778. The Heart of Charleston

Where: Charleston, South Carolina
When: November 5 - 11, 2017
With: Pam, Ashley, Steve

When my little sister decided to get married in the Charleston area, I couldn't believe my luck (from a Book perspective) that I'd get to check not one, but two things off the list while there! Pair this with the fact that my cousin Pam has also never been to Charleston and wanted to head down a few days early to explore the city before wedding festivities kicked off. It was meant to be. 

When I arrived a couple hours earlier than Pam, I checked in to our beautiful hotel, The Vendue, and headed a block over to Waterfront Park to begin exploring. Even on an overcast day, it was beautiful, with trees draping over old brick paved walkways, wrought iron benches, and palm trees along the water's edge. 

Shaded little squares popped up along the way, providing resting spots for locals and tourists alike. It was so pretty! Less than one hour in and I had already decided this city would be photography heaven. 

There are a couple of fountains along the waterfront that are stunning, but this one seems to be the big one: the Pineapple Fountain. I would come to learn more about the significance of pineapples in Charleston, but more on that later.

Continuing south along the water, more marshlands popped up along the coast. 

Looking back up Waterfront Park. 

Loved these trees. 

From here, the park ended and I turned inland to wander the streets for a bit. Already, I was in love with the architecture of these old houses. 

Now this is some real cobblestone. 

I literally stumbled upon this famous attraction of Charleston, the longest stretch of Georgian row houses in the US, appropriately named Rainbow Row. 

Don't know who this guy is, but I love him. 

While this house looks old and worn out, still looks amazing. 

And just down the street from my hotel, I came upon this building, the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon. Built from 1767 to 1771, it stored confiscated tea and prisoners of war by the British during the Revolutionary War, operated as a Confederate post office during the Civil War, and as a main outpost during both World Wars. Now it serves as a museum.  

 

By this point, Pam had arrived and after a lunch, we decided to head up to the rooftop of our hotel to enjoy the sunset and some live music. This guy seemed to really like us and incorporated our names into many of his songs. 

The next morning, we were ready to be tourists! In order to learn about the crazy history of this city, we downloaded a couple of walking tours onto our phones by a company called Detour. They last about an hour, tap into your GPS to know where you are and keep pace, and it links up your group's tour so everyone's on the same page. They offered an interesting variety of tours, but we were starting with one called With A Rebel Yell to learn about the events leading up to the start of the Civil War. 

Maybe I learned this at one point, but if so, I wouldn't have answered it correctly on Jeopardy: South Carolina was the first state to secede from Union and start the Civil War. All the events leading up to that secession decision occurred right here in Charleston, with some of the events happening on this very street. It probably doesn't look much different than it did back then (minus the cars and pavement). 

We started off at the Heyward-Washington House. Built in 1772, it's original occupant, Thomas Heyward, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence who was later exiled from Charleston when the British took it over during the Revolutionary War. In May 1791, when President George Washington was visiting Charleston, he rented this house for the week, resulting in its hyphenated name today. 

From here, the tour talked us through the small seeds that were planted after the Revolutionary War that would grow to incite the Civil War. Interestingly, the guide, a professor of history from the University of South Carolina, said that the media back in the day was, if you can believe it, more biased than it is today, and in fact, politicians would give money to the newspapers to sway them to their beliefs. The tension it caused in the political climate was fierce and riling people up on a particular issue was not too difficult to do. 

One person who vehemently opposed the secession of South Carolina was a lawyer that lived down this beautiful alleyway. James L. Pettigru served as the attorney general of South Carolina and after South Carolina seceded, he is quoted as saying: "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum." 

We next headed into Washington Park, a beautiful green space filled with monuments, shade, and good ol' southern charm. 

Just outside the park was a house with this rather alarming gate out front. Before the Civil War began, there was a failed slave revolt here in Charleston. The idea that slaves, who outnumbered free people by a lot, could rise up and take over was a serious fear held by many wealthy residents. As a result, they started building these extra bits of protection over their front gates to stop anyone from climbing over and entering. 

Our Detour took an interesting turn at our next stop, the Charleston City Hall. Sitting on the corner of Meeting Street and Broad Street, City Hall shares the intersection with Saint Michael's Church, a US Post Office and Federal Courthouse, and the Charleston County Courthouse. These ironic placement of these buildings gave rise to the nickname of the Four Corners, as church, city, state and federal law are all represented on this one intersection, and give rise to the question of: which one is the highest power of the law? 

The tour told us to go ahead and enter the Charleston City Hall, which is another reason I love a Detour tour: it takes you into buildings you didn't even think you could enter. We wandered through the door, a security guard gave us a quick explanation of what there was to see, and then left us alone to wander. It was so cool...or so we thought. 

The Detour asked us to go to the second floor and enter this old wood-panelled room covered in paintings. The tour said "if you are approached by the docent, tell her you are just stopping in and you have an audio tour". Upon entering the doors, we were immediately ambushed by said docent who told us that she hates Detour, it will put her out of a job, and she has better information than anything it could give us. So we begrudgingly removed our headphones to hear what she had to say. 

She proceeded to talk through a couple of the paintings, and in fairness, she did have some really good stories. But soon the historical information was intermingled with personal stories of her own that were, well, not relevant, long, and boring. Soon, the five minute stop we were meant to make in this room had stretched to a 30-minute tour intermixed with tales of how our docent spends her Saturday nights, how her roommate's dog in college barked a lot, and that she likes birds. She also shamed Pam and I for not knowing John James Audubon, founder of the ornithological society, by name and as a painter. We eventually had to stop her from talking because we did have a time constraint, but she was not even halfway through the room. Phew. Lady, maybe Detour won't be the reason you're out of job soon?

After escaping the clutches of the Charleston City Hall docent, we sadly didn't have time to finish the end of our Detour. We ordered an uber to race up to Liberty Square where a boat would take us to another famous site, Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. 

The view of the Arthur Ravenel Bridge from the port. 

The tickets for Fort Sumter were very prescriptive. The boat left at noon for a 30 minute ferry ride across the Cooper River to the tiny island that is occupied by the fort. Guests are allowed one hour to wander around before reboarding the boat and coming back. Unlike the tour guide experience we had just had, the guides on the boat, all National Park Service rangers, were fantastic, giving us a quick rundown of the history on the boat, and quick briefing when we arrived. They were funny and charming. And quick.

Fort Sumter was built right in the middle of the entrance to the natural harbor that surrounds the Charleston waterfront. And seriously, it was built from nothing, using seventy thousand tons of granite shipped in to create a sandbar and island on which to build. From its central position, it could feasibly hit any ship entering the port with its range of cannons. 

When South Carolina seceded from the Union, US Army Major Robert Anderson moved his garrison onto the island in secret and refused to abandon or evacuate, despite many "polite" requests by the military elite of South Carolina. However, resupplying the garrison with food started to become a struggle as Union ships desperately tried to enter the harbor only to be attacked. Eventually, after the many failed requests to peacefully surrender the fort, the Confederates decided to open fire on Fort Sumter. The Union garrison fought valiantly, but with an unfinished fort, running out of food and ammo, they eventually needed to abandon it. They hopped a ship up to New York where they were honored for their valiant efforts with a parade. 

The fort, while appearing run down, is actually not terribly different than it was back in the day. After all, when the Civil War broke out, it was even complete! Five high walls create the outside of the fort. 

The center is actually pretty empty, though there's some restrooms and a tiny museum. 

Inside the outer walls are a series of archways and tunnels lined with cannons. 

The view from the bottom to the top. 

One hour was actually a perfect amount of time to spend, and the boat ride over was beautiful. 

After a late lunch, we headed back to the hotel for another sunset on the rooftop and to meet up with an old friend of mine I haven't seen in nine years. It was a great little surprise add-on to our trip that worked out perfectly.

We headed out to meet Ashley and Steve for dinner that night, and then decided that the evening called for one more walking tour with Detour, called the Haunted Holy City. Charleston is nicknamed the Holy City as it was founded with an intent to be tolerant of all religions, and as a result, places of worship cropped up all over of every denomination. The many churches that occupy it are pretty evident as tall steeples dominate the skyline. 

All these churches also mean lots of graveyards, and the long, sordid history of the city mean there's lots of ghost stories to go with it. The hosts of this Detour were a Charlestonian whose family has lived in the city for many generations and a medium who told listeners what she saw and felt as they approached different parts of the city. When possible, the Charlestonian gave color to whatever it was the medium thought she saw or felt. 

The stories were really cool, and definitely added some extra fun as we walked the streets of the city over the next few days. For example, the parking garage to the right in this photo was apparently built on an old Quaker graveyard. The medium claimed she could feel people scratching at her feet. 

She also saw a soldier patrolling around this graveyard, simply keeping watch over things. 

Apparently this was once a brothel, and a woman can sometimes be seen standing in the window to the right (though not tonight). 

Not a haunted house, just a pretty one. 

Searching for ghosts outside another graveyard.

The tour ended on the creepiest story, in the back of a parking lot up against this old brick wall. Apparently this square was used for slave auctions, and the bricked over door is where people were brought back to be "washed and shined" before being sold. The medium claims a woman is still here, and that while she was black, she worked for the auctioneers, in charge of cleaning everyone up.

After thoroughly creeping ourselves out, we decided to call it a night. The next day, Pam and I decided to keep the Detour train running by doing one more, Pirates and Pot, which detailed Charleston's extensive history of smuggling and piracy, all told by one of the biggest marijuana smugglers in history. He gave history of how his drug smuggling in the 1980s compared with that of the pirates in the 1700s in Charleston, including the infamous Blackbeard. 

We were back at Waterfront Park again, and on this beautifully sunny day, the fountain at the entrance was stunning. 

We headed out onto the long pier by the park entrance to look back on the coastline. Apparently, South Carolina was ideal for smuggling as its honeycomb coastline provides plenty of inlets to hide ships in plain site. 

We also got the history of the pineapple and its relevance to Charleston (as well as better photos of the pineapple fountain). Merchant ships often went to the Caribbean to trade, and if they were lucky, they'd get pineapples from their bargaining. The pineapples would be spiked on the mast of the ship as they entered port to show they had had a prosperous journey. Hence, the pineapple is now a symbol of prosperity and wealth and can be found in the exterior decor of many homes in Charleston. 

After learning the history of piracy in Charleston, we returned to our With A Rebel Yell tour to finish the last fifteen minutes. We ended up back at the Four Corners, but this time, we went to into the graveyard behind Saint Michael's Church. 

Another beautiful church in this Holy City.

The tour ended back at the waterfront with a row of beautiful houses lining the water. It was out here that the occupants of these houses came onto the promenade to have drinks and "celebrate" the first battle of the Civil War, as Fort Sumter can be seen in the distance. A fitting end to our tours. 

Charleston was such a great place. On top of all its history, it's rare to visit a place that feels like stepping back in time. The streets we walked have been walked upon by generations of famous, and infamous, people, and not much has changed in the architecture since then. After all these walking tours, Pam and I felt like regular pros of Charleston. Over the next couple days, we enjoyed the heart of the city as though we were sixth-generation Charlestonians.