The sun reflects gently off St. Michael's Episcopal Church's spire as it has for 234 years. Trade and commerce bustle in the stalls of the City Market as they have for over 200 years. It is a large city, but there isn't the frantic pace associated with Atlanta or Charlotte. Cobblestone streets abound, the heavy clop of dray horses carrying a load mingle with the high-pitched beep of foreign cars. There is salty tang in the air mixed with that of oysters that emanates from the mud of the salt marshes which surround the peninsula.
There is a European flavor here, the architecture preserved for all to see and enjoy. Charleston is a good looking woman who knows she's good looking, but doesn't let that fact concern her.
One positively breathes history here and that's the way it should be. Unique in character as well as its charm, it is like no other American city I have ever visited. There are plenty of other cities with charm, certainly a lot more with vibrancy to spare, but there is an old world complacency here, a sense of being comfortable with what you are and seeing no need to change just because everybody else is doing so.
Jane Thornhill, a licensed tour guide, the second to attain that distinction in 1954, and a native whose family lived in the same house from 1760 to 1985, explains, "It's as it was in my grandmother's generation. We have the St. Cecilia Society, the men are members. If you marry a man who's a member, you're eligible. There's the Carolina Assembly I started with Julia Dougherty in 1960. The ladies are members. In the South Carolina Society, you have to inherit your membership. It takes forever to get into the St. Andrews Society which is the oldest benevolent society in the United States. You can't come to Charleston and buy your way in, but you can get to know the Charlestonians and have a wonderful life here.
"Visitors can't believe we're still doing this; that the Children's Cotillion is still held at the South Carolina Hall every Wednesday afternoon. The little girls dress up in their party dresses and white gloves, the little boys in their Sunday suits. It's fascinating to watch them still go to learn ballroom dancing. It's been going on for generations. The visitors can't believe that we still have debutantes and they still wear their long white dresses and their long white gloves."
Charleston has always practiced a different sort of living. If you come to Charleston, you'll find things still going on here like nowhere else in the nation."
With many towns, one can point to a single moment or event that defines its being. Finding a single defining moment in Charleston's history is like trying capture a chameleon on canvas.
The residents of the city have basically started two wars, endured an earthquake that would put the recent one in Los Angeles to shame, been blown by countless hurricanes, lasted through two foreign occupations, and suffered famine, fires and pestilence. Although one is hard pressed to see physical signs of these hardships, they are there.
We wear them like badges of honor with pride.
We have always been able to stand up and brush ourselves off and go back to the privilege of enjoying our lives.
This spirit is almost tangible as one walks through the alleys behind the hidden courtyards.
Mrs. Thornhill explains, "Charleston has been through adversity. We've had both poverty and prosperity and history repeats itself. I think it's fantastic that prior to the War Between the States, the ladies were all these dowagers. There was plenty of money from the rice, cotton and indigo grown here, the ten years of the Golden Age. Then came the War, Reconstruction, the dreadful cyclone of 1885, then the earthquake the next year, then tornadoes and other wars. Hurricane Hugo almost finished us, but these rebels know how to come back. We always get back on to the world, and it doesn't take anybody from "Off" to tell us how! Charlestonians have always had the will and where there's a will there's a way. If you have the will, you will find a way!
"We always make a comeback," she added.
I have a special stake in all this. My family arrived in the Low country of South Carolina 308 years ago; I grew up downtown on the peninsula and I have been a licensed tour guide here in the city since 1978.
Come join me for an intimate glimpse of the soul of one of America's most cherished secrets: Charleston, South Carolina.
No matter what your reason for coming to our city, whether it be a business trip, a day trip from Hilton Head or Myrtle Beach, a week's vacation at Kiawah Island or a stay in one of the myriad of fine places downtown, you must take a tour. To see Charleston in one or two days would be like spending a half an hour at the Lourve or swallowing chateaubriand without savoring it. You can do it, but it will diminish your enjoyment.
However, circumstances often restrict one's time. If that is so, then a van tour or a carriage tour is in order. There are limits to each, but they will afford you an overview of the city that will give you a taste of what it's all about.
One big suggestion, almost a request. Get out of your car! The city is plagued with 21st century traffic patterns traversing 18th century streets, many of them one way. If you go down the wrong street, it can be akin to a planet spinning off its axis, never to be seen again. I have had people tell me that they have taken the wrong turn and ended up thirty miles away. Leave your car in a lot or garage and get a feel for the city before you attempt it on your own.
Probably your first stop should be at the city's new Visitor's Center at the corner of John and Meeting Streets. You can park your car all day for $4 and buy a shuttle bus ticket for a minimal amount that will allow you to travel all day on the DASH System. The DASH buses all look like trolley cars, so they are very easy to find. Also included in all of this is a map designating the different stops. Another word on getting around with your map. The peninsula basically runs North/South so if you are facing the tip of the peninsula, East will be to your left and West to your right. Find out what street you're on and go one block to your right or left and you can get your bearings quite easily.
Once at the Visitor's Center, take some time to look around. The center itself is very impressive. Opened in May of 1991, the center was originally an old railway depot. The building itself is polished and shined. Once there, take a look at all the exhibits. There is a model of a Charleston single house, maps galore during our different stages of history and a jam-up slide show that will give you an introduction to the city.
There are also van and walking tours available from the center itself and a long row of free brochures available detailing everything from charter boats to inexpensive places to stay. There are also booths set up with knowledgeable staff who can answer almost any questions.
A word on tour guides
There are about 250 active tour guides registered with the city of Charleston. Long ago, the city saw the need to ensure quality tours, so any guide you get will have had to have passed a very strenuous test of their knowledge. The test includes everything from architecture to botany to history. As a result, when you take a tour here, you can be assured that your guide knows whereof he or she speaks.
If you use the DASH system, you will ride down King Street one of the oldest retail streets in America. Take the time to browse through King Street; there are many upscale shops and antique stores throughout.
Also a must on any list is the City Market.
First things first.
This was never a slave market, and anyone who tells you differently is either misinformed or a knave. The whole area was once an enormous creek. It was filled in early in the 18th century. In 1788, the Pinckney family, who included two signers of the Constitution, donated the land to the City of Charleston with two stipulations. One, that it always remain a public market and two that no slave ever be sold on the land. If a slave ever had been, the land would have reverted immediately back to the Pinckney family. There are many Pinckney heirs scattered throughout the Low country of South Carolina, so you know they'd wished somebody had slipped up somewhere along the line.
That's not to say that slaves weren't sold in our city.
They were.
Charleston was one of the clearing houses for slaves sold in the South. The thing is, up until 1851, anything that could be auctioned off was, on any street corner. Unfortunately, slaves were at that time chattel, and on any street corner, one could buy anything from a carriage to a slave.
Finally in 1851, the population was such that congestion in the streets were making them impassable (a problem today), so auctions were outlawed on the public thoroughfares. Because of this in 1851, Thomas G. Ryan and two silent partners set up Ryan's Auction Mart on Chalmers Street which incidentally sold slaves. The "War" made it impractical and illegal to sell not only slaves, but anything else, so the building was used for other purposes until in 1936, Miriam B. Wilson and her sister, set up The Olde Slave Mart Museum, open to the public for around 50 years.
When she died in 1986, the museum boasted the largest collection of African American art and artifacts in the Western Hemisphere. The collection was sold piecemeal and no longer exists. The building was bought by the city with the intention of reopening it, but Hurricane Hugo in 1989 devastated it and its fate is up in the air as of this writing.
The City Market has thrived off and on for over 200 years. For years vendors sold vegetables, sides of beef and any kind of seafood one could imagine. Even when I was a child in the 1950's, you could still go up there and buy fish and vegetables. The sanitation laws became more stringent as time went on and the market went into a decline for a while during the early seventies. Knowing the Pinckney heirs were beginning to lick their chops, the city allowed people to set up small flea market entrepreneurships in the stalls. Now you can find everything from soup to nuts in the three block area of the Market. One thing you will see here are the ubiquitous basket ladies weaving their sweet grass baskets. This is a millennium's worth of tradition and is covered elsewhere in this issue.
It is also here that you can board a bus for a tour, catch a carriage or take a walking tour, all easily accessible from the DASH System.
In fact, you can catch a van or bus right off the stop near the corner of Meeting and North Market Streets. Van and bus tours run anywhere from one to two hours and will cost anywhere from $10 to $20.
The carriages are centrally located in the Market around North Market Street. The loading zones are on Church and Anson Streets. There are six privately-owned companies with carriages in these loading zones. A tour on a large carriage will run anywhere from $12.50 to $15.50 per adult depending on the company. Children from ages three to 11 are around $5 or $6 and children under three ride for free. There are also private carriages available for a higher price and generally must be reserved in advance. The tours are 45 minutes to an hour and cover three different areas of the city.
Also available at the corner of North Market and Church is a walking tour which leaves daily at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. The tour is $12 and lasts around two hours.
All of these tours will show you different perceptions of the city, so if you have the time, be sure to take all three.
The Charleston Single House
One thing you will see on any tour of any section of the city is a style of architecture called a Charleston single house. The house will have only one single room facing the street, the porch on the side will face either south or west and there will be a door that opens onto the porch itself. There is a mistaken conception that the houses are one single room wide because residents of the city were taxed on their frontage. There is no documentation to support this theory. Another theory is that because Charleston was a walled city, like Quebec and St. Augustine, Florida, the lots in the original walled settlement were laid out deep in order to get more houses on the street. Once the wall came down, there was still no room on the peninsula as two-thirds of the ditty is filled in marshland, so the planners continued to lay the lots deep. The porches face south or west to keep the sun from directly hitting the house during the hottest part of the day, and also so that the prevailing breezes could cool the house down. The door is actually there to afford the residents privacy. The houses are very close together, so the door acts somewhat like the entrance to a Spanish courtyard.
The special part of it is that this style of architecture, unique to the city, is composed of homes that run the gamut from mansions to hovels and can be found on any tour.
Earthquake Bolts
Another sight that will greet you are large disks in between the floors of many of the buildings. These are earthquake bolts. On August 31, 1886 at 9:56 p.m., Charleston suffered an earthquake estimated to be anywhere from 7.7 to 8.0 on the Richter scale. The one in Los Angeles in January 1994 was 6.6. The one in Los Angeles lasted about 45 seconds. The one in Charleston last for eight minutes!
Needless to say, the town was a bit shaken up.
No structure was unaffected and many were severely damaged. Charleston was very poor at this juncture of her history, she'd been through a long siege during the War Between the States in which she endured shells raining down upon her antiquities for 587 days. She'd suffered the ravages of a hostile military occupation for 11 years after that, in which she was stripped of all her wealth, and then in the 1880's experienced the indignities of a severely-depressed cotton market and in 1885 went through two major hurricanes. It is not surprising that there was no money.
In order to rebuild the city, the residents used the rubble lying on the street, and lovingly pieced the houses back together brick by brick, stone by stone, stick by stick like jigsaw puzzles, so what you see here are all of the original buildings - they're just somewhat rearranged. If you look closely at the unstuccoed brick buildings you can actually see the patchwork where they were put back together. As they were in the process of rebuilding, they took long metal rods and inserted them through the entire length and width of the buildings in between each floor. The rods are connected by turnbuckles in the middle and bolts on either side. When the building was ready, the workmen would ever-so-gradually turn the bolts and the house would slowly come back into alignment.
You will see thousands of these bolts almost everywhere you look. You may think that if a house has these giant washers on it, it predates the earthquake. Probably, but perhaps not. Some older houses were put back together without them and some have them for affect. If you are thinking that you may avoid Charleston because of the earthquakes you may have something there. Geologists say that we are to have another earthquake within 20,000 years. The threat certainly keeps us up at night.
Another thing you will see as you meander through the city is a host of barely hidden courtyards. Even though it does get cold here, too, it usually doesn't stay cold, so one can find plants of all kinds flourishing at any time of year.
Charleston as a Military Outpost
Being a seaport, Charleston was invaluable as a military outpost all through America's history. The navy has always played an invaluable role, here, and even today with the closing of the navy installation, marine warfare is embedded in the city's psyche.
Few people realize that one of the most pivotal sea battles of the Revolutionary War took place in Charleston Harbor. The citizens of the city were fed up with British rule and in 1775 threw off the yoke of British colonial rule and ruled themselves. (I think there's some sort genetic disposition to all this, we have seceded four times, and if you speak to some contemporary Charlestonians the seeds of sedition are still there just waiting to be germinated).
Having one of the best natural deep water harbors on the east coast, Charleston was a plum not to be ignored, and besides, revenge for the humiliation was fervent in the British soul. In late June of 1776, the citizens of the Low country were alerted to the impending British invasion. Lacking time and material, they rushed out to Sullivan's Island, a barrier island at the mouth of the harbor. The shipping channel runs right by the island, and if the intrusive fleet were to capture the city they would only have to gain access to it by going right by Sullivan's Island. Frantically searching for something to build a fort, all they could find were the Palmetto trees indigenous to the island. After two days work, they fashioned a three-sided fort out of palmetto logs and sand.
On June 28, 1776, the British stormed the harbor. They had around 400 cannons, we had forty.
We won the battle.
Every time the British fired their cannons against the fort, the cannon balls bounced off the springy palmetto logs, rendering them ineffective.
The British were repulsed, and four days later, an indecisive bunch up in Philadelphia received word that the game was afoot. It gave them the resolve to fight a war, and on July 2, 1776, the group voted for the Declaration of Independence which was ratified two days later.
Fort Moultrie, so named after the commander who led it to victory, is today open to the public. Admission is free, and it is a twenty minute drive from the heart of downtown Charleston.
One can actually stand on the parapets of Fort Moultrie and look straight down onto Fort Sumter.
After the success of Fort Moultrie during the Revolution, the new nation decided that Charleston was a valuable link in the defense of the country. Because of this, in the 1820's the decision was made to build two other forts in a row across the harbor from Moultrie. By the time of the War For Succession broke out, one such installation had been completed. Fort Johnson on James Island, another barrier island on the other side of the harbor, was open and ready for business. The fort being built on a sandbar in the middle of the waterway had not been completed when Major Robert Anderson of the United States of America (USA), moved his federal forces in the dead of night to occupy it in late December of 1860.
This was the spark that ignited the conflagration that would soon engulf the nation. As South Carolina had seceded in December of 1860, Fort Sumter was considered property of South Carolina not the Federal Government. Negotiations went on for four months leading nowhere. Finally in early April 1861, the newly inaugurated President Abraham Lincoln sent a fleet of warships toward Charleston with the intention of re-supplying the unfinished fort and taking back Charleston Harbor.
Eerily echoing the events of the century before, the Southern garrisons received word that the armada was on its way. On April 11, the Confederate States of America (CSA) commander of Charleston, General P.G.T. Beauregard, sent a message to his old friend and West Point contemporary, Major Robert Anderson, asking that he surrender the South Carolina property in return for safe passage out of the harbor. All that day and into the next, Anderson was asked to leave and warned that if he did not, firing would commence.
Finally on April 12, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., the first shot was fired from the Southern fortifications at Fort Johnson to the recalcitrant forces at Fort Sumter.
A word on who fired that first shot: it was a man named Edward Ruffin. Ruffin was a 68-year old regular from James River, Virginia. Ruffin committed suicide the day after the surrender at Appomattox, leaving a note that he will not live one day under Yankee rule.
A piece of minutia - Ruffin watched John Brown be hung at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in December of 1859. While witnessing the event, Ruffin turned to the man next to him, a man he did not know, and a man he would never see again, and said, "I do not care how white my hair nor how brittle my bones be, I will die fighting for the South!"
The man recorded the event in his diary, quoting Ruffin.
The diary was found in a Washington boarding house in May of 1865.
The man who penned the entry?
John Wilkes Booth.
The first shot from Fort Johnson touched off a battle that lasted for 34 hours with bombardments back and forth between the two forts. Despite the ferocity of the fighting, when the Union forces surrendered and were sent back to Washington with their weapons, it turned out that not one single person was injured or killed as a direct result of the fighting.
Tour boats leave to tour Fort Sumter daily from the City Marina or Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant.
For those who desire a more contemporary museum featuring our glorious military past, the world's largest maritime and naval museum is right across the Cooper River Bridge at Patriot's Point. The star of the attraction is the "Fighting Lady," the USS Yorktown, the aircraft carrier so instrumental in our modern history. Also on display are the nuclear merchant ship, Savannah, the World War II submarine, Clamagore, the destroyer Laffey, and Coast Guard cutter, Ingham. Also located at Patriot's Point is one of the prettiest golf courses in the state. The course hugs the harbor and is open to the general public.
Naturally, when one thinks of Charleston, one thinks of the plantation system of the ante-bellum South. Many of the houses built on the peninsula were merely town houses for the families on the various and sundry plantations.
There are many other attractions in and around the city too numerous to list here, however if you're planning a trip to Charleston you might want to get the "Charleston Area Visitor's Guide" before you get here. It is a compendium of almost everything there is to do and see in the area. The price is around $4 to $5 including postage and can be ordered by writing to
The Charleston Trident Visitors Bureau
P.0 Box 975
Charleston, South Carolina 29402
or calling
(803) 853-8000.
Charleston
If you go...
In 1948 there was little tourism in Charleston. A brochure for the Festival of Houses that year listed five places to stay in the city. The most expensive hotel cost around $3 a night.
Things have changed just a bit.
The Yellow Pages for the Charleston area has five pages of listings, and a room in the U Stop Inn costs almost ten times that today.
Since there is not room here, nor does your writer have the patience or inclination to do so, it's impossible to list every possibility. What I will do is present what I believe to be the cream of the cream located on the peninsula. Phone numbers are included so you can call them to get more information. The area code is (803) unless otherwise noted:
Charleston Place - Expensive, but worth it! It is run by one of the topand most exclusive chains in the world. Five Star! Amenities include indoor Olympic pool, spa, exercise room, two phenomenal restaurants, concierges with a smile, and service, service, service. 722-4900
Motels
The Best Western King Charles Inn 723-7451, 1-800 528-1234
The Quality Inn/Heart of Charleston 722-3391, 1-800 845- 2504
The Comfort Inn/Riverview 577-2224, 1-800 221-2222
Inns
The Anchorage Inn 723-8300
The Ansoborough Inn 723 1655 1-800 522-2073
The Barksdale House Inn 577-4800
Battery Carriage House Inn 727-3100 1-800 775-5575
Elliott House Inn 723-1855 1-(800) 729-1855
Indigo Inn 577-5900 1-800 845-7639 (out of state) 1-800 922-1340 (in state)
John Rutledge House Inn 723-7999 1-800 476-9741
Kings Courtyard Inn 723-7000 1-800 845-6119
King George IV Inn 722-7551
Lodge Alley Inn 722-1611 1-800 845-1004
Meeting Street Inn 722-1882 1-800 842-8022
Planter's Inn 722-2345 1-800 845-7082
Victoria House Inn 720-2944 1-800 933-5464
Rutledge Victorian Inn 722-7551
Vendue Inn 577-7970 1-800 845-7900 (out of state) 1-800 922-7900
These are all Inns with amenities unsurpassed by the larger chains. All offer personal service. The desk personnel double as knowledgeable concierges and are there to guarantee your stay will be as comfortable and fun as it can be.
Bed and Breakfasts
Historic Charleston Bed and Breakfast: A reservation service for over 65 properties on the peninsula. Call for a free brochure! 722-6066
Ashley Inn 723-1848
Belvedere 722-0973
Brasington House 722-1274 1-800-722-1274
Cannonboro Inn 723-8572
Capers-Motte House 722-2263
East Bay Bed and Breakfast 722-4186
1837 Tea Room 723-7166
Sword Gate inn 723-8518
Two Meeting Street 723-7233
When I was growing up here, there were about four or five restaurants available for anything besides barbecue. Back in the fifties and early sixties, Perditas, located on Exchange Street was the only fine dining around. Henry's up until the 1980s was an excellent restaurant. I recall being in college and taking dates to those two places and thinking that I was not only in high cotton, I was high cotton. The Seafood Ala Wando at Henry's was excellent with oysters, shrimp, scallops in a broth over fried grits - you couldn't go wrong.
Now you can't throw a rock in downtown Charleston without hitting a fine dining establishment.
I lived for a brief period in my checkered past in New York City on Manhattan Island where it was once explained to me that there were very few bad restaurants in that particular borough because the competition was so stiff. If one were to receive swill at a certain place, one would not only not go back, one would tell all of one's friends and they would avoid it like the plague.
The same is now true of downtown Charleston.
There is a entire thick booklet dealing with food. Here are some of the highlights.
This time however, no phone numbers. You don't need them until you get here.
Fine Dining
Restaurant Million, pris fixe. A choice of courses written up in all the right places.
Louis' Charleston Grill at Charleston Place, Ala Carte. Louis Olsteen has also been written up in all the right places. Esquire Magazine positively raved!
Fine Cuisine
82 Queen. Courtyard dining. A Charleston favorite! Run by Charlestonians for Charlestonians which is a plus for visitors. Variations on a Charleston theme.
Carolinas. A favorite of locals and visitors alike. A Low country cuisine with a continental twist.
Garibaldi's. Northern Italian cuisine. Just smelling the place makes you hungry. The owners have also opened Anson's which has received a number of rave reviews.
Celia's, also Italian and a little off the beaten path, but worth it.
Poogan's Porch. Another variation on a Charleston theme. Intimate setting, excellent food.
Fulton Five. It has an eclectic menu, excellent food and service. This is where the movie stars eat.
The Library at Vendue. Besides excellent food, there is a rooftop bar with a view to die for.
Le Midi, French provencal. The food is cooked right there on the grill in front of you! A favorite with locals.
Mistral. One of the most underrated French restaurants in the city. Good food, good atmosphere.
Planter's Cafe, in the Planter's Inn. Great menu, everything from sandwiches to elegant entrees at reasonable prices.
A good idea is to get reservations at any of these places.
Baker's Cafe. Enjoy breakfast or lunch in elegance at family prices. A Charleston favorite.
Family
AW Shucks. Seafood, Seafood, Seafood.
Captain Stacks. Two restaurateurs from off the peninsula combined their talents and the symbiosis is in and of its own. Seafood, steaks, etc.
Tommy Condons. Another place where the local hang out. It is a kind of a combined Irish Pub and Low country favorite. It is not surprising to see local luminaries eating next to construction workers and a family of five from Ohio. There is a roofed deck for outside eating with a view of the Market.
Aaron's Deli. A slice of New York Kosher in the heart of the Low country.
There are scores of more restaurants that are all fantastic. If you come to Charleston, pick up a dining guide. You can eat your way to oblivion here.
Baker's Cafe. A family can enjoy breakfast or lunch in elegance at family prices. A Charleston favorite.
As I said earlier, trying to capture our lovely city in one article is like trying to catch a waterfall with an ice bucket. There is so much to do and see here. When I was interviewing Eliza Cleveland of the Nathaniel Russell House for another article, she told me that she was speaking to some people who were here for only two days and wanted to know what to see and the best way to see it.
She said to me something to the effect that you can't even scratch the surface in two days.
She's right.
I produced a video about Charleston four years ago. We were stopping people on the street and asking them what they thought of Charleston, and one visitor, who remains unknown, looked straight into the camera and said, "God it's beautiful here. If you don't love Charleston, you don't love the Lord!"
I don't believe I could put it better myself.
Look for David Farrow's novel, The Root of All Evil, coming from Wyrick & Co. in January. Ask your favorite bookstore for it.
If you're interested in a video about Charleston check out our home page:
