During the War Between the States, homes were burned by Sherman along the river. The antebellum homes which stand today replaced them. Yet there are homes dating to the 1700s blocks away. Charleston and Charleston County represent the earliest productive economy in South Carolina. English settlers arrived in the colony as early as 1670 and established a town at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River. Then Charles Town, named in honor of King Charles II of England, was built a few miles away between the Ashley and Cooper rivers. Charles Town (renamed Charleston in 1783) was the political, social, and economic center of the South throughout the colonial period, becoming the antebellum capital of the state capital until 1790. Charleston District was formed in 1769, but portions were later split off to form Colleton (1800) and Berkeley (1882) counties. Charleston County of today includes the old parishes of St. Philip, St. Michael, Christ Church, St. Andrew, St. John Colleton, and part of St. James Santee. It was the English and French Huguenot settlers and their African slaves who established the prosperous rice and cotton plantations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In fact, some of the first Georgia colonials ran away to Charleston so that they could establish agricultural plantations using slave labor. In essence, Charleston represented civilization to the colonials. In June of 1776, Charleston found itself embroiled in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War and handily defeated the attacking British fleet. A palmetto log fort (later named Fort Moultrie) on Sullivans Island cannonaded the British causing them to retreat. During the War Between the States when federals were fired on at Fort Sumter by Confederate forces in April 1861, this act signaled the start of the war.

Early settlers: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, General Andrew Pickens, Colonel Robert Anderson, Captain Robert Maxwell, John Bowen, Major John Ford, John Hallum, William Johnson, John Lewis Gervais, Ralph Atmar, George Bampfield, Lewis Newhouse, John James Himely, Edward Trescott, James Bentham, Moses Tomlin, William Moultrie, George Ringland, Jacob Drayton, and others.

Genealogy Tips . . .

During the Colonial period, the port city of Charleston enjoyed trade from Europe and the West Indies. Suffice it to say that millions of merchandise vessels transporting goods, foodstuffs, and passengers made port in Charleston. For this reason, the genealogist can expect to find ancestors in Charleston. This was also an active port for pirates and buccaneers. That means that the affidavits and deed records contain information concerning arrests, etc. The deed records reflect a number of interesting transactions including mariners and persons abroad. Also, the old wills reflect the names and places of relatives of the deceased! It is a good idea to read all of the wills for certain time periods because of so many clues therein. Indeed, Charleston was an active port city! Also, after the settlement at Savannah, Georgia, the malcontents among Oglethorpe's first passengers ran away to Charleston (ca 1740-1744).

Historical Churches (Source: Landmarks of Charleston by Thomas Petigru Lesesne)

ST. PHILIPS CHURCH

144 Church Street: St. Philips is the oldest Protestant Episcopal congregation south of Virginia. The first edifice was built on the site now occupied by St. Michaels (southeast corner of Meeting and Broad Streets). The second and third were built at the present site. The first St. Philips was erected in 1681-82.

CRADLE OF PRESBYTERIANISM

138 Meeting Street: The congregation of the Circular Church dates to 1681. The small wooden building the erection of which Landgrave Joseph Blake was influential was known as the White Meeting House and was replaced in 1804 by a brick edifice circular in form, that was burned in 1861.

HUGUENOT CHURCH

136 Church Street: The only Huguenot Church in America! This is the proud and unique distinction of the French Protestant Church in Charleston. Its congregation holds to the old Huguenot litany. It dates to 1681. The first recognized and regular pastor of the French Church was the Reverend Elias Prioleau, who came with the " great Huguenot immigration" about 1687; he died in 1699.

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH

61 Church Street: When Charles Town on the peninsula was about three years old the first congregation of Baptists was formed. Some of these Baptists came from New England, with the Reverend William Screven, their pastor, and others came from England. Old records show that for several years the Baptists worshipped in the home of Mrs. William Chapman. Lady Blake, and her mother, Lady Axtell, were both Baptists and members of this congregation; their official rank lent strength to the church. William Elliott, a member, gave the site of the First Baptist Church in 1699.

SCOTCH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

53 Meeting Street: Sprung from the White Meeting House, the First (Scotch) Presbyterian Church dates to 1731. The Reverend Hugh Stewart, a native Scot, was its first pastor. The present edifice was dedicated in 1814. It was severely damaged in the earthquake of August 31, 1886, but fully restored.

TRINITY METHODIST CHURCH

273 Meeting Street: As its congregation springs from the old Cumberland Church, the first Methodist group in Charleston (1786), Trinity may be called the oldest Methodist congregation (in Charleston), but the building it now occupies was recently acquired from the Westminster Presbyterian Church (which combined the abandoned Third Presbyterian in Archdale Street and the Glebe Street Presbyterian Church). This building was destroyed in the fire of 1861. John and Charles Wesley had visited Charlestown in 1736. John Wesley preached in St. Philips Episcopal Church in 1737. The Wesleys came with General James Oglethorpe to Georgia. Charles Wesley was the secretary to General Oglethorpe and John Wesley was to be a missionary among the Indians.

ST. JOHNS LUTHERAN CHURCH

10 Archdale Street: The Lutheran congregation of St. Johns was organized in 1757 with the Reverend John George Fredichs as pastor. Lacking a building of their own the Lutherans used the French Huguenot Church. On June 24, 1764, the first St. Johns was dedicated. The present brick building was dedicated on January 18, 1818, with the Reverend Dr. John Bachman, friend, and associate of J. J. Audubon, the celebrated naturalist, being the pastor.

UNITARIAN CHURCH

6 Archdale Street: Just before the American Revolution, the Circular Church on Meeting Street, the cradle of Presbyterianism in Charles Town, found it necessary to use an additional building. Thus another church with another pastor was established in Archdale Street. One of the pastors espoused Unitarianism and by amicable agreement, the part of the congregation following his teachings took over the Archdale Street church. While the British occupied Charlestown during the Revolution, they stabled horses in this edifice. The present church building was dedicated in April of 1854 and is much praised for its architecture.

ST. MARYS CATHOLIC CHURCH

79 Hasell Street: Mother parish of the Roman Catholic Church in North and South Carolina and Georgia, St. Mary's congregation was organized in 1794, and in 1798 bought a frame building from a Protestant congregation. In 1836 this was burned and on the site, the present fine brick edifice was erected being completed in 1838.

ST. JAMES, GOOSE CREEK

off the Coastal Highway: The British Royal Arms still stand in South Carolina! The British yoke was thrown off one hundred and sixty years ago, but in St. James Church, Goose Creek, sixteen miles from 34the city hall of Charleston the Royal Arms have never come down! The ancient edifice stands in tranquil woodland, quite near The Oaks, home of Arthur Middleton in their early years. At the foot of the altar is a tomb with this inscription: " Here lyeth the body of the Reverend Francis Le Jau, Doctor in Divinity, of Trinity College, Dublin, who came to this Province October 1706, and was one of the first missionaries sent by the honourable society to this Province, and was the first Rector of St. James, Goose Creek, Obit. 15th September 1717, age 52, to whose memory this stone is fixed by his only Son, Francis Le Jau." In the records left by Dr. Le Jau is mentioned that he christened Indians. Four acres for the old parsonage were the gift of Arthur Middleton, and another pioneer gave the Glebe of one hundred acres.

ST. ANDREWS, BERKELEY

on the Ashley River Road: The parish of St. Andrews, Berkeley (the district about Charles Town was Berkeley in olden times), was founded in 1706 and a simple brick building erected. Seventeen years later this was enlarged, taking the form of a cross. The gallery was intended for non-pewholders and was later set aside for negroes. Destroyed by fire it was rebuilt in 1764 and is one of the few rural churches that has survived the Revolution and the War for Southern Independence. St. Andrews was one of ten parishes authorized by an act of the Assembly in 1706 regulating religious worship in accordance with the forms of the Church of England.

ASHLEY RIVER ROAD

Leading to Famous Gardens: St. Andrews Church is but one of many interesting and historic places on the Ashley River Road. Two miles from the Ashley River Bridge the road passes near the site of the original Charles Town in South Carolina and three miles farther is the Ashley Hall plantation of the Bull family, distinguished in provincial and colonial periods. It was on the Bull place that Attakullakulla, chief of the Cherokee Indians, signed a treaty of peace in the 1760s after his tribe had been severely humbled by the whites.

ST. MICHAELS CHURCH

78 Meeting Street: Five times have the bells of St. Michaels crossed the Atlantic ocean. They came from England in 1764 and returned there after the British evacuated the town in 1784. Repurchased for Charleston, they came back to their steeple. During the War for Southern Independence, they were taken for safekeeping to Columbia, and in the burning of that town charged to General William Tecumseh Sherman (who had been a social favorite in Charleston before the war) they were so damaged that they were shipped to England.

CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

122 Broad Street: John Monica England, the first Bishop of Charleston, arrived in Charleston on December 30, 1820, and the Cathedral of St. Finbar was dedicated by him a year later. It was a plain frame structure. Thirty years it stood. Then it was razed for the building of St. John and St. Finbar Cathedral, which burned in 1861.