Part 4

CONFEDERATE MUSEUM, _at the Head of the Market_: Valuable relics of the Confederacy are preserved in their hall at the head of Market Street, at Meeting Street, by the Charleston Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A gun on the porch was fashioned from Swedish wrought iron from one of the first locomotives operated by the South Carolina Railroad, the world's oldest long-distance steam railroad. It was among the first rifled cannon made in the United States. This piece was in Columbia when General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union troops occupied that town, and Union soldiers tried to burst the cannon, cracking it near the muzzle. During riots in the period of Reconstruction the Washington Light Infantry manned the gun. The Confederate Museum is in a hall over the west end of the old City Market established between 1788 and 1804, extending from East Bay Street to Meeting Street. Through many years all household marketing was done in the stalls. Into recent years it was a common sight to see a gentleman doing the marketing, a negro with a large basket following him from stall to stall. There survive stalls in the Market, but the long low building is not congested as it was in other years. The telephone has contributed much toward the discontinuance of the good old Charleston custom of marketing in person.

MARION SQUARE, _King, Meeting and Calhoun Streets_: Named in honor of General Francis Marion, hero of the Revolution, affectionately called the "Swamp Fox," this six-acre square in the very heart of Charleston was from 1882 to 1921 the parade ground of The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, giving rise to the nickname, Citadel Green. The Citadel is now at Hampton Park, on the Ashley River, but its main building and four wings stand as reminders. In Lowndes Street, from Calhoun to the Citadel sally port, is a statue of John Caldwell Calhoun, eminent South Carolina statesman, atop a tall granite shaft. On the Meeting Street side is a monument to General and Governor Wade Hampton, savior of his State in Reconstruction, and on the west side a section of "horn work," part of the Revolutionary line of fortifications for the defense of Charlestown against the invading British. It was just outside the town, Boundary Street becoming Calhoun Street after the town limits were extended to their present line in 1849. Before the purchase by the now defunct Fourth Brigade, the square was solidly built. After the evacuation of Charleston until 1882 the United States army was in possession of the Citadel buildings. On the east side and on the west side are fountains fed by a great artesian well near King and Calhoun Streets, formerly in the waterworks system.

THE OLDEST DRUG STORE, _125 King Street_: America's oldest drug store business is in Charleston. It has had a career antedating 1781 as in that year Dr. Andrew Turnbull bought the business and began the dispensing of his own remedies. In 1792 Joseph Chouler was the proprietor, in 1806 William Burgoyne, in 1816 Jacob De La Motta. The mortar and pestle he displayed over his Apothecary's Hall is still extant, and in the store now used. Felix l'Herminier took over the business in 1845 and soon afterward it was in the name of William G. Trott who in 1870 sold it to C. F. Schwettmann. In 1894 the style was C. F. Schwettmann & Son. This continues with John F. Huchting as proprietor. In 1920 Mr. Huchting presented much of the old Apothecary's Hall to the Charleston Museum which has reset it and where it may be seen. More than one hundred and fifty years for a drug business is a worth-while record!

CHARLESTON LIGHTHOUSE, _on Morris Island_: During Colonial years the only coastal light south of the Delaware capes was the Charleston Lighthouse on Morris Island, built in 1767. The present tower was built in 1876; it is of brick, 161 feet high. The earthquake of 1886 cracked the tower and threw the lens out of adjustment. From the first Charleston Light came a copper plate in the corner stone, reading: "The first stone of this Beacon was laid on the 30th of May 1767 in the seventh year of His Majesty's reign, George the III," and so on. December 18, 1860, the first incident of the War for Southern Independence affecting the lighthouse service occurred at the Charleston Light. The Secretary of the Treasury was told by the Secretary of the Lighthouse Board that he would not recommend that the coast of South Carolina "be lighted by the Federal Government against her will." December 30, the lighthouse inspector reported that "the Governor of the State of South Carolina has requested me to leave the State." By the latter part of April, 1861, the Confederates had extinguished this and other lights; they were furnishing no aids to navigation for Union mariners. Morris Island is at the left entrance to the harbor of Charleston. From the eastern end of the Folly Beach, accessible by automobile, a clear view of the Charleston Light may be had.

MIDDLETON PLACE, _Gardens on the Ashley River_: This was the seat of Arthur Middleton, Signer of the _Declaration of Independence_. Henry Middleton, of The Oaks, president of the Continental Congress, obtained the land through his wife. Two English landscape gardeners were brought oversea to fashion the show place, which was completed about 1740. The fine Tudor house was put to the torch late in the War for Southern Independence. Only the left wing stands, and in it the owner, J. J. Pringle Smith, descendant of the Signer, lives. The old steps to the main building are in place, and from them a commanding view of the broad formal terraces and the winding Ashley River is had. The first japonicas brought into this country were transplanted at Middleton Place about 1805 and one of the original plants was alive in 1939. Middleton Place is famous not only for its gorgeous azalea show in spring, but for the wide variety of plants. It has been praised with lavish enthusiasm by distinguished visitors. Annually thousands of people travel many miles to walk about these wonderful gardens, a living reminder of the beauty wrought before the Revolution. The grave of the Signer is at Middleton Place. The Gardens are on the Ashley River Road, about fourteen miles from the Ashley River Bridge. If one would see gardens, terraces and hedges substantially as they were in 1740; if one would see one of the world's most beautiful places, he should be sure of visiting Middleton Place.

MAGNOLIA GARDENS, _on the Ashley River_: Distinguished authors have heaped glowing compliments on the enchantment that is Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, "a sight unrivalled," said a writer in the _Chicago Tribune_. The fame of these gardens has gone wide and far. Thomas P. Lesesne, of Charleston, was in the great Kew Gardens, London. Coming to the azalea section he was surprised to find a sign declaring to all who came that way that if one would see the azalea in the zenith of its beauty, he should visit Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, near Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America! In Kew! Think of that! John Galsworthy, Owen Wister and other notables have shed superlatives in describing the gardens. In this show place on the Ashley River, the Reverend John Grimke Drayton planted the first _Azalea Indica_. They had been imported from the East to Philadelphia in 1843, but, the Pennsylvania climate being too rigorous for them, Mr. Drayton was invited to see what he could do with them. And what he has done with them brings thousands of people from distant places each spring when the azaleas are in the full glory of their bloom! The gardens, about twenty-five acres in extent, have what is declared to be the most valuable collection of the Camellia Japonica; there are more than 250 varieties. They come into bloom in the winter, and the gardens are open for their inspection. Carlisle Norwood Hastie, present owner of Magnolia, is grandson of the Reverend Mr. Drayton, an Episcopalian minister. Two hundred years the property has been in possession of the Drayton family. During the Revolution the Colonial mansion was burned and a second building was burned during the War for Southern Independence. Mr. Hastie has purchased the old Tupper house in Charleston (its site on Meeting Street) for rëerection at Magnolia-on-Ashley. Moss-covered oak and cypress trees, bordering mirroring lagoons, furnish a bewitching background for the gardens, with the Ashley River in front.

ASHLEY RIVER BRIDGE, _on the Coastal Highway (17)_: Until the first of July, 1921, the bridge over the Ashley River at the head of Spring Street was privately owned. At that time the county of Charleston acquired it by purchase and at once the toll was taken off. In the spring of 1926, the present handsome and commodious concrete bridge was formally opened. It is slightly down-stream from the rather ramshackle wooden bridge. It cost a million and a quarter dollars. It is wide enough for four vehicles abreast and on each side is a sidewalk for pedestrians. Its huge bascule leaves provide plenty of clearance for the greatest seagoing vessels. This bridge, a memorial to Charleston soldiers who lost their lives in the World War, is an essential link in the Coastal Highway between the provinces of eastern Canada and the keys of Florida, thence by "ferry" to Havana, Cuba. It connects the city of Charleston with all the trans-Ashley region. From the town it leads to James Island (on which are the Country Club and the Municipal Links, Riverland Terrace and Wappoo Hall) and the popular Folly Beach; by way of James Island to the Stono River bridge which is near the famous Fenwick Hall, a great estate in pre-Revolutionary years; it leads to Walterboro, Beaufort, Port Royal (site of the earliest French colony) and Savannah and Jacksonville; it leads to the Ashley River Road for St. Andrew's Church, Middleton Place, Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, Drayton Hall, Runnymede, Wragg Barony and Bacon's Bridge over the upper Ashley River. In the War Between the States the old bridge was burned and after Appomattox more than fifteen years elapsed before it was restored. Near the Ashley River Bridge in St. Andrew's Parish are sites of the earliest English plantations. Quite near it Eliza Lucas, daughter of the Governor of Antigua and mother of the Generals Charles Cotesworth and Thomas Pinckney, carried forward her indigo experiments. David Ramsay says that the indigo planters doubled their capital every three or four years.

COOPER RIVER BRIDGE, _on the Old King's Highway_: Coming to Charleston President George Washington, President James Monroe and the Marquis de Lafayette traveled over the old King's Highway. Washington was here in 1791, Monroe in 1819 and Lafayette in 1825. From the Mount Pleasant shore to the City of Charleston they crossed by primitive ferry. To August of 1929 ferries over the broad Cooper River were continued. In that month the great bridge over the Cooper River was opened to traffic. This is the world's third highest vehicular bridge! Its span over Town Creek affords vertical clearance of 132 feet, as much as that of the famous Brooklyn Bridge, and the span over the Cooper River a vertical clearance of 152 feet at mean high water. From the crest of this engineering achievement are provided commanding views. In the distance to the right is Fort Sumter, looking for all the world like a toy fortress in a toy pool. From this coign of vantage one sees the many bold and little creeks that flow into the Cooper. To the middle left one sees the heavy woods of Christ Church Parish. Give the imagination rein and appear ghosts of almost naked Indians, of early English, French, Irish, Scotch; of bitter conflicts of man against man; of Sir Peter Parker and his naval armada smiting the little palmetto fort with shot and shell. At Charleston, over the Cooper River Bridge the old Kings Highway makes junction with the Coastal Highway. It is the short route from Charleston to Georgetown, Wilmington, Norfolk, crossing the lower Santee and other bold coastal streams almost within sight of the sea. There is every promise that the old King's Highway, paved, will develop into a paramount route between East and Southeast, an important alternate to the Coastal Highway. No visitor to Charleston should forego the opportunity of passing over the three-mile Cooper River Bridge. It is a sensation well worth the trivial Journey.

THE CITADEL, _the Military College of South Carolina_: General Charles Pelot Summerall is now a Charlestonian and proud of it. He would add that his pride is the greater in that he is president of The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, an institution whose illustrious record goes back to 1842, which furnished distinguished officers for the Confederacy, in the Spanish and World Wars. As the Cadet Battalion went into the Confederate service the college was closed in 1864. From the evacuation of Charleston to The Citadel's reopening in 1882, it was occupied by Union soldiers. From its establishment in 1842 to the fall of 1922, The Citadel was on Marion Square. Because it needed more room, it went into new quarters at Hampton Park on the Ashley River where now it is. It was a cadet battery that fired the first gun of the War for Southern Independence; the Union ship _Star of the West_ was driven off while attempting to bring supplies to the garrison besieged in Fort Sumter. Year after year the War Department of the United States designates The Citadel as a distinguished military college. Its academic standards are high.

PORTER MILITARY ACADEMY, _Distinguished Military School_: "Through the noble efforts" of the Reverend Anthony Toomer Porter, D.D., then Rector of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, the Porter Military Academy had its origin in 1867 as the Holy Communion Church Institute, in its genesis "a classical school for the children of parents in straitened circumstances," due to the War for Southern Independence. In Dr. Porter's absence his board of trustees named the institution for him. Among its distinguished alumni is General Charles Pelot Summerall, former Chief of Staff of the United States Army and now President of The Citadel. The Porter Military Academy occupies the grounds of the United States Arsenal; it is bounded by Ashley Avenue and Bee, President and Doughty Streets. It continues to earn a high place among Southern educational institutions, its boarding cadets coming from many States. It is a fully accredited preparatory school.

COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON, _Oldest Municipal College_: To claim the distinction of being America's oldest municipal college is a large order, but the College of Charleston, on George Street between St. Philip and College Streets, earns it by the record. The institution was founded in 1770 and takes rank as fifteenth in the list of American colleges. Its roll of graduates sounds like a list of South Carolina's illustrious: John C. Fremont, explorer and candidate for the presidency; James B. DeBow, ante-bellum economist; Edward McCrady, historian; Bishop William Wightman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Bishop Bowen, of the Protestant Episcopal Church; William H. Trescott, diplomat; Paul Hamilton Hayne, poet; Chancellor Henry Deas Lesesne; United States Judge Henry A. M. Smith, historian and scholar; the Rev. J. L. Girardeau, eminent Presbyterian minister. On its governing board have served such distinguished men as James Louis Petigru, Robert Young Hayne, John Julius Pringle, Daniel Elliott Huger, Langdon Cheves, Henry Middleton, General William Washington, Joel Roberts Poinsett, Judge Mitchell King. In 1837 the college was taken over by the Corporation of Charleston; it is the oldest municipal college in America. Among the founders of the College of Charleston were the ablest men in the Royal Province of South Carolina, among them two Signers of the _Declaration of Independence_ (Arthur Middleton and Thomas Heyward, Jr.) and three Signers of the _Constitution of the United States_ (Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John Rutledge, "The Dictator").

ORIGINAL DEPARTMENT STORE, _King Street at Market_: "Ghosts rush out every time I pass," said a friend. He was growing sentimental about the Academy of Music building, razed in 1937. In 1830 in this "whale of a building," for its time, was opened the world's first department store. With great stocks from all parts of the world the Kerrisons built up an enormous business, their customers coming from as far as the Mississippi River! It was a massive building of massive construction. Its masonry was notable and it may be that its great heart cypress timbers were more notable. To the coming of the War for Southern Independence, Charleston being capital of a far-flung slave empire, business in the building prospered. Kerrison's of this time is descendant of the original Kerrison's; it is across and higher up King Street, one of the leading department stores of the South. After Appomattox Charleston was without a theater. The Charleston Theater had been destroyed in the fire of 1861. John Chadwick, a school master, acquired the building and converted the rear portion into a theater, the Academy of Music, wherein have appeared famous actors, actresses and singers, great bands and orchestras. Georges Barrere, solo flautist and conductor of the Little Symphony Orchestra and the Barrere Ensemble, after playing his flute on the stage, remarked: "Here is a veritable 'Strad.' of a theater!" Barrere was justly complimenting the remarkable acoustics of the theater. It is well to bear in mind that Charleston had a great department store before the first of the steam railroads began operation in America! A century ago in a mezzanine gallery on the top floor were displayed laces, embroideries and other fine goods from the world's finest makers. As a theater the Academy of Music was owned for some years by John A. Owens, nationally known for his portrayal of Solon Shingle. It may be permissible here to say that Joseph Jefferson used to manage a theater in Charleston, that his mother was born in Charleston.

WASHINGTON SQUARE, _Called also City Hall Park_: In the northwest corner of this park is the first fireproof building built in America, for which salient reason Charleston knows it as The Fireproof Building. It was erected about 1826. Robert Mills was the architect. It is used for county offices and records. In the southwest corner is the City Hall which is discussed elsewhere. On Broad, Meeting and Chalmers Streets are handsome wrought-iron gates and wrought-iron railings of great grace. In the center of the park is a shaft of granite to the three companies of the Washington Light Infantry which served the Confederacy valiantly on the battlefields of Virginia in the 60's, and in the defense of Charleston. Southward of this is a bust to the lilting Carolina poet, Henry Timrod, and eastward a monument to General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, for some time in the War for Southern Independence, commanding officer at Charleston. New Orleans paid tribute to this illustrious soldier long after Charleston had done so. Near the west gate is the statue of William Pitt.

WILLIAM PITT STATUE, _in Washington Park_: "The gentleman (Benjamin Franklin) tells us that America is obstinate, America is almost in open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that America has resisted! Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest!" William Pitt was speaking in the House of Commons, London, denouncing the iniquitous stamp tax. Charlestown heard of the Pitt speech and Charlestown applauded. Charlestown ordered a statue of the great statesman in recognition of his noble position. The statue was received in Charlestown May 31, 1770, and was erected in the intersection of Broad and Meeting Streets, the most prominent position in the town at that time. During the Revolution a shell from a British gun on James Island struck off the right arm, explaining its absence into this day. Years afterward, interfering with traffic, it was removed to the yard of the Charleston Orphan House and in 1881, through the Carolina Art Association, placed where now it is in Washington Park.

LORD CAMPBELL'S HOUSE, _34 Meeting Street_: Last of the Royal Governors, Lord William Campbell, precipitately left Charlestown September 16, 1775, taking refuge aboard H.M.S. _Tamar_. Lord Campbell by night went through his garden to a boat in Vanderhorst Creek (Water Street nowadays). He had come to Charlestown June 18, 1775, and was "received civilly, but without enthusiasm." Fleeing, he carried with him the Great Seal of the Province. South Carolina was on the way to independence. The house was built about 1760 and was owned by Mrs. Blake, first cousin to Sarah Izard who married Lord Campbell. She belonged to one of the richest and most influential families in the Province. After the Revolution, about 1795, Colonel Lewis Morris, a Revolutionary officer, acquired the property. Colonel Francis Kinloch Huger, who had part in the frustrated plot to liberate the Marquis de Lafayette from the Austrian prison of Olmutz, was wounded on the steps of this house; a section of the bull's-eye in the roof fell and fractured his skull. In the earthquake of 1886, a young Englishman was killed on the steps; a piece of the parapet fell on him. The house has been in the Huger family for years. The handsome piazzas on the south side were built for the late William E. Huger, whose son, Daniel Elliott Huger, is the present owner.

WILLIAM BULL'S HOUSE, _35 Meeting Street_: Across Meeting Street from the Charlestown home of Lord William Campbell was the home of the first Lieutenant Governor of the Royal Province of South Carolina, William Bull, who is said to have erected it; he died in 1755. It was his son, William Bull, then also Lieutenant Governor who was occupying it at the outbreak of the Revolution. The office of Lieutenant Governor was devised to safeguard against an interregnum between the naming of Governors by the King of England.