History: Downtown Tour

We took a walking tour downtown on Saturday to find out a little bit more about the city. Charleston is so rich in history (it was settled in 1860) that there is just too much to be able to learn online. Plus, you miss out on the cool little stories and facts that only people who have lived here know. We found a Groupon for a tour before we even moved here, so we cashed that baby in. And boy was it a blast! I don't think I have ever enjoyed a tour so much; it truly made me love Charleston that much more. Our tour guide was named Ed and he was the best. He told things how they really are and told everything like one giant story. Here are a few things that I learned:

• Charleston used to have a wall around it (right up to the harbor) that was 16 feet tall. The wall was there for about 20 years until they decided to take it down. They took it down because it was no longer necessary (pirates stopped being a threat), and it was actually impeding commerce.

This brick inlay shows where the wall used to be. It's crazy that this side of it was all ocean and now there are a ton of buildings and houses there!

• Pirates stopped being a threat because of Blackbeard. Blackbeard's real name was Edward Teach, and he was one heck of a pirate. He was 6'4" at a time when everyone else was about 5'6". My favorite story that I learned about him was that one of his favorite pastimes was scaring old women and children, so he would wrap hemp up in his beard and then light it on fire. Then he would go up to them and tell them that he had just returned from hell, and his beard was the brimstone still burning to prove it. Hahaha. I love it. Well, ironically this great pirate was the downfall of piracy in Charleston. He went out in the harbor and commandeered a ship that had a lot of wealthy, important people on it (including one of the city councilmen and his 5 year old son). He told them that if they did not give him the money and medicine that he needed for his crew he would send their heads back in boxes to the city. Well, the city decided to give them whatever they asked and once he had it, Blackbeard took the ship and sent the people safely back to shore in a rowboat. The catch is, he sent them back naked. This was so horrifying and humiliating that Charleston vowed to put an end to piracy. Up until that point, piracy was looked down upon, but pirates were still allowed to come to Charleston to eat, drink, and... spend time with the ladies. After this, any time that a pirate would come ashore they hung him in the street and left his body to rot as a symbol to other pirates of their future. Pirates are very superstitious, and to them not being buried at sea like their heroes OR buried in a cemetery like good Christians was a fate worse than death. Well, this tactic worked and a few years later the wall was lowered.

This was a bar of sorts when Blackbeard was around, and one of his favorite places to stop.

• There are 88 churches in Charleston alone, and upwards of 800 in the greater Charleston area. It was called The Holy City, but not only for the amount of churches, but also because there were so many churches of different faiths that got along well. Also, as a side note, for every church there were at least 7 pubs and 4 brothels in the city. So... that changes the perspective a little bit. :) But still to this day, churches are all over Charleston.

St. Phillip's, originally built in 1680. Probably my favorite church downtown.

This is now a "ritzy" part of Charleston, a pretty expensive area. Which is all relative because any property in Charleston will cost you an arm and a leg. The funny thing is, this area used to be like the red-light district back in the 1800's. You can tell by the shutters what kind of people worked there (what kind of prostitutes you could get here).

Apparently blue shutters with moons cut out was the symbol for Irish women.

• Charleston boasts having the first theatre ever built in the United States. It was built in 1736 and was called the Playhouse in Dock Street. Later, it was destroyed in a fire and rebuilt as the Planter's Hotel. After the Civil War, everyone was too poor and too demoralized to care about the building so it became overrun with vines and rats. Later it was cleaned up and turned back into a theatre again. Now it is known as the Dock Street Theatre.

• In the mid 1800's there were 13 different fire companies in Charleston. They worked kind of like insurance companies. You would pick a company and pay them to watch over your house and to help you out if you ever had a fire. They would put a symbol on your house so that people would know they were the ones that you had chosen. Well, this would have worked fine but back then news of fires was essentially seeing the smoke and then every fire company would race out to the scene thinking that it could be one of their houses. The problem was that with so many companies going in the same direction on small one-way streets with their horse drawn carriage, it would take so long for the one company that needed to be there to get there that the house (and the neighbor's houses) would have already burned down. In 1882 the city decided to do away with the different companies and instead put in the first municipal fire department in the United States.

This was the fire station.

One symbol.

Another symbol. 

• The Old Market is often called the Slave Market. This is misleading because slaves were never sold there (which is something that any Charlestonian is quick to point out) but instead they were allowed to go to the Market and try to sell some of the things that they made. They would have to wear labels while there that had their name, their master's name, and their serial number. Slaves were, however, sold in private auction homes. A law was passed forbidding slaves to be sold in public (it looked bad to visitors getting off a boat because the first thing they saw was a human being sold like property) but they could still be sold in private. This is the only Slave Auction Building still standing in Charleston today. In the backyard (now a parking lot) a slave would play the fiddle and the rest of the slaves would have to dance. This wasn't for enjoyment or to be nice, this was to get them in shape. The ship/carriage ride to Charleston was long and had terrible conditions. Before they could be sold they had to be brought up to better physical condition. 

The old slave mart.

This parking lot was the backyard where the exercises happened.

• Rainbow Row is a row of houses that were painted in very bright, Caribbean colors. This was done because these bright colors reflect the heat of the sun so well.Today there are many laws dictating what colors house downtown can be painted and the renovations that can be done. These laws have made it so the houses on Rainbow Row have to be painted the same original colors they were painted before. With time, the bright paint of these houses had all faded to a dull grey. Because of everything that happened with the War Between the States nobody cared enough to change anything until the early 20th century when an old widow bought one of the houses and painted it bright pink again. She did this to spruce up the neighborhood and give a little big of hope. Her doing this caused a chain reaction and Rainbow Row was born again.

I love Rainbow Row. It is so pretty. Even better in person!

• Something else interesting about the architecture in Charleston is that the people wanted to build their houses like what was being built in Europe, which was large blocks instead of bricks. But, slaves here in Charleston were baking bricks so fast and often that anything else was entirely too expensive and unwise to use. So, they would build their house and buildings out of brick and then cover it with stucco and draw in fake lines that would make it look like they were just like the other buildings. Haha. Also, the same laws that deal with the colors of houses make it so that you cannot remodel this aspect of the house OR do any faux aging to a building either.

• One way to tell if a building is original or not is to look for these: they are earthquake bolts that were used after a big earthquake in 1886. They were put into the house to offer reinforcement, stability, and to help bring houses back together again. During this time Charleston was extremely poor. After the earthquake they couldn't afford to rebuild so they put in these bolts and turned them a 1/4 turn every day until the house straightened up again. 

• The porches in Charleston all face toward the ocean because of the breeze that comes from the coast. It is so hot here and that breeze was the only thing to give them sanity. They also had fake doors that would lead back to the porches to let neighbors and friends know if they were "indisposed" at the time. Back then, even showing an ankle was improper, so by closing the door to the porch the family could roll up their sleeves and their pants and cool off.

• Charleston played a big role in the Revolutionary War. The alleys down by the shore were (and still are) very narrow: 17 bricks wide. This was just wide enough for two British soldiers to stand next to each other and block everything off. 

A particular incident in Charleston also helped encourage American soldiers to fight in the war. There was an American soldier that was being held as a prisoner of war by the British and would only be released if he agreed to never fight against the British Army again. His wife and children were sick and dying, and so he agreed and signed the document so that he could be free to go and help them. When they died, he hated the British for keeping him away from them and decided that he would fight against them regardless of the oath that he had taken. When the British caught him again, they decided that they would hang him for his crimes. They thought that this would squash the rebellion, but just the opposite happened. People who had been on the fence about the War were outraged and decided to join the cause.

This was the house where he was kept prisoner until they decided what to do with him. 

During the Revolutionary War, a church was used as a lookout tower took three cannon balls through the roof. Because it was white it proved to be an easy target, so during the War they painted it black. This church (St. Michael's Church) is the oldest church in Charleston that is still the original edifice. It was built in 1752 and has survived the Revolutionary War, tornadoes, fires, hurricanes, and the Civil War.

One last thing about the Revolutionary War. I have mentioned before that the people here in South Carolina love the Palmetto tree, like a weird amount. It's all over cars and clothes and buildings. Well, hearing this story showed me why. When the British were fighting against the Colonies at Fort Moultrie, the palm trees acted as a great defense against the cannons. Apparently the logs of the fort were soft enough that they absorbed the cannonballs instead of shattering from the force. This allowed the soldiers to remove the cannonballs and load them into their own cannons and fire them at the British. This save countless lives and let them win that battle.

• The number four source of revenue for Charleston is filming. Things like The Patriot, Army Wives,  The Notebook and Dear John were all filmed here. A funny story is that there was an old lady that didn't want them to film by her house because they dumped dirt all over the sidewalk so that it looked like it was way back in the day. To protest, she drove her Jaguar up on her lawn and refused to move it. The film company offered her all kinds of money but she wouldn't budge. Eventually they had to build a HUGE wagon and park it out in front of her house to hide it. In response, the old lady would play Bach from her room upstairs with the window open when they were trying to film. Silly old woman. One of the reasons that filming is so popular here is because of the diversity. There are houses here from the 1700's, 1800's, and 1900's. Because of certain catastrophes such as fires, hurricanes, and the wars, some houses were destroyed while others survived. This has lead to the great diversity that can be found in downtown Charleston.

The peach house was built in  the 1700's, the brick and siding one was built in the 1900's and the one further down the street was built in the 1800's. Fires and destruction from the Civil War took out the houses and caused them to be rebuilt in different times.

• Charleston was also important in the Civil War. The paperwork for the Secession was done in a home in Charleston. This home.

• The streets downtown used to be cobblestone but there are only a few blocks that still are. These stones were brought over from England in the 1700's to be used as ballast in the ships. Once they got here they didn't need the extra weight anymore because they were bringing stuff back with them to England so they dumped here in Charleston. The people decided to use them for their streets.

That's pretty much it. I know it's a lot of history, but hey, I warned you in the title :)