SITE OF FIRST THEATER, 43 Queen Street: Plays were performed in Charles Town in 1703, according to Sonneck. However, the first regular theater was the Play House in Dock (now Queen) Street. Here in the winter of 1735, a company, “direct from England,” presented its repertory. Members of Solomon’s Lodge of the Ancient Free Masons, the oldest Masonic lodge in the United States, attended, in a body, the performance of “The Recruiting Officer” May 28, 1737. The Federal government has reproduced this theater; it was reopened officially November 26, 1937.

ST. PHILIP’S CHURCH, 144 Church Street: St. Philip’s is the oldest Protestant Episcopal congregation south of Virginia. The first edifice was built on the site now occupied by St. Michael’s (southeast corner of Meeting and Broad Streets). The second and third were built at the present site. The first St. Philip’s was erected in 1681-82. It was of wood, but little is known of it. Early maps designate it as the English Church. The second St. Philip’s was opened for divine worship Easter Sunday, 1723. It faced the west and its steeple was eighty feet high. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, preached in this church two hundred years ago. The first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina was the Right Reverend Robert Smith, rector of St. Philip’s. This edifice was known far and wide for its great beauty. It was burned February 15, 1835. The third St. Philip’s was used for service May 3, 1838. Its chimes, cast into Confederate cannon, have never been replaced. During twenty-two years an important mariners’ light glowed in the steeple, the other light of this range having been on historic Fort Sumter. The light above St. Philip’s was discontinued when the main channel was changed about twenty years ago. St. Philip’s is known as the Westminster of the South as so many distinguished men of early years are in its graveyards, including Edward Rutledge, Signer of the Declaration of Independence; John C. Calhoun, often appraised South Carolina’s greatest statesman; William Rhett, captor of Stede Bonnet and his associate pirates. During the War for Southern Independence Calhoun’s body was removed for safekeeping, but it was later reinterred. The story of St. Philip’s is coeval with the story of Charleston on this peninsula. Its communion plate is of uncommon interest and value, including pieces presented by William Rhett and a paten of unquestioned antiquity. The present edifice faces the east. The curve in Church Street passes through the site of the body of the edifice that was burned in 1835. President George Washington attended services in the second St. Philip’s May 8, 1791, and President James Monroe May 2, 1819. The present St. Philip’s is accounted one of the beautiful churches of America.

CRADLE OF PRESBYTERIANISM, 138 Meeting Street: The congregation of the Circular Church dates to 1681. The small wooden building in the erection of which Landgrave Joseph Blake was influential was known as the White Meeting House and was replaced in 1804 by a brick edifice circular in form, that was burned in 1861. It was this church that gave name to Meeting Street. From this congregation sprang two other congregations, the First (Scotch) Presbyterian and the Unitarian. Some of the earliest graves in Charles Town are in the Circular Churchyard. David Ramsay, physician, statesman and historian, is buried in it. Some of the early Huguenots (French Protestants) are also buried in it. The chapel in the rear of the yard was built after the fire of 1861. The present edifice is without a great portico over the street.

HUGUENOT CHURCH, 136 Church Street: The only Huguenot Church in America! This is the proud and unique distinction of the French Protestant Church in Charleston. Its congregation holds to the old Huguenot litany. It dates to 1681. The first recognized and regular pastor of the French Church was the Reverend Elias Prioleau, who came with the “great Huguenot immigration” about 1687; he died in 1699. Alluding to the Huguenots of Charles Town Bancroft said: “Their Church was in Charles Town and thither every Lord’s Day, gathering from their plantations upon the banks of the Cooper, and taking advantage of the ebb and flow of the tide, they might all regularly be seen, the parents with their children, whom no bigot could now wrest from them, making their way in light skiffs through scenes so tranquil, that silence was broken only by the rippling of oars and the hum of the flourishing village at the confluence of the rivers.” The first Huguenot Church was burned in 1740. The second church was also burned, in 1797. It was at once rebuilt and in 1845 it was remodeled to the form it now presents. “The church edifice is of great architectural beauty, being of pure Gothic, and its walls are adorned with mural tablets, commemorating the names and memories of the first Huguenot emigrants to Carolina.” It is the boast of this congregation that it has had a church on the same site for more years than has any other Charleston congregation. For more than one hundred and fifty years the services were in the French language.

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, 61 Church Street: When Charles Town on the peninsula was about three years old the first congregation of Baptists was formed. Some of these Baptists came from New England, with the Reverend William Screven, their pastor, and others came from England. Old records show that for several years the Baptists worshipped in the home of Mrs. William Chapman. Lady Blake, and her mother, Lady Axtell, were both Baptists and members of this congregation; their official rank lent strength to the church. William Elliott, a member, gave the site of the First Baptist Church in 1699. A wooden building was erected. The present building was on the site before 1826 and of it Mills says it showed “the best specimen of correct taste in architecture of the modern buildings in the city.” There are many old graves in its yard.

SCOTCH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 53 Meeting Street: Sprung from the White Meeting House, the First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church dates to 1731. The Reverend Hugh Stewart, a native Scot, was its first pastor. The present edifice was dedicated in 1814. It was severely damaged in the earthquake of August 31, 1886, but fully restored. It has one of the finest auditoriums in the country. When the Marquis of Lorne (later the Duke of Argyle) and his wife, the Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, were in Charleston in January, 1883, they visited the Scotch Church to inspect a memorial tablet to their cousin, Lady Anne Murray. The Duke of Sutherland also made a trip to Charleston expressly to see it. May 2, 1819, President James Monroe attended service in the Scotch Church, hearing a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Reid, the pastor. This church celebrated its bicentennial in March, 1931. During 100 years it has had three pastors—the Reverend John Forrest, D.D., forty-seven years, the Reverend W. Taliaferro Thompson, D.D., twenty years and the Reverend Alexander Sprunt, D.D., thirty-three years. Prominent Charlestonians sleep the sleep eternal in its yard.

TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH, 273 Meeting Street: As its congregation springs from the old Cumberland Church, the first Methodist group in Charleston (1786), Trinity may be called Charleston’s oldest Methodist congregation, but the building it now occupies was recently acquired from the Westminster Presbyterian Church (which combined the abandoned Third Presbyterian in Archdale Street and the Glebe Street Presbyterian Church). Through years Trinity Church was at 57 Hasell Street. Here the first church was erected before 1813. For a short time the church was used by an Episcopal congregation. The story goes that some of the congregation were not agreeable to occupancy by Episcopalians and sought legal counsel. They were informed that possession was “nine points in the law.” So, after an Episcopalian service, the Methodist brothers and sisters, when the congregation was dismissed, locked the doors from the inside, fastened the windows and mounted guard within the edifice, women assisting, until the case was returned in their favor. During this peaceful siege, a lad was born in the building; he years later became a bishop of the church. The Methodist church was planted in Charleston when Bishop Asbury and his associates came here in 1785. The first church building was erected in Cumberland Street in 1787, and within it the first Methodist Conference in South Carolina was held the same year. This building was destroyed in the fire of 1861. John and Charles Wesley had visited Charlestown in 1736. John Wesley preached in St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in 1737. The Wesleys came with General James Oglethorpe’s Georgia colonists. Charles Wesley was the general’s secretary and John Wesley was to be a missionary among the Indians.

ST. JOHN’S LUTHERAN CHURCH, 10 Archdale Street: The Lutheran congregation of St. John’s was organized in 1757 with the Reverend John George Fredichs as pastor. Lacking a building of their own the Lutherans used the French Huguenot Church. June 24, 1764, the first St. John’s was dedicated. The present brick building was dedicated January 18, 1818, the Reverend Dr. John Bachman, friend and associate of J. J. Audubon, the celebrated naturalist, being the pastor. This congregation was influential in the organization of Newberry College and the Lutheran Theological Seminary in South Carolina. Prominent persons of German origin or descent are buried in the yard. But the Lutheran story goes back to March, 1734. In his Sketch of St. John’s, the Reverend E. T. Horn says: “In March, 1734, while the ship containing the exiled Salzburgers lay off the harbor of Charleston, Governor Oglethorpe brought their Commissary, the Baron von Reck, and their pastor, the Reverend John Martin Bolzius, with him to the city. Here they found a few Germans, firm in their attachment to the Lutheran faith, and hungering and thirsting for the Holy Supper. In May, therefore, Bolzius was glad to accompany von Reck as far as Charleston, that he might minister to this little company, and on Sunday, May 26th, 1754, at five o’clock in the morning, most probably in the inn where Bolzius was stopping, he administered the Holy Communion to those whom on the day before he had examined and absolved according to the usages of the Lutheran Church.”

UNITARIAN CHURCH, 6 Archdale Street: Just before the American Revolution, the Circular Church on Meeting Street, cradle of Presbyterianism in Charles Town, found it necessary to use an additional building. Thus another church with another pastor was established in Archdale Street. One of the pastors espoused Unitarianism and by amicable agreement the part of the congregation following his teachings took over the Archdale Street church. While the British occupied Charlestown during the Revolution, they stabled horses in this edifice. The present church building was dedicated in April of 1854, and is much praised for its architecture. The ceiling of the nave is peculiarly attractive. The pastor of this Unitarian congregation, the only one in Charleston, was the Reverend Samuel Gilman, author of the famous college song, “Fair Harvard,” and in his memory Harvard alumni arranged the Samuel Gilman Memorial Room in the church tower; the ceremony was performed April 16, 1916.

ST. MARY’S CATHOLIC CHURCH, 79 Hasell Street: Mother parish of the Roman Catholic Church in North and South Carolina and Georgia, St. Mary’s congregation was organized in 1794, and in 1798 bought a frame building from a Protestant congregation. In 1836 this was burned and on the site the present fine brick edifice was erected being completed in 1838. In the late 1890’s the interior was improved. Memorial stained-glass windows were emplaced. Of its interesting graveyard Bishop John M. England who came to Charleston in 1820 (finding two Catholic churches occupied and two priests doing duty) wrote: “The cemetery of this church which is now in the center of the city affords in the inscriptions of its monuments the evidence of the Catholicity of those whose ashes it contains. You may find the American and the European side by side.... The family of the Count de Grasse, who commanded the fleets of France near the Commodore of the United States and his partner, sleep in the hope of being resuscitated by the same trumpet.” According to David Ramsay, “prior to the American Revolution in 1776, there were very few Roman Catholics in Charleston, and these had no ministry, but of all other countries none has furnished the Province with so many inhabitants as Ireland.” About 1786 a vessel bound for South America, having an Italian priest aboard, put into Charleston. This priest celebrated mass for a congregation of about twelve persons. It was “the first Mass celebrated in Charleston and may be regarded as the introduction of the Catholic religion to the States of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia which afterward constituted the See of Charleston.” The history of St. Mary’s is coeval with the history of the Roman Catholic religion in the Southeast, excluding the Florida possessions of the Spanish.

ST. JAMES, GOOSE CREEK, off the Coastal Highway: The British Royal Arms still stand in South Carolina! The British yoke was thrown off one hundred and sixty years ago, but in St. James Church, Goose Creek, sixteen miles from the city hall of Charleston the Royal Arms have never come down! The ancient edifice stands in a tranquil woodland, quite near The Oaks, home of Arthur Middleton in early years. At the foot of the altar is a tomb with this inscription: “Here lyeth the body of the Reverend Francis Le Jau, Doctor in Divinity, of Trinity College, Dublin, who came to this Province October, 1706, and was one of the first missionaries sent by the honourable society to this Province, and was the first Rector of St. James, Goose Creek, Obijt. 15th September, 1717, ætat 52, to whose memory this stone is fixed by his only Son, Francis Le Jau.” In the records left by Dr. Le Jau is mentioned that he christened Indians. Four acres for the old parsonage were the gift of Arthur Middleton, and another pioneer gave the Glebe of one hundred acres. The cherubs in stucco over each of the keystones are famous and so is the pelican feeding her young, over the west door. Interesting memorial tablets have places. In the present day this picturesque and historic church is easily reached by automobile. Each year at Easter divine services are held in the church, the congregation invariably overflowing the building. The original church was built soon after Dr. Le Jau’s arrival.

ST. ANDREW’S, BERKELEY, on the Ashley River Road: The parish of St. Andrew’s, Berkeley (the district about Charles Town was Berkeley in olden times), was founded in 1706 and a simple brick building erected. Seventeen years later this was enlarged, taking the form of a cross. The gallery was intended for non-pewholders and was later set aside for negroes. Destroyed by fire it was rebuilt in 1764 and is one of the few rural churches that has survived the Revolution and the War for Southern Independence. St. Andrew’s was one of ten parishes authorized by act of the Assembly in 1706 regulating religious worship in accordance with the forms of the Church of England. In quite recent years a question relative to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London was raised! St. Andrew’s had its genesis when the colony had a population of 9,000, “of whom 5,000 were Negro and Indian slaves.”

ASHLEY RIVER ROAD, Leading to Famous Gardens: St. Andrew’s Church is but one of many interesting and historic places on the Ashley River Road. Two miles from the Ashley River Bridge the road passes near the site of the original Charles Town in South Carolina and three miles farther is the Ashley Hall plantation of the Bull family, distinguished in provincial and colonial periods. It was on the Bull place that Attakullakulla, a chief of the Cherokee Indians, signed a treaty of peace in the 1760’s after his tribe had been severely humbled by the whites. Just across the highway were the lovely Magwood Gardens, now the property of a granddaughter of President Abraham Lincoln. Here the highway passes through a grove of majestic live oaks festooned with Spanish moss. Seven miles from the bridge one passes St. Andrew’s Church and a short distance farther through old Fort Bull, the moat about which has been filled. Next, on the right, is the entrance to Drayton Hall, then Magnolia Gardens, Runnymede, home of John Julius Pringle, Speaker of the House of the Assembly in 1787, and later the property of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of the famous Pinckney family; Middleton Place (gardens) where is buried Arthur Middleton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence; the seat of the old Wragg barony; the Ashley River is crossed at Bacon’s Bridge near which stands an ancient oak beneath the spreading boughs of which General Francis Marion is alleged to have entertained a British officer (it is a pretty legend, but its site is severally located). Half a mile beyond the bridge is the road leading down to the ruins of old Dorchester, established in 1696 by colonists from Dorchester, Massachusetts, led by the Reverend Joseph Lord. In this year ruins of fort and churches are mute reminders of a brave village in a primeval wilderness infested with savage Indians. From Bacon’s Bridge the distance to Summerville is five miles. It is a drive every visitor to this section should follow. In the season, the Middleton Place and Magnolia Gardens are open to visitors.

CASTLE PINCKNEY, in Charleston Harbor: Stand on the incomparable Battery and look seaward. Fort Sumter is in plain view, of course, but nearer the gaze is Castle Pinckney, holding the status nowadays of a government monument. It is to be reached only by boat. The fort at the edge of the sand bank known as Shute’s Folly was built after the Revolution, in 1797-1804. Later, it was enlarged. In the War for Southern Independence, it lacked opportunity to contribute materially to the defense of Charleston. Really there is more legend than history about Castle Pinckney, but long it has been a well-known landmark. The government used it as a depot for aids for navigation until the depot was established at the foot of Tradd Street, on the Ashley River, site of the old Chisolm’s rice mill. An excuse for including it among Landmarks of Charleston is that many strangers promenading on the High Battery wish to know what Castle Pinckney is.

ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH, 78 Meeting Street: Five times have the bells of St. Michael’s crossed the Atlantic ocean. They came from England in 1764 and returned there after the British evacuated the town in 1784. Repurchased for Charleston, they came back to their steeple. During the War for Southern Independence they were taken for safekeeping to Columbia and in the burning of that town charged to General William Tecumseh Sherman (who had been a social favorite in Charleston before the war) they were so damaged that they were shipped to England. There they were recast in the original molds. Brought back they are still in the steeple, pealing on occasions. When Charles Town on the peninsula was laid out, a lot was designed for the English church, St. Philip’s. A wooden building was erected. This being outgrown a brick church was built on Church Street, on the present site of St. Philip’s. By act of the Assembly, June, 1751, Charlestown was divided into two parishes; the lower, St. Michael’s, and the upper, St. Philip’s. February 17, 1752, the corner stone was laid with much ceremony, the South Carolina Gazette carrying an account. The reputed successor of Sir Christopher Wrenn was the architect and the edifice is declared to resemble St. Martin’s-in-the-Field, London, near Trafalgar Square. From the pavement to the ball of the steeple is 182 feet. During the War for Southern Independence, the steeple, and that of St. Philip’s, offered shining marks for the Union artillerists. Cannon balls struck the church, but not with serious results. Heavy damage was done by the earthquake of August 31, 1886. The old clock in the steeple, with four dials, began the keeping of Charlestown time in 1764. President George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette have worshipped in St. Michael’s. In the taxed tea excitement of 1774, the assistant rector of St. Michael’s preached a sermon that aroused his congregation and he received his walking papers. In the yard of this church are illustrious dead, including James Louis Petigru, eminent South Carolina lawyer, an opponent of Nullification in the 1830’s and of Secession in 1860; however, when his state had seceded, Mr. Petigru cast his fortune with the Confederacy. The incumbent Bishop of South Carolina, the Right Reverend Albert S. Thomas was rector of St. Michael’s when he was elected to this high office.

CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, 122 Broad Street: John Morica England, first Bishop of Charleston, arrived in Charleston December 30, 1820, and the Cathedral of St. Finbar was dedicated by him a year later. It was a plain frame structure. Thirty years it stood. Then it was razed for the building of the St. John and St. Finbar Cathedral, burned in 1861; it was similar in design to the present Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on the same site, the northeast corner of Broad and Legare Streets. This handsome Gothic edifice of brown stone was begun late in 1888 by the Right Reverend Henry Pinckney Northrop, Bishop of Charleston. April 14, 1907, it was consecrated, Cardinal Gibbons being one of the celebrants. The site is that of the Vauxhall Gardens. Between December, 1861, and the occupancy of the new cathedral, the congregation worshipped in the pro-cathedral in Queen Street, built by the Right Reverend Patrick Nielsen Lynch, then Bishop of Charleston. St. John the Baptist’s is 200 feet long from the entrance to the rear of the vestry, the nave being 150 feet long by eighty feet wide; from the floor to the top of clerestory is sixty feet. The interior is beautifully decorated and contains fine paintings and stained-glass windows. To the north of the Cathedral is the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy. Graves of bishops are under the cathedral. The edifice is one of Charleston’s cardinal show places.

TRUMBULL’S WASHINGTON, in Charleston City Hall: One of the most famous and valuable portraits of General George Washington hangs in the City Hall, northeast corner of Meeting and Broad Streets. It was done by John Trumbull on the order of the City Council in honor of President Washington’s visit in 1791. It is reputed to be worth a million dollars! Art connoisseurs have come long distances to inspect this great portrait. Washington is shown full length, with his horse near him. While this is Charleston’s most valuable painting, there are other fine paintings in the Municipal Gallery, including President James Monroe, commemorating his visit in 1819, by Samuel F. B. Morse (inventor of the telegraph); the damage done by a Union shell in the 1860’s does not show; President Andrew Jackson, in uniform after the Battle of New Orleans, by Vanderlyn, student under the celebrated Gilbert Stuart; General Zachary Taylor, with spyglass in hand in Mexico, by Beard; John Caldwell Calhoun, eminent statesman, addressing the United States senate, by Healy; General William Moultrie, defender of Fort Moultrie against Sir Peter Parker’s British fleet in 1776, by Fraser; Marquis de Lafayette, miniature, by Fraser, commemorating the Frenchman’s visit in 1825; General Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” in Revolutionary uniform, by John Stolle (here the famous coonskin cap is replaced by a brigadier’s hat, by order of William A. Courtenay, then Mayor); Queen Anne, of England, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, a fragment of the original cherished as a relic; Joel Roberts Poinsett, statesman, by Jarvis; William Campbell Preston, statesman, by Jarvis; General and Governor Wade Hampton, the hero of Reconstruction, by Prescott; General P. G. T. Beauregard, Confederate Chieftain, by Carter; General Thomas A. Huguenin, the last Confederate commander of Fort Sumter; statuary busts of James Louis Petigru, Robert Young Hayne, Christopher Gustavus Memminger, Robert Fulton, and others. An informing sketch of this gallery by Joseph C. Barbot, Clerk of Council, is recommended. In Colonial years the site of the City Hall was the town’s market place. On it the United States Bank was housed about 1802 and this building became the City Hall. It is related that the money for the purchase came from the sale of the Exchange to the United States government. The interior has been rearranged.

THE OLD EXCHANGE, East End of Broad Street: From the standpoint of history, this building is incomparably the most interesting in South Carolina and one of the most interesting in America, the Rev. William Way, D.D., told the Rebecca Motte Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, whose property it is by gift of the United States. When Charles Town was laid out in 1680 this site was the Court of Guards, the place of arms for the early colonists. Here were imprisoned Stede Bonnet and other pirates in 1718 when South Carolina was putting down piracy after its previous years of friendship and fraternizing. The Exchange and Custom House was built in 1767 at a cost of 44,016 pounds. Most of the material was brought from England in sailing vessels. The date of completion was 1771. Taxed tea from England was stored in the Exchange in 1774 and citizens prevented its sale. A second cargo, arriving November 3, 1774, was dumped by merchants of Charlestown into the Cooper River. In July, 1774, delegates to the Provincial Congress gathered in this building and set up the first independent government established in America; the congress also elected delegates to the General Congress meeting in Philadelphia. Patriotic men and women of Charlestown were incarcerated in the Exchange by the British during the Revolution; it was from the Exchange that the martyr Colonel Isaac Hayne was led to his execution in 1781. President George Washington was entertained in the building, Charles Fraser writing in his Reminiscences: “Amidst every recollection that I have of that most imposing occasion, the most prominent is the person of that great man as he stood upon the steps of the Exchange uncovered, amidst the enthusiastic acclamation of the citizens.” Saturday, May 7, 1791, General Washington was guest of honor at a “sumptuous entertainment” given by the merchants of Charleston in the Exchange. During the War of 1812 patriotic meetings were held in the Exchange. In 1818 the city of Charleston sold the Exchange to the United States government for the sum of $60,000 and a week later the city government paid the sum of $60,000 for the building of the United States Bank, to be converted into the City Hall. The following year President James Monroe was in the Exchange. The federal government used the building for a customhouse and post office, the customhouse transferring to its own building after the War for Southern Independence and the post office to its present home in 1896. In the earthquake of 1886, the cupola designed by the artist Fraser was so badly damaged that it was removed. For years the building has been headquarters for the Sixth lighthouse district; these offices continue in it although the government has presented the historic building to the Daughters of the American Revolution in and of the State of South Carolina as an historical memorial, to be occupied by the Rebecca Motte Chapter; this was effective in March of 1913. When the United States entered the World War the Exchange by unanimous vote of the D.A.R. was tendered the Federal government which it used to the end of the conflict. On the centennial of George Washington’s death a handsome bronze tablet on the west side of the Exchange was unveiled. There is no question that this ante-Revolutionary building is one of Charleston’s greatest landmarks.

SITE OF INSTITUTE HALL, 134 Meeting Street: South Carolina declared itself free and independent, seceding from the United States, December 20, 1860. This bold act was taken in the hall of the South Carolina Institute. The Ordinance of Secession had been adopted in the hall of the St. Andrew’s Society, 118 Broad Street, but the delegates came to the Institute Hall because of its greater capacity; the wish was to accommodate as many as possible of the thousands who hoped to see the ordinance signed. With the great hall crowded to suffocation, after all the signatures had been affixed, President Jamison advanced to the front of the rostrum and announced, that South Carolina was an independent sovereignty, free of the United States. And the War for Southern Independence was nascent. In this hall several months before had been held the famous Democratic National Convention that adjourned without decision with respect to candidates for President and Vice President. On the site are published The News and Courier, one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States, founded in 1803, with its roots going back to 1786, and the Charleston Evening Post. They carry on the traditions of the South.

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”).