

In the early morning Charlestonians are awakened by the rhythmic, melodious calling of Negro vendors hawking their wares. Shrimp tastes a little different, a little better, when bought from a dusky peddler who calls, as he passes the doorway —
Ro-ro swimp
Ro-ro swimp
Roro-ro-ro-ro-swimp
Come and git yo ro-ro swimp.

From the previous night's fishing of the 'mosquito fleet,' owned by Negroes, the vendors hawk their catch through the streets, singing an old song Porgy walk
Porgy talk
Porgy eat wid knife and fawk; Porgie-e-e-e.
(Porgy is a small fish.)

The vegetable peddlers and the flower sellers also call, in Gullah cadence, from early morning until sundown. Negro children offer boiled peanuts for sale, or vary their proffered wares with insistent offers to dance 'the Susy-Q, the Charleston, the Black Bottom,' or to sing a 'church song,' all for a 'pinny.'

The street-criers' contest is a feature of the nine-day Azalea Festival in spring, Charleston's biggest annual event. This opens with a gorgeous parade of floats, some carrying the queens who represent every county in the State. On the closing night, prior to the grand ball, the festival queen is selected from the galaxy of beauties and crowned by the mayor for a year's reign over the old city, which even after nearly 300 years is South Carolina's social capital.

Charles Town, as it was originally called, was settled in 1670 by English pioneers who established themselves on Albemarle Point, west ward across the Ashley River from the present location. Oyster Point was higher and better adapted for defense, and was selected for the site of the 'great port towne' laid out in 1672 by instructions of Lord Ashley-Cooper, one of the Lords Proprietors. The colony, increased meantime by settlers from Barbados, England, and Virginia, moved across the river in 1680 and Charles Town became a 'City State.' For many years its history was the history of South Carolina. It was the center from which colonizations radiated and the capital of the province until 1786, when Columbia was founded for that purpose.

The elaborately graded society planned by the Lords Proprietors (see History) proved too complicated for a new colony; but through wars, earthquakes, and depressions, remnants of the system have survived in distinctive cliques. Descendants of extensive landholders or prominent statesmen among early settlers cling to the family pride that neither misfortune nor modern invention has been able to shake. In Charleston what one is is important, but equally or more important — so it is said — is what one's ancestors have been and how much land they have held.

Provision crops, naval stores, and the Indian trade gave the colony its start ; rice and later indigo brought it wealth, and Charleston became a flourishing urban center for opulent planters, who maintained 'country seats' on Low Country rivers.

- South Carolina : a guide to the Palmetto state, 1941, pg. 184-192

I had to stop on page 188 due to lack of space.

Book: South Carolina Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 184-192 Year Originally Published: 1941

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