When Charleston was the frontier
More than three centuries ago, Charles Towne had a few hundred structures from the Cooper River back toward what today is Coming Street.
Today, despite Charleston’s reputation as one of America’s best-preserved cities, they’re all gone.
The city’s oldest surviving buildings, such as the Pink House at 17 Chalmers St., date from the early 18th century. There’s no proof anything still stands from the 17th century, the period that’s the focus of a new book by local historians Susan Bates and Cheves Leland.
Their work — “Proprietary Records of South Carolina Volume Three” —examined and reproduced hundreds of the earliest property records from Carolina.
Taken together, they make a point that most tourists don’t hear, that most residents probably haven’t thought much about : Before the oldest parts of Charleston became the historic city we know today, they were something quite different. Something rougher, simpler.
Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.
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Posted by STREETLAW on August 17, 2008 at 1:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Rougher and simpler indeed. My grandfather use to race horses on Race street (did you ever wonder how it got that name?) It was in a rural area then. And that was in the 1890's.
Too bad we didn't have Steven Behre around then to document all that was that will never be again.