The sweltering city borrows from history to put on a show.
The Palmetto State is not naturally hospitable in July. Its drenching goulash of heat and humidity makes you feel like you’re walking through a pool room whenever you step outside. Charleston, especially — seated in the marshy Lowcountry — must do something to distract folks from drowning in air. It meets the challenge with charm.
At first glance, Charleston’s historic downtown looks a lot like Savannah’s. Most of the building exteriors are original, with some homes dating back more than three centuries. Founded as a strategic trading hub for the British in 1670, Charleston soon sprawled behind its harbor defenses into the richest city in America before the Revolution. To get a sense of how old it is, the city’s original name was “Charles Town,” as in King Charles — seven monarchs before the King George with whom we’re familiar. (The privileged tip of Charleston’s downtown peninsula still refers to itself as “Charlestowne,” just to mock the inauthenticity of everyone down the road.)
One portion of the city’s history still preserved is the “Charleston singles,” a kind of climate-adapted homes built uniquely for this area. Remember, people (somehow) lived here for hundreds of years without air conditioning. To manage, residents built narrow houses with two large porches, or “piazzas,” on each story to funnel ocean breezes inside. Who needs a machine to give you fresh air when the sea delivers? Today, the piazzas serve perfectly for intimate social events.
Some Charleston singles run much larger, benefiting from the shade of native palm trees.
More traditional manors in Charleston, including the home of the abolitionist Grimké sisters, are also preserved. Unlike its cousin Savannah, however, Charleston has not tried to keep the city in amber. Rather, it has welcomed a rush of wealth and development while maintaining its aesthetic. On its central artery, King Street (get it?), humble 19th-century storefronts are now occupied by Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Seersucker suits are sold as they always were, but for many hundreds of dollars more.
Also, Charleston’s famous Pineapple Fountain along the waterfront was completed in 1990.
This is where history meets luxury. But perhaps that is truly honoring history, as Charleston was always luxurious by the standards of its contemporaries.
There is still some genuine history here. The Battery on the peninsula’s point has authentic cannons used to defend the city, next to a statue of South Carolina’s own General William Moultrie. Another nearby monument commemorates the defenders of Fort Moultrie during Britain’s attempt to capture the city in 1776.
But here’s the sort of thing I’m talking about: General Moultrie never laid eyes on the cannons here. He was a planter who served in the Revolutionary War. The vintage artillery surrounding his likeness was used in the Civil War to defend against American forces, not the British.
This is not to say Charleston didn’t play a pivotal role in the American Revolution. One of the Holy City’s many churches is St. Michael’s Anglican Church, whose congregation included several signers of the Declaration and Constitution.
John Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney worshipped in this church’s enclosed pew boxes, as did a visiting President Washington (Pew 43).
Besides the main peninsula, Charleston is made up of more than a hundred islands, which the ocean tries to recapture when the tide comes in. Two centuries ago, the larger islands were blanketed shoreline to shoreline with plantations — rice, indigo, and ultimately Sea Island cotton. We had the chance to tour one of several remaining on James Island, the McLeod Plantation. Today, on just 37 acres, it features a lovely little house and a couple of humble rows of cotton.
Conservatives are often annoyed when progressives allege comprehensive historical revisionism in America. On the history of the American Southeast, modern progressives are correct. (Don’t remind them that the “Lost Cause” narrative was deeply intertwined with early progressivism.) At its peak, the McLeod Plantation spanned more than 1,000 acres of cotton and was home to nearly 100 slaves. A bell hanging from a tree, supposedly rung to invite slaves in for a meal, bears a date mark of 1921. An outhouse (elevated and without a pit) was built well after emancipation — slaves relieved themselves in the field. The house has been dolled up to make the place appear less like a commercial enterprise.
Tiny cabins like this one housed sharecroppers — usually indebted family members of slaves who rented from the plantation. The last black tenants left these homes in 1990.
For all its performance, Charleston is full of natural beauties that could never be airbrushed. The Angel Oak, for example, has been growing outward for between 400 and 500 years, and sure looks like it. The tree has the longest branches of any in the country, and many have needed to sink to the ground.
And, of course, Charleston has the most serene beaches.
Not to mention, Southeastern food continues to beat all competitors. Try the pan-seared local fish, the sweet mustard-based barbecue (ideally pulled pork), hushpuppies, and cornbread hoecakes. Comfort, indeed.
This is an installment in a cross-country road-trip adventure.