1701-England. Religion.

King William III issued a charter establishing the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts” as “an organisation able to send priests and schoolteachers to America to help provide the Church’s ministry to the colonists.”

1776-American Revolution

The privateer Polly, commanded by Capt. Francis Morgan and carrying a cargo of 300 barrels of gunpowder, 20 chests of cartridges, 90 barrels of rum, sugar, and gin, tried to run the gauntlet of British ships into Charleston Harbor.

The Polly ran aground near Stono Creek and the Patriots scuttled and abandoned her. The HMS Bristol sent eight boats under the command of Lt. Molloy to investigate and attempt to refloat the Polly, but she had five feet of water in her hold. So, they set her on fire, and she

“blew up with a great Explosion… It would have been much greater but she had five feet of water in her hold, which had damaged a great deal of the Powder.”

1788-Piracy

Richard Cain, Richard Williams, William Rogers, John Masters, and William Pendergrass from the schooner Two Friends, were executed for piracy and murder at Hangman’s Point opposite the city of Charleston.

The bodies of William Rogers and Richard Williams, being the principal aggressors, were cut down and conveyed to Morris’s island, there to be hung in chains.

1802

Aaron Burr sailed from Charleston on the Comet. The ailing Theodosia traveled with her father, her three-week old son and her sister-in-law Maria Alston to her father’s house in New York, Richmond Hill, to escape the Charleston summer.

1826

Another fire set by arsonists on King Street resulted in $100,000 in damages. Four years after the discovery of the Denmark Vesey plot,  Much of the white population was living in dread of another slave insurrection.

1862-Civil War

On this day, a Union attempt to capture Charleston, South Carolina, is thwarted when the Confederates turn back an attack at Secessionville, just south of the city on James Island. Read about the Battle of Secessionville.

The Union army establishes a foothold on James Island on the Stono River. Harper’s Weekly

1934-Porgy and Bess

George Gershwin and Debose Heyward on Chalmers Street, Charleston, SC

George Gershwin arrived by train in Charleston with his cousin, artist Henry Botkin. They drove out to Folly Beach where Heyward had rented a cottage at 708 West Arctic Avenue. Gershwin was in the lowcountry to work on the score for his proposed opera, Porgy and Bess, based on Dubose Heyward’s novel and stage play, Porgy. 

For the entire story of Gershwin’s visit and Porgy and Bess read Doin’ the Charleston.