1713-Port Statistics

The leading exports of the year were:

• 73,790 deerskins
• 75 Indian slaves
• 12,677 barrels of rice
• 6617 barrels of pitch and tar
• 661 barrels of turpentine
• 1965 sides of leather
• 1963 barrels of beef

1770 – Hurricane

A hurricane made landfall south of Charleston. According to the South Carolina Gazette: 

On Wednesday night last we had a most violent gale of wind … with heavy rains, which has done more damage to the shipping and wharfs (sic) of any that has happened here in the memory of oldest man living. (The hurricane in 1752 only excepted.) Mr. Lamboll’s bridge is destroyed, and the bathing house also; all the fortifications from thence to Craven’s is one continuous scene of ruins.  

1785-Religion

Rev. John Tunnel was appointed by Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury to the Charleston Circuit. He continued to lead services in the Baptist Meeting House until one Sunday when they found the church boarded up and the benches tossed into the street.

 1836

The South Carolina Jockey Club purchased the sixty-three acres of the Washington Race Course for $5000.

1864-Bombardment of Charleston.  

Gus Smythe, on duty in St. Michael’s steeple for the Confederate Signal Corps, wrote to his sister Sue:

Yesterday they aimed at the Steeple & the shells flew round here thick & fast. Thirteen fell between Queen St. & St. Michael’s Alley yesterday after 12 … Two of these struck Hibernian Hall, one the Mills House, one the Court House, two fell here at the corner of Broad, two in the City Hall Square, & one in the Sunday School Union … It is miraculous that this Steeple has not yet been hit.

Hibernian Hall, cannon damage

Court house and City Hall, across the street from St. Michael’s Church