JUNE 24

1717-Piracy

Stephen James de Cossey, Francis de Mont, Francis Rossoe and Emanuel Erando were charged by Judge Trott with taking the vessels the Turtle Dove, the Penelope, and the Virgin Queen off the coast of Jamaica.

1753

Peter Manigault

The young Peter Manigault, while studying in England, visited Charles and Eliza Pinckney in London. He wrote to his mother about the Pinckneys:

He already seems to have some desire to return to Carolina and I daresay he will, sooner than he at first talked of … His wife is an excellent Woman and I venture to say she would chuse [choose] to pass her days in England; however she is too good a Wife to ever thwart her Husband’s Inclination.

1766-Religion. The Buildings of Charleston

 St. John’s Lutheran Church was completed on Archdale Street.

1773

Dr. Alexander Garden (the physician not the minister) was elected to the Royal Society, nominated by Benjamin Franklin. The Society renamed the Cape jessamine the “gardenia,” in his honor.

Dr. Alexander Garden

A distant relative Reverend Alexander Garden, arrives in Charlestown in 1755 where he married Elizabeth Peronneau. Garden was partner in a busy medical  practice but still found time for his greatest enthusiasm – collecting and studying flora and fauna, which he sent to John Ellis, a merchant and zoologist in London, and to Carolus Linnaeus in Sweden.. There were no neighbours with similar interests –“there is not a living soul who knows the least iota of Natural History,” he wrote to Ellis. His botanical and zoological conversations were carried on by correspondence. His parcels to Europe included “birds, fish, reptiles, amphibia, insects, and plants”  from South Carolina.

2020

Statue of John C. Calhoun removed from Marion Square.

At about 6:00 p.m. Charleston City Council voted 13-0 to remove of the statue of the former U.S. vice president and senator from South Carolina.

At 11.34 p.m. the Charleston Police Department tweeted that, “Calhoun Street between Meeting Street and King Street is closed for the removal of the John C. Calhoun statue,” adding that the street will be closed for several hours.

Some onlookers grew restless just after 1 a.m. and began to leave just before crews used bucket trucks to soar more than 100 feet in the air to the top of the statue to make preparations for its removal. Another piece of equipment that appeared to have pulleys attached was being raised to the height of the statue from Calhoun Street, the roadway that marks the southern border of the square where the statue sits and also bears his name. Crews also removed the plaques that adorn the four sides of the pedestal on which the monument and statue sit.

During the removal there was a mechanical issue with one of the two hydraulic lifts being used to work on the monument. A mechanic was called in to repair the lift. It was also discovered there was a bronze mounting bracket filled with epoxy and concrete that ran the entire depth of the pedestal and was connected to Calhoun’s feet.  A diamond cutter was used to break through it, and the second lift was needed in order to complete the work. The statue was removed at approximately 

A few months after Calhoun’s death in 1850, Mrs. James Gadsden and her friends, Miss S. Hart and Mrs. Esther Monk, formed the Ladies’ Calhoun Monument Association.  They raised two dollars at that meeting, which eventually grew into $8,000 by 1855. Three years later, the cornerstone of the monument was laid, containing a cannonball from the battle of Fort Moultrie, a banner from Calhoun’s funeral procession, $100 in Continental money, and a lock of Calhoun’s hair.

Rendering of originally-proposed Calhoun monument from ‘News & Courier,’ April 26, 1887

It wasn’t until 1887 that a statue was erected. Albert E. Harnisc, a young Philadelphia artist, was hired to create a bronze statue atop a granite base. The design called for Calhoun’s figure to be surrounded by “four allegorical figures” representing truth, justice, the Constitution and history. 

City officials said eventually that the Calhoun statue will be placed permanently at “an appropriate site where it will be protected and preserved.”