Charleston Time Machine

Firewood was once a basic necessity of life in all seasons of the year. Let's explore some of the details of the firewood business to connect our senses to the sights and smells of Charleston past.

"Lady Day" (March 25th) was "New Year's Day" for the first 81 years of Charleston, until we switched to the "New Style" calendar in 1752.

Since 1866, local citizens have celebrated the first of January as Emancipation Day—a joyous holiday featuring parades, pageantry, singing, dancing, orations, and religious thanksgiving. The day marks the demise of slavery and the liberation of those who once formed the majority of South Carolina’s population. Now one of Charleston’s oldest public events, Emancipation Day is a noble occasion worth...

Let’s pick up the story in early December 1782, when the end of the long war was quite literally in sight. Most of the American army in South Carolina, consisting of several hundred men under the leadership of General Nathanael Greene, was camped on a number of plantations on the west side of the Ashley River.

Let's explore the events leading up to the British evacuation of Charleston on 14 December 1782, a momentous day in South Carolina history.

In the autumn of 1927, Susan Dart Butler opened a free library in a building known as Dart Hall in downtown Charleston, and the present Dart Library is hosting a celebratory event this Saturday to commemorate ninety years of service to the community

At the turn of the seventeenth century, England was very keen to get involved in the European real estate bonanza in the New World. By that time, Spain and Portugal had already claimed nearly the entire continent of South America, the southern parts of North America, and most of the islands known as the West Indies, or Caribbean Islands.

It’s Thanksgiving season again, and for most people that means a day of rest, relaxation, and feasting with close friends and family. As a historian working in an old city, I have learned that Thanksgiving also includes at least ten people asking me the same question: “When was the first Thanksgiving in Charleston?” I don’t mind the question at all, but the answer is generally more complex than mo...

If you pick up any book about the origins of South Carolina in the late 1600s, you’ll be sure to find references to the island of Barbados and the great influence it exerted on our early history. Nearly 350 years later, in November 2017, a number of Lowcountry residents are collaborating with officials in Barbados to commemorate the cultural ties that continue to bind our two communities together.

When Charles II of England granted the colony of Carolina to a group of Lords Proprietors in 1663, the province included all the land between English Virginia and Spanish Florida. On paper, at least, the southern border of Carolina included the northern part of Florida, all the way down to what is now Jacksonville. Conversely, Spain considered the northern boundary of Florida to extend as far nort...

At the close of the year 1856, the City of Charleston was just wrapping up the extensive repairs to the High Battery seawall and White Point Garden made necessary by the destructive hurricane of 1854. Immediately to the west of these expensive public projects, jutting out into the Ashley River, stood a series of rather unsavory private wharves, which the city viewed both as a nuisance and a potent...

I think it’s important to look back at the many generations of labor that led to the creation of the present “High” and “Low” battery seawalls. Our brief journey begins nearly 300 years ago, when the entire area in question was just a bit of underwater, imaginary real estate.

It’s time for our annual ShakeOut.! No, I’m not talking about some retro-themed dance contest, I’m talking about the Great Southeast ShakeOut of 2017, which is sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to promote earthquake awareness in seismically-active areas–like Charleston.

Philadelphia Alley is not the shortest or narrowest thoroughfare in the city of Charleston, but it is sufficiently small to escape the attention of many residents and tourists.  For those who have stumbled into its entrances on Queen and Cumberland Streets in the past, they have discovered a picturesque yet historically mute piece of Charleston.

The story of Dutch Town begins in the middle of the eighteenth century, but I’d like to begin our tour of the neighborhood in the 1670s. Why? Because the physical location of Dutch Town is rooted in a series of mathematical errors made long before the first Germans arrived in South Carolina.

The location of the recent sinkhole in front of 215 East Bay Street is not directly related to the old creek that became Market Street two hundred years ago, nor is it directly related to the colonial-era fortification called Craven Bastion on the opposite side of the street. Rather, the recent sinkhole occurred on natural high ground (or at least a relatively high spot) that may have been the sou...

I’d like to share with you a little mystery that I’ve been trying to solve recently.  Late one evening in early May 1822, a group of four men gathered on a Charleston street, under the cover of some overhanging tree branches, to discuss a secret plan.  Three of the group, Frank, Monday, and Jack, were enslaved men of African descent, while the fourth, Denmark Vesey, was known as a “free negro.”

Hurricane season brings its share of anxiety, so I’d like to offer a bit of distraction from our current weather uncertainties. At the risk of adding to your stress, let’s turn back the calendar to early September of 1811, when a tornado measuring approximately one hundred yards in diameter churned diagonally across the city of Charleston, leaving a swath of death and destruction in its furious wa...

For the first 180 years of Charleston’s existence—from the arrival of the first settlers, through the entire colonial era and the American Revolution, through the War of 1812 and the Nullification Crisis, right up to the middle of the nineteenth century—Charlestonians rode their horses and drove their carriages on the left side of the road.  Why?

Let’s roll back the hands of time to talk about a nineteenth-century transportation phenomenon that few people remember, but one that revolutionized the concept of mobility in the Charleston area and continues to impact our community in the twenty-first century. I’m talking about the omnibus.

Bees Ferry Road began as a path through the wildness more than three centuries ago, leading to an important crossing point over the Ashley River. Behind the well-known name is the forgotten story of a once-thriving gathering place and the generations of men and women who operated the slow-moving ferry for nearly 160 years.

Let’s travel back in Lowcountry music history to talk about South Carolina’s first state anthem, or at least the state’s first unofficial anthem. I’m talking about a piece of music called “the South Carolina Hymn,” which was written in the summer of 1807 and first performed in Charleston on August 22nd of that year.

From the opening of the new Centre Market in Market Street in August 1807, black vultures earned a level of government protection because they provided an important public service: the birds ate all of the animal scraps and leftovers cast aside by the butchers who plied their trade in the city’s busy food market.

Charleston, podcast, library, education, South Carolina, archives, history

Today we’re going to travel back in Lowcountry history to talk about Bastille Day, which is celebrated on the 14th of July by Francophiles around the world.  I wrote an essay about this topic a couple of years ago, before I launched this radio series, so I’d like to revisit the topic for the benefit of those who might not have seen the original post.