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Today In Charleston History: November 28

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1707

The land between the Combahee and Savannah Rivers was set aside as a reservation for the Yemassee tribe.            

1757 – French and Indian War.  

The Assembly stopped paying for the rent of the British officers quartered in private homes. Outraged, Lt. Col. Bouquet ordered his officers to keep their rooms and refuse to pay their rents.

1765 – Stamp Act.

The stamps were brought to the docks from Ft. Johnson. A crowd of about 7000 read a pledge not to act until Parliament had acted on their petition for all of America. Merchants pledged not to use the stamped paper.

1775 – American Revolution – Continental Congress.

Christopher Gadsden was one of seven members of the Marine Committee responsible for outfitting the Navy.

1812
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Theodosia Burr Alston

Dr. Timothy Ruggles Green, an old friend of Aaron Burr, arrived in Charleston to accompany an ailing Theodosia to New York to visit her father. At this time she was most likely dying of uterine cancer with recurring infections and discharges.

 

Today In Charleston History: November 21

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1773- American Revolution – Foundations … Club Forty-Five

Club Forty-Five, which included the Rutledge brothers, John and Edward, met at the Liberty Tree where they swore to defend against the tyranny of Great Britain. The tree was decorated with forty-five lights and forty-five skyrockets were fired. Forty-five men then paraded from the Liberty Tree down King Street to Broad to Dillon’s Tavern. Forty-five lights were placed on the table, along with forty-five punch bowls and forty-five bottles of wine … all of which were consumed.

wilkesThe number “forty-five” became an important symbol to the American Patriot movement, and was associated with John Wilkes. Wilkes, a member of Parliament, political agitator, friend of freedom, demagogue, wit, libertine, pornographer, and shameless self-promoter. He belonged to the Knights of St. Francis of Wycombe, better known as the Hellfire Club or the Monks of Medmenham Abbey. The members of this secret society dressed in Franciscan robes and parodied Roman Catholic rituals to engage in ribaldry and drunken orgies, often with prostitutes dressed as nuns. Wilkes in particular was noted for his wicked humor. When the Earl of Sandwich, a sometime friend, told him that “you will die either on the gallows, or of the pox,” Wilkes said, “That must depend on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress.”

On April 23, 1763, Wilkes wrote his most vicious essay yet. The North Briton No. 45 appeared April 23, 1763. In No. 45 Wilkes overtly attacked and mocked King George III: 

A despotic minister will always endeavour to dazzle the prince with high flown ideas of the prerogative and honour of the crown. I wish as much any man in the kingdom to see the honour of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming Royalty. I lament to see it sunk even to prostitution.I am so ignorant that I cannot tell a King from a knave.

Wilkes was arrested and claimed parliamentary privilege: as a member of the House of Commons, he was immune from arrest for anything short of treason or breach of the peace.Emboldened by his popularity, Wilkes reprinted No. 45 and began printing a pornographic poem he wrote with his friend Thomas Potter, An Essay on Woman. Twelve incomplete copies were struck, and those have been destroyed, but fragments survive. This parody of Alexander Pope’s dignified Essay on Man, loaded with attacks on prominent politicians, was extremely obscene . The government again decided to prosecute him, but the ministers had learned a lesson: since they could not proceed against a member of Parliament, they expelled him from the House of Commons before charging him with blasphemous libel. He fled the country, living in exile for four years on the donations of wealthy Whigs.

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Statue of John Wilkes, London. Photo by author

Colonial newspapers buzzed with information about the persecuted friend of liberty. American support was not universal—Benjamin Franklin said Wilkes was “an outlaw . . . of bad personal character, not worth a farthing”—but to many Americans he was a hero. Petitions and letters in his favor were signed by John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock. 

When news of Wilkes’s release from prison reached Charleston, Club Forty-Five met at 7:45, drank forty-five toasts, and adjourned at 12:45. They also recited Britannia’s Intercession for the Deliverance of John Wilkes, Esq., from Persecution and Banishment which was an imitation of the Apostle’s Creed:

I believe in Wilkes, the firm patriot, maker of number 45. Who was born for our good. Suffered under arbitrary power. Was banished and imprisoned. He descended into purgatory, and returned some time after. He ascended here with honour and sitteth amidst the great assembly of the people, where he shall judge both the favourite and his creatures. I believe in the spirit of his abilities, that they will prove to the good of our country. In the resurrection of liberty, and the life of universal freedom forever. Amen.

Today In Charleston History: November 19

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1755 – Deaths.

Andrew Rutledge died. The childless attorney left his estate – a house and plantation valued at £12,000 in trust for his brother’s oldest children, John, Thomas, Andrew and Sarah. John Rutledge  was serving a five-year apprenticeship in the Charlestown law office of James Parsons, along with another local young man, Thomas Bee.

1779 – American Revolution – Arrivals.

William Washington by Rembrandt Peale

Lt. Col. William Washington, second cousin to George Washington, was transferred from New Jersey to the Southern theatre of war, to join the army of Major General Benjamin Lincoln in Charlestown.

1832 – Nullification Crisis. 

South Carolina called for a convention. By a vote of 136 to 26, the convention overwhelmingly adopted an ordinance of nullification drawn by Chancellor William Harper. It declared that the tariffs of both 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina. While the Nullification Crisis would be resolved in early 1833, tariff policy would continue to be a national political issue between the Democratic Party and the newly emerged Whig Party for the next twenty years.

1863 – Bombardment of Charleston.

During a special Thanksgiving service a Union shell exploded near the church door as the congregation was exiting. It was the last service held in St. Michael’s during the war.

 During their service at St. Philip’s a shell passed over the church and landed half a block away at the corner of Church and Cumberland Streets. Rev. Howe continued his sermon and finished the service before dismissing the congregation. It was the last service held at St. Philip’s during the war. Both congregations (St. Michael’s and St. Philip’s) continued to worship at St. Paul’s Episcopal (present-day Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul) on Coming Street, north of Calhoun Street, out of the range of the Federal guns.

For the remainder of the year 283 shells landed in Charleston. Many of the shells were filled with “Greek Fire” – an incendiary mixture of turpentine and petroleum. As the shell exploded pieces of fire were thrown great distances in the air and catch buildings on fire. 

st. mikes - wordpress

1863 – Bombardment of Charleston.  

George Trenholm purchased the abandoned Lagare’s Female Academy in Orangeburg for the removal of the children from the Charleston Orphanage House.

1929

By resolution of the SC House a monument was erected for Issac Hayne at his burial site near Jacksonboro.

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Today In Charleston History: November 18

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1720 – Piracy
Anne-Bonny-_edited-1

Anne Bonny reveals her gender to a surprised male pirate she was about to kill.

Jack Rackham and his male crew were hanged in Port Royal, Jamaica. The two female members of Rackham’s crew, Mary Read and Anne Bonny, were imprisoned by “pleading their bellies” – pregnancy. Read died of a fever in prison. What happened to Anne Bonny is uncertain. Like her early life, her later life is lost in shadow. Captain Johnson’s book first came out in 1724, so her trial was still fairly recent news while he was writing it, and he only says of her “She was continued in prison, to the time of her lying in, and afterwards reprieved from Time to Time, but what is become of her since, we cannot tell; only this we know, that she was not executed.”

There are many versions of her fate and no truly decisive proof in favor of any one of them, so you can pick your favorite. Some say she reconciled with her wealthy father, moved back to Charleston, remarried William Burleigh and lived a respectable life into her eighties. Others say she remarried in Port Royal or Nassau and bore her new husband several children.

1740 – Disaster. Fire.

 A fire broke out in the afternoon and consumed all the buildings from Broad and Church Streets down to Granville Bastion (current location of the Missroon House – Historic Charleston Foundation). With more than 300 buildings destroyed –homes, warehouses, stables – it was a major disaster, mainly because this area was along the commercial waterfront district. Losses were estimated at £200,000 ($20 million in 2014). 

In the Gazette Elizabeth Timothy reported that “the wind blowing pretty fresh at northwest carried the flakes of fire so far, and by that means set houses on fire at such a distance, that it was not possible to prevent the spreading of it.”

Rev. Josiah Smith responded by publishing The Burning of Sodom, arguing that the fire was God’s response to vanity and wickedness of the city, and the Anglican Church’s treatment of George Whitefield. He wrote: 

Charles-Town is fallen, is fallen. London’s plague and fire came soon after the casting out and silencing a body of ministers … Charlestown … should pay attention and repent … The Pride of Sodom flourished … Let us Enquire seriously … whether our Streets, Lanes and Houses did not burn with Lust … Heaps of Pollution conceal’d from Man … which require’d Brimstone and Fire to burn up … such abandon’d Wretches generally curse the Sun and hate the Light.

The fire bankrupted the Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire. William Pinckney became so impoverished, he and his wife, Ruth Brewton, were unable to care for their son Charles, who went to live with his namesake, his uncle Charles. The younger Charles began to call himself “Charles Pinckney, Junior.” 

1780 – American Revolution 

Cornwallis issued a proclamation that he was seizing all the “real and personal property” of South Carolina’s patriot leaders, including Henry Laurens and all the St. Augustine exiles.

Charles-Cornwallis-by-Daniel-Gardner

Lord General Charles Cornwallis, 1780

Today In Charleston History: November 13

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1773. American Revolution – Foundations.

Peter Timothy announced in the South Carolina Gazette that “300 chests of tea were on their way to Charles Town.” He urged the citizens to “band together to take the necessary steps to prevent the landing” of the cargo.

Earlier in the year, Parliament had passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to export tax-free tea into the American colonies in an effort to help the company recover from near bankruptcy. It was also an attempt to undercut the price of illegal tea smuggled into the North American colonies. The Act was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament’s right of taxation. Most of the American colonies disagreed.

 

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Today In Charleston History: November 11

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  1775 – American Revolution

hog islandSouth Carolina’s first Revolutionary War naval skirmish took place. William Henry Drayton., president of the Second Provisional Congress of South Carolina,  was on board the newly-commissioned South Carolina schooner Defence, supervising the sinking of the hulks in the Hog Island channel. Captain Edward Thornbrough ordered six shots fired from the HMS Tamar and HMS Cherokee. Drayton replied with his nine-pounders. Over the next several hours the British fired 130 ineffective shots, which rallied public opinion to the side of the Revolutionaries. Lord William Campbell was aboard the Cherokee during the battle.

1815

Charles Pinckney, deeply in debt, signed an agreement with his creditors for a group of trustees to sell his property, which included:

  • 500 acres on the Black and Pee Dee Rivers near Georgetown
  • 1200 acres on the Lynches River
  • 815 acres at Snee Farm
  • Shell Hall, his house at Haddrell’s Point
  • His mansion on Meeting Street
  • Two tracts of land from his father-in-law, Henry Laurens – one in Savannah and one called Mount Tacitus on the Santee River which included a lumber mill and Pinckney’s Ferry
  • 240 slaves

Today In Charleston History: November 7

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1775 – American Revolution. Slavery

John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, and governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to those slaves who joined the British in the fight against the rebellious colonists. According to reports, runaway slaves flocked to Sullivan’s Island in Charleston and Tybee Island in Savannah by the hundreds. William Moultrie estimated that about five hundred slaves had found refuge on Sullivan’s Island and Stephen Bull wrote to Henry Laurens that about two hundred slaves had settled on Tybee Island.

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sullivans-island

Today In Charleston History: November 6

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1782 – Revolutionary War. 
John Laurens

John Laurens

Upon receiving the news of John Laurens’ death, John Adams wrote to Henry Laurens:

“I feel for you more than I can or ought to express. Our country has lost its most promising character, in a manner, however, that was worthy of the cause. I can say nothing more to you, but that you have much greater reasons to say, in this case, as a Duke of Ormond said of an Earl of Ossory, “I would not exchange my dead son for any living son in the world.”

 Henry Laurens replied, “Thank God, I had a son who dared to die in defence of his country.”

1860 – Road to Secession.

Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to be elected President. Voter turnout was 81.2 %, the highest in American history at the time. Lincoln did not carry a single slave-holding state and won the Electoral College with less than 40% of the vote.

 

1860 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS

CANDIDATE / POLITICAL PARTY PERCENTAGE OF VOTE
Abraham Lincoln (Republican) 39.8%
John Breckenridge (Southern Democrat) 18.1%
John Bell (Constitution Union / Whig) 12.6%
Stephen Douglas (Northern Democrat) 29.5%

South Carolina legislature immediately called for a state secession convention. Since the new state house was under construction, the legislature held meetings at the First Baptist Church in Columbia, as it was the largest meeting place in the city.

city hall - lincoln election

Charleston City Hall – assembled crowd awaiting the result of the 1860 Presidential elections. Harper’s Weekly image.

Today In Charleston History: November 3

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1759 –Births.

Martha Laurens was born, daughter of Henry and Eleanor Laurens, the beginning of one of Charleston’s most extraordinary lives.

Martha Laurens (daughter of Henry and Eleanor Laurens). John Wollaston c 1767Her father, Henry, was a successful merchant. Through his London contacts, Laurens entered into the slave trade with the Grant, Oswald & Company who controlled 18th century British slave castle in the Republic of Sierra Leone, West Africa known as Bunce Castle. Laurens contracted to receive slaves from Serra Leone, catalogue and marketed the human product conducting public auctions in Charles Town. His company Austin and Laurens, in the 1750s, handled was responsible for the sales of more than eight thousand Africans.

Three month old Martha Ramsay was pronounced dead of smallpox. Her body was laid out in preparation for a funeral and placed next to an open window. Dr. John Moultrie arrived and pronounced her still alive, speculating she had been revived by the fresh breeze. This event made Martha very special to her father, Henry.

In 1780 Henry Laurens was imprisoned in the Tower of London for “suspicion of high treason” as supporting the American Revolution. After his release he moved to Vigan, France and was nursed back by Martha, where she had spent the years of the War living with her uncle. In 1787 she married Dr. David Ramsay. The two had met while Ramsay writing a History of the American Revolution and reading Henry Laurens’ papers.

1835

Mr. William Laval secured from the state of South Carolina a vague grant to 870 acres of “land” in Charleston Harbor. Acting on this odd grant, Laval made claim to the site of Fort Sumter. This also raised a question in the South Carolina legislature as to what authority the government had acted upon to begin construction. Laval wrote to the engineer in charge at Fort Johnson, Charleston Harbor:

Sirs:

You are hereby notified that I have taken out, from under the seal of the State, a grant of all those shoals opposite and below Fort Johnson, on one of which the new work called Fort Sumter, is now erecting. You will consider this as notice of my right to the same; the grant is recorded in the office of the secretary of state of this State, and can be seen by reference to the records of that office.

Laval’s claim was presented to Robert Lebly, superintendent in charge of the building of fortifications at Charleston Harbor. Lebly forwarded the claim to Brigadier General Charles Gratiot the next day.

Today In Charleston History: November 2

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1669 – Carolina Expedition

The ships of the Carolina expedition made port in Barbados a day before a hurricane hit the island. The sloop Albemarle was destroyed and the other two ships were so severely damaged that repairs took more than a month. Food was so short that Sir John Colleton took “more than 20 servants” to his plantation. 

1786 – Duel

Dr. Joseph Brown Ladd died as a result of wounds sustained in a duel with Ralph Issacs on Philadelphia Alley.

1828 – Deaths.

Thomas Pinckney died.

t. pinckneyPinckney was the son of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and younger brother of Charles Cotesworth, who signed the Constitution of the United States. Thomas served during the American Revolution as captain of the 1st South Carolina Regiment of the Continental Army. In 1781 he fought in Virginia with Lafayette. He served as the 36th governor of South Carolina from 1787-89. In 1792, Pinckney replaced John Adams as Minister to Great Britain for four years.  He also served as Envoy Extraordinary to Spain and arranged the Treaty of San Lorenzo, also known as Pinckney’s Treaty, with Spain in 1795.