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The Coastal South

 Spring 2012

Charleston Factoids 

Charleston Firsts In America:

First museum, first theater, first public library, first municipal college, first golf club, first preservation ordinance, first victory by the colonists over the British during the Revolutionary War, and inspiration for the first American opera, "Porgy and Bess."

The three plantations located along the Ashley River outside Charleston, provide some additional noteworthy designations:  

Drayton Hall is the oldest plantation home in America open to the public and one of only three plantation homes to survive the ravages of the conquering Union Army (it's thought the soldiers avoided the plantation because they heard it housed a smallpox hospital).

Magnolia Plantation claims not only the first garden in the United States, dating back to the 1680s, but also the first public garden completed in 1872.

Middleton Place houses the first landscaped garden in America, still thought to be one of the most magnificent in the world.

The movie "Glory" immortalizes an unsuccessful 1863 Union landing on Morris Island, outside Charleston, fought by the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment, comprised of African Americans.  Though the assault failed, it inspired the North and was cited by abolitionists as proof that African Americans should be given freedom and full citizenship.

Pirates and slavers were among the earliest explorers of the Atlantic seaboard.  One well-known pirate was the infamous Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard.  One unusual incident related about Blackbeard was his 1718 seizure of some Charleston-based ships, where he kidnapped several leading citizens and demanded a chest of medicine or he would deliver the hostages' heads to the colonial governor.  His demand was met and the hostages were set free.

Savannah Factoids

Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, was born and raised in Savannah and both her birthplace and the home she lived in after her marriage are open to the public.

Flannery O'Connor, noted Southern Gothic writer, was born and lived in Savannah for the first 13 years of her life. Her home is open to the public.

Paula Deen, famous for her Southern cooking and her presence on the Food Network, has a popular restaurant in Savannah, The Lady & Sons, with people waiting in line sometimes four hours before getting in to feast on such classic Southern dishes as fried chicken and collard greens.

Johnny Mercer, one of Savannah's most famous natives, was one of the greatest American lyricists. During his time in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s he wrote such songs as "Jeepers Creepers," "That Old Black Magic," and "Come Rain or Come Shine." He won Academy Awards for four of his songs, "Moon River," "On the Atchinson, Topeka and the Santa Fe," "In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening" and "Days of Wine and Roses."

During my summer research trip to Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, I took a walk back in American history, often while seated in a horse-drawn carriage.  Being born and raised and living my whole life in Washington State, I've not felt particularly surrounded by history.  But in the South, early American history is as pervasive as the humidity or the hush puppies that accompany most meals.

Charleston 

As we pulled into Charleston, I checked the readout on the dashboard for the temperature outside:  99 degrees.  What a difference from back home in Seattle, where we had just hit the 70-degree mark for the first time since the previous fall.  The car was nicely air conditioned, but I knew reality would hit as soon as we parked and got out.  I was right.  It was like walking into a steambath:  hot and muggy.

Carriage ride in Charleston

We checked into our hotel on Meeting Street, a main drag of the city, a couple blocks from Market Square, with its craft markets and shops and where horse-drawn carriage rides begin.  Our first order of business was to walk down to see if the carriages were running.  We'd heard that they stopped the rides in the late afternoon when the temperatures got too hot for the horses.  To me 99 degrees seemed pretty hot for horses and humans!  But luckily, the temperature had cooled down enough for the rides to resume.  So we climbed aboard a covered carriage with eight other people, pulled by Earl the horse and narrated by Fred, born and bred in Charleston.  The ride, lasting a bit over an hour and taking us through several districts, was the perfect introduction to the city.  Fred provided history of Charleston, information on the unique architecture, and anecdotes and bits of gossip about the people who have lived there.  Earl kept us entertained by trying to go his own way when Fred had his back turned to talk to us.

Ice cream helped cool us down after our ride and renewed our energy to hit a few of the shops, though it was too late to stroll through the arts and crafts bazaars which run down the center of Market Street as the vendors were packing up their goods.  After dinner we walked to Waterfront Park, located along the Cooper (pronounced "Coopah") River, and watched children and teens frolic in one of the huge water-spray fountains.

Our second day started with a 90-minute walking tour.  We gathered at the Mills House Hotel, a very upscale lodging filled with southern art and memorabilia.  Our tour guide gave us a detailed overview of the history of the area, weaving in information and anecdotes encompassing the Revolutionary and Civil wars, the destructive earthquake of 1886, huge Hurricane Hugo of 1989, and the many fires the city has endured.  Charlestonians seem to be an intrepid group of people who continue to rise above the manmade and natural disasters they've been plagued with for the over 300 years the city has existed.

Charleston is built on a peninsula flanked by the Ashley and Cooper rivers, with the very upscale Battery District located on the tip pointing out toward the Atlantic Ocean, where famed Fort Sumter sits in its strategic location at the mouth to the sea.  Standing along the seawall in the Battery District, we heard the story of the beginning of the Civil War, on April 12, 1861, when people lined the seawalls to watch the 34-hour-long shelling of Union-held Fort Sumter by Confederate soldiers. This was the official beginning of a war that brought a 545-day siege to Charleston, before the Confederate troops surrendered to the Union forces.

Our walk took us over streets made from the cobbles that had been ballast on the sailing ships from Europe and down streets where the trees seemed to grow together to provide tunnels to shade us from the relentless sun. We walked past Revolutionary-era buildings (including the colorful Rainbow Row houses), many churches in a place referred to as the Holy City for its innumerable churches of various denominations, and several grand and refurbished antebellum homes with their ornate piazzas (side porches to catch the breezes), decorative wrought iron gates and fences, and beautiful gardens. 

Aiken-Rhett House (The Historic Charleston Foundation)

In the afternoon we toured one of the huge antebellum homes, the Aiken-Rhett House, resembling a plantation house with its slave quarters, stables, kitchen behind the main house (for fear of fire), and three-story mansion, which has been semi-restored.  We each had an audio-guide that provided the story of the families who had lived in the house, while giving information on architectural details and furnishings.

We started our third day with a brisk walk to the wharf, location of a huge aquarium and interpretive center about the Civil War, where we boarded a boat for a half-hour narrated trip out to Fort Sumter.  Once on the island we heard two ranger talks, one explaining the various flags flying over the fort and the other giving details on the battle that started the Civil War.  Then we walked around the site, examining the artillery, reading the interpretive signs, and filling in details about this important Civil War site.  The ride back was also narrated.

To save our feet, we took a bicycle-driven pedi-cab from the wharf back to the Battery District to tour the Nathaniel Russell house.  Unlike the Aiken-Rhett house, which was only semi-refurbished, the Nathaniel Russell house was fully restored to what it was like when it served as the town home for a wealthy Charleston merchant in 1808.  The tour guide explained that 22 layers of paint were removed from the walls as the restorers sought the original color of the rooms.  The house was unusual in its layout, with three main rooms on each of three floors, one room oblong in shape, one round, and one square.  In addition to the intricate design details in the rooms, the highlight of this house is its freestanding staircase that soars up three stories without obvious support.  The tour guide did an excellent job of weaving the story of the home's various inhabitants into the history of Charleston.

Magnolia Plantation

In the afternoon we drove to a plantation located outside Charleston on the Ashley River.  Magnolia Plantation is a huge property with a restored house, wild gardens, a maze of manicured camellia and holly bushes, scum-covered ponds, and several tour options, including a mini-train ride and a boat ride.  We toured the house and heard how the various members of the Drayton family, a name we kept encountering in Charleston, managed to maintain the plantation despite rampages by Union troops and natural disasters.  We strolled through the gardens and took the swamp walk, where we saw alligators sunning themselves and hundreds of wildfowl, including lots of ibises.

Savannah 

On day four of our trip we headed for Savannah, with a detour to Edisto Island, located about an hour south of Charleston.  We took a back road to the island and found ourselves driving under tunnels of trees and along swamps, right out to the ocean, where we stopped at a public beach to wade in the warm Atlantic, so different from our frigid Pacific.  We crossed the inter-coastal waterway several times as we proceeded down the coast, and swept into Savannah across a beautiful iconic bridge across the Savannah River.  Our hotel, the Staybridge, located on Bay Street, which parallels the waterfront, is part of a National Register historic building with artifacts of by-gone years in the lobby.

Savannah River Boat

We started our tour of Savannah with a climb down one of the ancient stairways that lead from the bluff where the town is located to the wharves below.  Most of the buildings have been restored from when they held the cotton crops and other agricultural goods awaiting transport on the ships that sailed up and down the Savannah River.  Now these buildings house shops, restaurants, and offices.  We walked along the cobblestoned River Walk, checking out the river, the views and the souvenirs.  In the early evening we took a carriage ride and turned out to be the only riders. Salt was our horse; Tess was our driver.

Savannah is a unique city, laid out in pre-Revolutionary times by James Oglethorpe, founder of George, around 24 squares, 21 of which remain green oases of various sizes placed throughout the extensive historic district.  Just like with our carriage ride in Charleston, clip-clopping behind a huge horse was an excellent way to hear the history of Savannah, sprinkled with tidbits on the people who lived in the many fine homes surrounding the squares.  We passed the house made famous as the site of the murder recounted in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and the home that Union General Sherman lived in during the time he occupied the town on his famous march to the sea.  Unlike other cities that he destroyed, Sherman spared Savannah and offered it to President Lincoln as a Christmas present with its "150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and also about 25,000 bales of cotton."

Forsythe Park in Savannah

We started our last day in Savannah with an historic walk, which gave us more details on the buildings along the waterfront, allowed us to walk through several squares and provided more info about the Revolutionary War and Civil War presence in Savannah.  We also heard anecdotes about Hollywood connections to the city, especially about the filming of scenes for the movies "Forest Gump" and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil."  After the tour we walked to Forsythe Park, a 30-acre oasis in the city, with its beautiful fountains, flowers and welcoming shade trees.

Then our historical/cultural time in the South was over:  we headed to the beach.  Tybee Island is a typical beach town 20 miles east of Savannah.  We stayed in an ocean-view hotel, swam and floated in the warm Atlantic, and walked on the pier.  And on the deck of a funky restaurant overlooking the ocean, we toasted the end of our history-filled trip to the south with our final plate of hush puppies.

Connie