Lithograph of Fort Sumter. Image courtesy Library of Congress. Right: Fountain in Waterfront Park. Courtesy America's Best History.

Charleston Then

When you speak of Charleston in the past, one has to realize that it was long before the Civil War and its strife that Charleston got its start. Founded in 1670 after a rough voyage from England begun one year earlier by three ships full of English colonists, Carolina, Port Royal, and Albermarlet, the voyage led by Captain Joseph West and Sir John Yeamans became separated. Only a sloop and the Carolina would make it eventually with one hundred and fifty settlers and slaves, in March 1670, surprisingly losing only two people on the voyage. Promised to the voyagers; free men four hundred acres; indentured men two years of service, then one hundred acres increased to one hundred and seventy if they imported a slave; slaves, nothing.

Originally the settlement was located on Albermarle Point, a suggestion that the friendly Kiawah Indians noted as better protected and good for farming, however, the whole town moved to its present location, Oyster Point, ten years after founding. From that point, Charles Town, as known as then due to the King, grew. The population was one thousand by 1680. A wall was built to protect the city over the next decade; it would be torn down by 1718.

By 1740, the city was in an economic boom, with its harbor the best in the colonies, and its seaport exporting indigo and cotton to high profits. It was known as the Little London of the New World. The colony engaged a religious philosophy of tolerance and freedom, assisting in providing the town with several decades of a Golden Age. However, by the first year of the American Revolution, it was a hotly contested city of loyalists and patriots, and one the British did not want to lose. The Battle of Sullivan's Island in June 1776, the second major conflict of the Revolution in the south, saw Colonel Moultrie's palmetto fort withstand the two hundred and seventy guns of the British fleet, though the town would fall later in the war.

Image above: Vintage view of Charles Town from harbor, unknown date or author. Courtesy Library of Congress. Photo below: One exhibit on the guided tour inside the Provost Dungeon of the Old Exchange. Courtesy America's Best History.

Charleston Now

Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, and long gone Fort Johnson and Battery Wagner, tell the story of secession and war, and today, while marking that past, Charleston represents a port city that has grown into an internationally known tourist destination. Nearly eight million people visit the history and period architecture each year. It remains a city replete with living history, in the walls of its old buildings, and in the spirit of its residents.

From a walking tour of the French Quarter to a ferry boat ride to Fort Sumter, follow us on a short video excusion to one of the most charming and historic cities in the United States.