Part 5

MILES BREWTON HOUSE, _27 King Street_: History, romance, legend and tradition crowd upon this famous mansion, built by Miles Brewton about 1765. Brewton and his family perished at sea and the property descended to his sister, the famous Mrs. Rebecca Motte (whose name is perpetuated in the Rebecca Motte Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution). This gallant and patriotic lady was living in the house when the British took possession of Charleston. Sir Henry Clinton commandeered it as his headquarters, and Lord Rawdon did the same thing. Lord Cornwallis was quartered in the house. Again, when the Union forces occupied Charleston in the War for Southern Independence, the general commanding set up his headquarters here. Later the house was the residence of the Pringle family, hence it is commonly known nowadays as the Pringle House. The visitor should observe the picturesque old coach house adjoining and to the north. The old garden is behind high brick walls, so typical of the old Charlestown. Her home in possession of the invading British, Rebecca Brewton Motte, widow of Jacob Motte, retired with his family to her plantation house in Orangeburg County on the Congaree River. The British, seizing the residence, built a parapet around it. Francis Marion and Henry Lee laid siege to it. Apprised that British reinforcements were approaching, the officers considered the burning of the fine property, but hesitated. Mrs. Motte, however, overcame their scruples. Bringing out an African bow and arrows for it, she deliberately sent flaming arrows to the roof which caught afire, causing the British garrison to surrender with alacrity. After independence Mrs. Motte undertook rice planting on scale and built up a considerable property. Her two eldest daughters, in succession, were wives of the great Thomas Pinckney.

WILLIAM GIBBES HOUSE, _64 South Battery Street_: William Gibbes came to Charlestown direct from England and was active in behalf of the colonies until the actual break with the Crown, when he fled to Bermuda, thence going back to England. The handsome house was built before 1776; the exact date is obscured. Gibbes was with others interested in reclaiming marshy areas in that section. Five years after his death the records show that Mrs. Sarah Smithe purchased the property, the consideration being twenty-five hundred pounds. An elegant ballroom occupies the width of the upper story. Within brick walls on three sides was, and is, a beautiful garden. For years the property belonged to the Drayton family and some years after the War for Southern Independence it was occupied by James Petigru Lesesne, son of the Chancellor Henry Deas Lesesne and a great-grandson of the Huguenot pastor, Jean Louis Gibert who came from the Channel Islands leading a French colony into upper South Carolina. It passed into the ownership of Colonel J. B. E. Sloan and in late years is the property of Mrs. Washington A. Roebling, widow of the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River, New York.

WILLIAM BLACKLOCK HOUSE, _18 Bull Street_: This fine mansion, built about 1800, is considered one of the best examples of its type of architecture. It is a two-story brick dwelling, with a double set of steps leading to an entrance platform. The carriage gates are gracefully ornate. There is the peculiarity that the gates are of wood, rather than of the wrought-iron pieces that would be expected.

THE WASHINGTON HOUSE, _87 Church Street_: President George Washington, visiting Charleston in May, 1791, was "domiciled" in the residence of Thomas Heyward, Jr., one of the four South Carolina Signers of the _Declaration of Independence_. Edward Rutledge, also a Signer of the _Declaration_, was of the company that greeted the soldier-statesman across the Cooper River and escorted him to town. A complete equipment was organized by the City of Charleston for the President's comfort. The house has undergone changes. For some years a baker did business on the ground floor. The property is now owned and maintained by the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings. Down the street and on the opposite side at No. 78, President Washington addressed citizens from the balcony, which is a graceful reminder of the French influence in Charleston.

MYTHICAL OLD SLAVE MARKET, _6 Chalmers Street_: Chalmers in this year is fairly famous for two things: It is Charleston's surviving "cobble-stone" street, the stones coming in ballast from European shores in the old sailing days, and on it is a building that tourists are told was the old Slave Market. The myth has been exploded repeatedly, but it persists, and since there are no black slaves it probably doesn't matter. Authorities are positive in saying that nowhere in Charleston was there a constituted slave market for the public auctioning of blacks from Africa. Several houses in this vicinity were used in olden times to quarter slaves who were to be sold on the block. Authorities also agree, propagandists to the contrary notwithstanding, that the black slaves in the South were in better care than were the peasantry in any other part of the world.

CHARLESTON LIBRARY, _164 King Street_: Organized in 1748 by seventeen young gentlemen of Charlestown, third oldest in this country, the Charleston Library Society, a private enterprise governed by a Board of Trustees, moved into a new fireproof building in recent years. In 1835 the society bought the building of the old South Carolina Bank, at the northwest corner of Broad and Church Streets, using this until the transfer to King Street. The society has more than 60,000 volumes. It owns the only surviving file of the _South Carolina State Gazette_ and one of three files of _The Courier_ (1803). Valuable books were lost in the fire of 1778. In the War for Southern Independence most of the volumes were taken to Columbia for safekeeping; those left in the society's building were destroyed. In 1874 the old Apprentices' Society was merged with the Charleston Library Society. In 1900, dissolving, the South Carolina Jockey Club transferred its property to the library; the club and the society were about of an age. Generous bequests have greatly assisted the society.

CHARLESTON MUSEUM, _123 Rutledge Avenue_: This, the oldest Museum in the country, is housed in the former Thomson Auditorium, built in 1899 for conventions, with money bequeathed by John Thomson. The Charlestown Museum was organized in 1773 and incorporated in 1915. Very fine collections of natural history and of the history of human culture are owned. Lately the Museum had the great good fortune to come into possession of the priceless collection of birds preserved by the distinguished South Carolina ornithologist, Arthur Trezevant Wayne. A skeleton of a large whale which found its way into Charleston harbor and was harpooned is one of the Museum's unique specimens, unique in that the cetacean was caught in this harbor.

THE BATTERY, _White Point Gardens_: It is no use to call the Battery by its proper name; even in Charleston, White Point Gardens is not recognized as the Battery. Nonetheless the name of this famous and beautiful park and promenade is White Point Gardens. Its sea walls are laved on the south by the Ashley River and on the east by the Cooper River; their confluence is at and off the southeast corner of the Battery. This pleasure ground has been favorably compared with the world's most famous plazas and promenades. It is a source of never-ending delight to visitors. East, or High Battery begins at the old Granville Bastion, now Omar Temple of the Mystic Shrine. It is a great promenade, with a commanding view of the harbor seaward, with Fort Sumter in the middle-ground. South Battery, proper, is between the East Battery and the extension of King Street to the water. Somewhat more than eight acres constitute South Battery, which, to the westward, becomes the Murray Boulevard, lined, as East and South Battery are, with fine residences. In its origin East Battery had a wall of palmetto logs with a plank walk on top. It was swept away in the great gale of 1804. William Crafts, Jr., originated the first stone wall, with rock ballast from incoming ships as "riprap" to strengthen the wall. The work was completed before 1820. In the War of 1812 guns were emplaced along East Battery, thus, it is held, accounting for its name, The Battery. Fort Broughton and Fort Mechanic have long since disappeared. Fort Street became South Bay Street and later South Battery for its whole length from East Battery through the Boulevard area to the junction with Tradd Street a mile away. It was in 1830 that the first steps toward creating a beautiful pleasure ground were taken. By 1852 White Point Gardens was an accomplished fact. Fine oak and palmetto trees enhance the attractiveness of the Battery. Years ago a bathhouse was removed. The monument to the defenders of Fort Moultrie, commonly called the Sergeant Jasper monument because of the figure of a soldier rescuing the flag, was unveiled June 28 (Carolina Day), 1876, the hundredth anniversary of the repulse of Sir Peter Parker's British fleet. The monument to William Gilmore Simms, editor, author and historian, was erected in June, 1879. At the foot of Meeting Street is a memorial fountain to the men of the first submarine, Confederates. Facing Fort Sumter is a monument to the defenders of Fort Sumter. On the Battery are relics of all the wars Charleston has seen, the Spanish War being represented by the capstan of the battleship _Maine_, destroyed in Havana harbor in 1898. To visit Charleston and not to see the Battery is unthinkable. From time to time concerts are given in the band stand. The late Andrew B. Murray contributed generously to the improvement of the Battery and of the driveway named in his honor.

THE COLONIAL COMMON, _and Ashley River Embankment_: In Charleston beautiful Colonial Lake is The Pond. It came into being in the 1880's with the reclaiming of the area. The official designation is The Colonial Common and Ashley River Embankment. About this salt-water pond are garden areas, and west of it is the new Moultrie Playground which greatly improves the appearance of the neighborhood. Some of Charleston's most desirable residences face the pond. Off its northwest corner is the Baker Sanatorium, one of the South's largest and most completely equipped private hospitals, founded by Archibald E. Baker, surgeon. Less than fifty years ago there was a causeway at the head of Broad Street; nowadays the whole area is populated. Colonial Lake is bounded by Broad Street, Rutledge Avenue, Beaufain Street, and Ashley Avenue, paramount traffic arteries. Its water is from the Ashley River, regulated by a flood-gate.

MEDICAL COLLEGE, _16 Lucas Street_: While the Medical College of the State of South Carolina dates from 1823, it did not move to the present site until 1913. For years before that it was in Queen Street. The college maintains schools of medicine, pharmacy and nursing. _The News and Courier_ is quoted: "The early faculty included men of national and international reputation, who gave the college a prestige which placed it at once amongst the foremost institutions of the kind, and among its graduates were not a few whose fame added further luster to their alma mater.... The sessions of the college were carried on without intermission until the outbreak of the War Between the States when lectures had to be discontinued. In 1865 the college was reopened, and in spite of adverse conditions has been in successful operation ever since." In the session of the Legislature in 1913 the college passed under State control.

THE ROPER HOSPITAL, _15 Lucas Street_: On the site of the old City Hospital is the Roper Hospital; riverward is its auxiliary pavilion, the Riverside Infirmary, a high-class private hospital. The Roper is a general hospital operated by the Medical Society of South Carolina, the City of Charleston and the County of Charleston contributing to the care of "free" patients. The institution includes a special building for contagious diseases. The hospital owes its origin to the benevolence of Colonel Thomas Roper. In 1849 the Medical Society proceeded to arrange the building of a hospital, "prompted by the deficient and faulty hospital accommodations of the city at that time." The City Council appropriated $20,000 and a lot was acquired at Queen and Mazyck Streets. Public spirited citizens swelled the building fund. The building was completed in 1852. Before it was completely furnished and equipped, it had to be opened because of the yellow fever epidemic that raged in 1852. In effect, the old Roper Hospital was leased to the City of Charleston, the arrangement between the Board of Trustees and the City Council beginning in 1856 and terminating in 1865. With the evacuation of Charleston by the Confederates, the Union invaders took it over; its trustees were impotent. Next to the Roper, the city improvised and operated its own hospital, and the Roper trustees closed their institution in 1871. The city hospital was virtually destroyed in the earthquake of 1886. The City Council had it transferred to Lucas Street. On this site the present Roper building was erected. It has been greatly enlarged in the last twenty years. Nurses' homes are on the property, the student nurses being enrolled at the Medical College.

ASHLEY HALL, _172 Rutledge Avenue_: Originally one of the historic mansions of Charleston, Ashley Hall, a preparatory school for young ladies, draws its students from many states. In the language of Miss Mary Vardrine McBee, founder and principal: "It is but a little while since Ashley Hall was a venturous experiment. Begun in the conviction that South Carolina and her sister States were ready to welcome a school for girls of high intellectual standing, while cherishing still those amenities of feminine culture which give Southern life its distinctive charm, Ashley Hall was welcomed in its very inception. It had hardly been opened before the necessity of enlargement, alike of building and staff, became apparent." The grounds about this fine mansion are among the most beautiful in the South. Annually a Shakespearean play is performed in the garden, the students portraying the rôles.

PRINCESS LOUISE, _Site of the Landing Stage_: Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, was in Charleston January 19-24, 1883, first member of the English Royal family to come to the capital of the former Royal Province. She was accompanied by her husband, the Marquis of Lorne, then Governor General of Canada, later the Duke of Argyle. In residence at the Charleston Hotel she received "pleasantly a number of our citizens, both ladies and gentlemen." For her convenience a landing stage was provided at the foot of King Street, on the Battery (the Fort Sumter Hotel is on this site). As the Princess was about to embark on H.M.S. _Dido_, the Battery was "densely crowded with people, including a number of ladies." The German Artillery fired a salute and the _Dido_ answered. "The pure splendor of the Japonicas," said _The News and Courier_, "reminded the Princess of the old home at Osborne, where so much of her young life was spent."

H. A. MIDDLETON'S HOUSE, _68 South Battery Street_: Henry Augustus Middleton, of the illustrious Middleton family, died in Charleston in March, 1887, in his ninety-fifth year. He was at the time of his death, _The News and Courier_ said, "the oldest living representative of a family which for more than two centuries has been closely and prominently identified with the history of South Carolina.... He was a school boy when Marengo was being fought and was a young man whose education was finished when the great Napoleon closed his career at Waterloo." The same newspaper further said that Mr. Middleton "was a conspicuous representative of a society and class which are fast passing into tradition." He was owner and operator of many great plantations, and before the War for Southern Independence among the leading owners of slaves. He married Harriott, daughter of Cleland Kinloch, of Wee Haw, in Georgetown County. The fine old property is now owned by Dr. W. J. Pettus. Through Mr. Middleton's life and for twenty-five years thereafter the sea wall on the west side of the yard was washed by the Ashley River at high tide. The marsh expanse to the west is in the Boulevard area.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER INFIRMARY, _264 Calhoun Street_: The principal building of the St. Francis Xavier Infirmary was built in the bishopric of the Right Reverend William Thomas Russell, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, but the wing on Ashley Avenue is much older. Sisters of Mercy have supervision over the Xavier in all its departments, including the school for nurses. The hospital enjoys high rating by the national hospital authorities. The building is commodious, convenient and fireproof.

LIBERTY TREE SITE, _22 North Alexander Street_: The Liberty Tree in old Mazyckboro under which Christopher Gadsden, William Johnson and others impatient with English treatment of the colonies met and debated has gone, but a tablet marks the site. The inscription reads: "Near this spot once stood the Liberty Tree where Colonial independence was first advocated by Christopher Gadsden, A.D. 1766, and where ten years later the _Declaration of Independence_ was first heard and applauded by South Carolinians." This tablet was erected by the Sons of the Revolution in 1905. It was under the tree in a pasture that patriots nurtured high treason against the English Crown.

WILLIAM WASHINGTON HOUSE, _8 South Battery Street_: Here lived Colonel William Washington, a Virginian, who achieved distinction in the Revolution, mainly in South Carolina. The fine old house was built by Thomas Savage about 1769 and was purchased by Colonel Washington after independence had been recognized. His fiancée, member of a proud South Carolina family, presented him with a flag when she learned he had none. It was a piece taken from a handsome drapery of red silk and became known as the Eutaw flag, for the Battle of Eutaw Springs. In 1827 Mrs. Washington, his widow, gave this battle-stained banner to the Washington Light Infantry which now owns it. Latterly the property has been owned by Julian Mitchell, outstanding lawyer, president of the South Carolina National Bank.

HAMPTON PARK, _Head of Cleveland Street_: Notwithstanding its comparative youth Hampton Park, named for General Wade Hampton, is a distinguished pleasure ground, its gardens developed to a high state of loveliness. Some time after the South Carolina, Inter-State and West Indian Exposition (1901-02) the city took over the property and developed it into a modern park. Its sunken garden, with ducks and geese and swans playing in the water, is appealing, and about it on all sides are flower beds, profusely beautiful in their seasons. Large canebreaks are growing near the sunken garden. An attractive driveway goes about the property, but vehicles are not permitted within the garden area. A section of the tract, bordering the Ashley River, was ceded to The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, after the World War. A stroll through Hampton Park's flowers in spring and summer is thoroughly worth while. Features include a zoo and an aviary.

COUNTY COURT HOUSE, _Broad and Meeting Streets_: In years when Charleston was Charles Town, when Indians were roaming these coastal woods, the State House stood at the northwest corner of Broad and Meeting Streets. It was burned in 1788, after Columbia, on the Congaree, had become the capital of the State. Not long after the fire the county built its court house here. The building was renovated and enlarged several years ago, the court room being in the annex. Records running back to the Proprietary era are in the offices of the Clerk of Court. A legend persists that the Court House is the old State House, but it is a mistaken legend, for it was burned in 1788. From its entrance Governor John Rutledge first read the _Declaration of Independence_.

UNITED STATES POST OFFICE, _Broad and Meeting Streets_: Since 1896 the United States post office has been in the granite building at the southwest corner of Broad and Meeting Streets, on the site of the old (police) Guard House which suffered heavy damage in the earthquake of 1886. Southward of the building is an attractive park which is not open to the public. The United States court and its officials and attachés have quarters in the building. Previously the post office was in the old Exchange, at the foot of Broad Street. On the four corners of Broad and Meeting Streets are: Southwest, post office; southeast, St. Michael's Episcopal Church, on the site of the first English church; northeast, City Hall, the building erected for the United States Bank; on the site of an early market place; northwest, County Court House, on the site of the old State House. (Consult the Index.)

UNITED STATES CUSTOMS HOUSE, _East Bay Street, at Market_: Work on this, one of the handsomest government buildings, was begun in 1850 and was proceeding when the War for Southern Independence interrupted. After Appomattox it was completed, but it is much smaller than the original plans prescribed, explaining the fine esplanade effect in front. It is a Roman-Corinthian building of white marble, and its steps, both front and back, have elicited warm admiration from appreciative visitors. Piles, grillage and concrete were used in the foundations. The building houses the customs service, the army engineer offices, the weather bureau, the public health surgeon, the immigration service, the internal revenue offices and the bureau of steamboat inspection. In the basement from time to time are stored quantities of "contraband" confiscated by the Coast Guard and other federal prohibition agents. Prior to 1850 the old Fitzsimmons wharf was on the site of the Customs House quay.

SOUTH CAROLINA HALL, _72 Meeting Street_: This is the property of the South Carolina Society, built in 1804 as a free school and meeting place, but the society dates to 1736 when it was formed by French Protestants for charitable purposes. In the beginning it was known as the Two-Bit Club. Through years it has done noble work in assisting the families of deceased members and in educating their children. The porch over Meeting Street is notably attractive; it was added when the building was improved and enlarged. Members have made liberal donations to this society, as mural tablets in the hall attest. The St. Andrew's Society, organized by Scots in 1729, is quartered in this building, accounting for the presence of tables and chairs used in the Secession convention in St. Andrew's Hall, Broad Street, burned in the fire of 1861.