April 24 – 29, 2022
What should have been a rather boring drive north on I-95 (except for the usual diversion around Jacksonville via the beltway) became a bit more tedious due to an accident just north of Jax that closed I-95 completely. So, instead of taking I-295 eastbound, we were diverted to the westbound loop, north on US-23 through Callahan, then east on US 200 until we rejoined I-95 north headed for our second stop of the trip – Charleston, S.C.
We had visited Charleston a few years ago with some friends. On that trip we stayed at the Campground at James Island County Park. We found that to be a nice campground but the drive in and around the campground was harrowing with all of the low branches from the live oak trees. We didn’t want to repeat the experience with our current rig.
Oak Plantation Campground
Our campground of choice for this stay was the Oak Plantation Campground. With over 200 gravel sites, Oak Plantation is the largest campground in Charleston. Our campsite (OO3) was level and spacious and remarkably quiet. The only issue was one pesky tree that degraded our satellite signal – but we survived.
Finding Hidden Passages
On our previous tour we had toured several of the well-known sights – the grand homes, waterfront, the Battery, and Magnolia Plantation. This time we opted to do the Charleston’s Alleys and Hidden Passages walking tour with Lowcountry Walking Tours for a more intimate look at the city.
Distinguished by their beauty, Charleston’s alleys occupy spaces that blur the line between public and private areas and offer remarkable insight into the history of the Holy City. Some of these quaint passageways are inaccessible by automobiles and are often overlooked, even by frequent visitors and residents who are more focused on the City’s grand homes and famous landmarks. Walking along these picturesque cobblestone, brick, and stone pathways offers an opportunity to step back in time and appreciate more fully Charleston’s charms on an intimate and inviting scale.
lowcountrywalkingtours.com
Our tour started at the Old Exchange and (since it was nearby) stopped at Rainbow Row. The majority of the tour was in the French Quarter bordered by Market Street on the north, the waterfront on the east, Broad and Exchange Streets on the south, and Meeting Street on the west. Some of the major sites along our tour included:
Rainbow Row
Rainbow Row refers to the row of pastel-colored historic homes located on East Bay Street, just along the Battery. These historic homes were first constructed around 1740 and were used by merchants who would run their business on the ground floor and live on the top floor.
After the Civil War, this area was rather run-down and considered a slum. However, this changed in 1931 when Dorothy Porcher Legge and her husband Judge Lionel Legge purchased the section of houses on East Bay Street. Dorothy Porcher Legge was the one who decided to paint the homes on this row a pretty shade of pastel pink, hoping to make the area look nicer. As time went on, other residents on the street began to paint their homes various pastel colors as well.
Rainbow Row
The Old Slave Mart Museum
The 1808 ban ended the country’s participation in the International Slave Trade which led to the creation of a domestic slave trading system. Charleston became one of the major enslaved collecting and selling centers.
In the seven decades between the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and the Civil War, more than one million American born slaves were to work the rapidly expanding cotton and sugar plantations in the lower South. In Charleston, enslaved African Americans were customarily sold in the open area north of the Old Exchange building at Broad and East Bay Streets. In 1856 a new City Ordinance prohibited the practice of public sales, which resulted in the opening of Ryan’s Auction Mart and a number of other sales rooms, yards or marts along State, Queen and Chalmers Streets.
Possibly the only known building used as a slave auction site in South Carolina still in existence, the Old Slave Mart was once a part of a larger complex of buildings which consisted of a yard enclosed by a high brick wall, a four-story brick building known as a barracoon, a slave jail, a kitchen and a dead house. In 1938 Miriam B. Wilson purchased the building and established a museum featuring African and African American arts and crafts. Judith Wragg Chase and Louise Wragg Graves took over the Old Slave Mart Museum in 1964. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Old Slave Mart Museum
Dock Street Theatre
On February 12, 1736 the Dock Street Theatre opened with a performance of The Recruiting Officer. Built on the corner of Church Street and Dock Street (now known as Queen Street), the Historic Dock Street Theatre was the first building in America built exclusively to be used for theatrical performances. Flora, the first opera performance in America, took place at the Historic Dock Street Theatre. The original was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1740.
The Planter’s Hotel was built on the site in 1809. A number of notable persons worked and patronized the Planter’s Hotel including the noted 19th Century actor Junius Brutus Booth (father of Edwin and John Wilkes Booth). Robert Smalls, an African-American Civil War hero, who stole a steamboat in the harbor and sailed it out past the Confederate-held Ft. Sumter and turned it over to the blockading Union Fleet, served as a waiter in the hotel’s dining room prior to the war. Charleston’s famed Planter’s Punch was first introduced here.
After the Civil War, the Planter’s Hotel fell into disrepair and was slated for demolition. But in 1935, after Milton Pearlstine made the property available to the City of Charleston and at the urging of Mayor Burnet Maybank and other notable citizens, the original building became a Depression Era WPA (Works Progress Administration) project. At that time, the present theatre was constructed within the shell of the Planter’s Hotel. The hotel’s grand foyer became the grand foyer of the theatre and the hotel’s dining room now serves as the box office lobby.
Dock Street Theatre
St. Philip’s Church
Founded in 1680, St. Philip’s is the oldest congregation in the United States south of Virginia. St. Philip’s has played a vital role in the spiritual, cultural, and civic life of the people of Charleston and this nation for over three centuries, and in its churchyard are buried leading patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Often referred to as the “Westminster Abbey of South Carolina,” St. Philip’s has continued to grow and thrive despite the ravages of war, enemy occupations, fires, earthquakes, pestilence, and famine.
In the 17th century, the first edifice of St. Philip’s Church stood at the southeast corner of Broad and Meeting Streets, where St. Michael’s Church (Anglican) stands today. That original site quickly proved to be too small, and a new and much larger church was built at the current location in the Anglo-Palladian style, popularized by London’s St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, holding its first services on Easter Day 1723. As Edmund Burke wrote in 1777 when describing the new church, “St. Philip’s is spacious, and executed in a very handsome taste, exceeding everything of that kind which we have in America.” When that church suffered a major fire in 1835, the congregation was determined to rebuild quickly and was able to resume services in 1838; the congregation continues to worship in that building today.
St. Philip’s Church
Circular Congregational Church
The members of Circular Congregational Church are proud to be one of the oldest continuously worshipping congregations in the South. Highlights of our history:
– Charles Towne’s original settlers founded this protestant, or dissenting, church about 1681.
– The graveyard is the city’s oldest burial grounds with monuments dating from 1695.
– The first meeting house on this site gave Meeting Street its name.
– The third structure here, a vast, circular hall built in 1804, burned in 1861. Bricks from “Old Circular” were used in building the present sanctuary, completed in 1892.
Circular Church
Philadelphia Alley
Philadelphia Alley is located between Church and State streets, connecting Cumberland and Queen streets. This long, brick-paved alley, located in the French Quarter, shows up on maps of Charleston as far back as the 18th century. It was once known as Duelers Alley. Legend has it that dozens of duels were fought here, and that at least one dueling victim still haunts the alley. Today, you’ll find deep shade, unfurling ferns and mossy brick walls.
Philadelphia Alley
The alley also exhibits some of the best examples of handprints of enslaved children as they turned the bricks as they dried.
USS Yorktown and Captain’s Tour
The following day we drove over to Patriot’s Point to tour the USS Yorktown.
USS Yorktown (CV/CVA/CVS-10) is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. Initially to have been named Bonhomme Richard, she was renamed Yorktown while still under construction, after the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5), which was sunk at the Battle of Midway. She is the fourth U.S. Navy ship to bear the name, though the previous ships were named for 1781 Battle of Yorktown. Yorktown was commissioned in April 1943, and participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning 11 battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation.
USS Yorktown
We arrived early so that we had time to tour the public areas of the ship prior to our behind-the-scenes Captain’s Tour.
Captain’s Tour
Step into an original B-25 Mitchell Bomber which was the same model of aircraft used by Doolittle’s Raiders in their attack of mainland Japan. Take a look at the day in the life of a sailor aboard the Yorktown and gain a true understanding of why it is referred to as a floating city. Discover the original Captain’s Quarters and hear about the men who commanded such titanic vessels including the Yorktown’s first Captain, Adm. Joseph J. Clark. Explore the anchor room or forecastle of the Yorktown and see the inner workings of the ship. Examine some of the mighty aircraft that flew off the deck of the Yorktown while in service while enjoying a beautiful view of Charleston’s harbor.
Captain’s Tour
Fort Sumter
For our final touring day we decided to take the ferry from Patriot’s Point to Fort Sumter built on an artificial island in Charleston Harbor. This was where the Confederate War began on April 12, 1861.
April 12. At 4:30 a.m., a flaming mortar shot arcs into the air and explodes over Fort Sumter. On this signal, Confederate guns from fortifications and floating batteries around Charleston Harbor roar to life. Outmanned, outgunned, undersupplied, and nearly surrounded by enemy batteries, Anderson waits until around 7:00 a.m. to respond. Captain Abner Doubleday volunteers to fire the first cannon at the Confederates, a 32-pound shot that bounces off the roof of the Iron Battery on Cummings Point.
For nearly 36 hours the two sides keep up this unequal contest. A shell strikes the flagpole of Fort Sumter, and the American colors fall to the earth, only to be hoisted back up the hastily repaired pole. Confederates fire hotshot from Fort Moultrie into Fort Sumter. Buildings begin to burn within the fort. With no more resources, Anderson surrenders Fort Sumter to Confederate forces.
April 13. At 2:30 p.m., Maj. Anderson and his men strike their colors and prepare to leave the fort. Sadly, the only casualties at Fort Sumter come during the 100-gun salute, when a round explodes prematurely, killing Pvt. Daniel Hough and mortally wounding another soldier. The attack is over, but the war had just begun.
Ft. Sumter
As a special treat later that night we went to Galpao Gaucho Brazilian Steakhouse for dinner. Dinner started with a trip to the huge salad bar. From past experience we knew not to fill up on salad. Following the salad, our server brought a basket of cheddar biscuits, and sides of garlic mashed potatoes, and caramelized bananas. She then pointed to a small red card at each place setting. Red side up indicates that the gauchos (servers dressed as gauchos with sword-like blades filled with meat) should bypass the table. Green indicated that they should stop. Meat choices included beef tenderloin, rib eye, pork tenderloin, bacon-wrapped chicken breast, lamb, salmon, and more. They also offered a cinnamon grilled pineapple which was delicious.
It was a fun (and filling) dining experience.
We had a great time in Charleston but it was time to head further north. Where to next?
