Ernie had been to Charleston, SC once many years before he met Dale. After hearing Ernie and many of our family & friends talk about Charleston, Dale became interested in visiting there. We spent 3 days there. One day we spent visiting and walking past many of the historical sites in the Historic District. Another day we spent at Patriot's Point taking a tour of Fort Sumter and visiting the aircraft carrier, destroyer, and submarine at Patriot's Point. The third day we visited an historic plantation, then returned to the historic district to visit a house that Ernie remembered and we had not gotten to the first day.
We walked along Meeting St. looking at some historic sites on our way to the Charleston Museum. Some of the places we saw were: Circular Congregational Church & Graveyard, City Market, Confederate Museum (which was not open when we were at it), Noyer-Wildhagen House, Washington Light Infantry Building, Citadel Square Baptist Church, Wragg Square & Second Presbyterian Church, Trinity United Methodist Church, and Joseph Manigault House (which we later went in).
The Circular Congregational Church is surrounded by its' graveyard. Ernie checked the gate to find it was locked. We were about to continue on our way when a lady came through the graveyard and unlocked the gate. She told us that the church was locked, but we were welcome to walk around the grounds. There were really old graves, many of which locals probably consider local historic figures, but we did not recognize any of the names.
Wragg square is a very nice park leading up to the Second Presbyterian Church. We walked through the park thinking this would be a wonderful walk to worship service every week. We spent a short time at the church and in the park before starting on our way again.
Outside the Charleston Museum is a replica of the civil war submarine, H.L. Hunley. The H.L. Hunley replica is 17" taller than the original and Ernie at 6' is taller than replica. The sailors in the H.L. Hunley must have been literally stacked in there like sardines in a can.
Upon entering the museum we were told we could buy a combination ticket for the museum and 2 of the historic homes. Ernie told the lady that he had been to Charleston a long time ago and remembered a house with a large free-standing cantilever spiral staircase. We were told that one of the included homes, Joseph Manigault House, was the house Ernie remembered, so we bought the combination tickets. We toured the museum for a couple of hours. The most interesting things we found out was that rice was the most lucrative product of that part of the south and that the plantation owners were as afraid of a slave uprising as the slaves were afraid of the owners. This last point was confirmed by a young black woman who was the tour guide at the plantation we later visited and has college degrees with a major in southern history of the USA.
Joseph Manigault House is next door to the Charleston Museum, so we went there next. We only had to wait a few minutes for the next tour to start. As soon as we walked in Ernie saw this was not the house with the cantilever free-standing spiral staircase. There is a spiral staircase that we were told is of cantilever construction, but it is not as large as the one he remembered and is against a wall so it is not free-standing. We toured the house, most of the furniture is of the correct time period, but was not owned by the historic home owners.
The other home on the tickets we had bought is Heyward-Washington House. It is on Church St. which is a short street that runs parallel to Meeting St. back beyond where we had started. We crossed meeting street and headed back. Along the way we stop at Marion Square, a park with a memorial to Wade Hampton and a nice fountain. Wade Hampton was a Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army, Governor of South Carolina, and US Senator from South Carolina. We continued along Meeting St. passing what we had already seen plus St. Michael's Episcopal Church, the Postal Museum and First Presbyterian Church.
We did a tour of Heyward-Washington House, pretty much the same as the tour of Joseph Manigault House. One interesting feature was the hall floor was sloped toward one door, they leveled the floor but in doing this they had to shortened the door by cutting it off at the bottom. This made for a very low door handle. They also had to make a very short risers on the first three steps of the stairway.
After the tour we walked to East Bay St. to view the houses that make up Rainbow Row. Rainbow Row is a long row of houses each painted a different color. We continued along East Bay St., walking along the sea wall, to White Point Gardens. White Point Gardens is a nice park with many cannons & mortars that were used by the confederate army to fire on Fort Sumter starting the American Civil War. In the park there is a relic we have not seen in decades, a "working" pay phone. When we saw some of our grandchildren and told them about the pay phone they could not imagine what we were talking about, even after showing them the picture.
On our return to the Historic District the last day we visited Charleston, we did a tour of Nathaniel Russell House. This is the house that has the cantilever free-standing spiral staircase Ernie remembered from his first visit to Charleston. Though the staircase is not as wide as Ernie remembered it to be, we think it is an impressive structure.On the third day we visited Charleston we went back to the Historic District to tour the Nathaniel Russell House. This is the home that has the free-standing cantilever spiral staircase. Some sources refer to it as a free-flying staircase. The staircase ascends from the first floor to the second and third floors. Though there is a landing on each upper floor, the only support for the staircase is the cantilever construction. The weight of each step is supported by the step below it, we do not pretend to know how this works, but we are impressed by the fact it does work. There were no nails nor screws used in constructing the staircase, it is held together with wooden pegs. There is a small window cut into the back of the staircase so we could see the wooden peg construction. Another interesting feature of the house is; what appears to be elaborate molding where the walls meet the ceiling is actually a flat painted-on design. Until we put our heads against the wall and looked up we could not see that it was not real molding. Most of the furniture in the house are pieces originally owned by the Russell family. Of the houses we toured in Charleston this was the most interesting. ( Pictures)
Charleston ItineraryThe first night we got back from the Historic District, we went on line and bought combination tickets to Patriot's Point and Fort Sumter. Patriot's Point is where the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown is docked. The carrier is decommissioned and now is a museum. The destroyer USS Laffey and submarine USS Clamagore are also available to browse.
Fort Sumter is on an island at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. The American Civil War started when southern forces in Charleston fired on the federal troops at Ft Sumter.
We were going to do the Fort Sumter tour first, but we were more than ½ hr early so we went down the pier to look at the ships. We did not board them at this time.
We boarded the tour boat with about 25-30 passengers. This meant we had a lot of space on the boat as its' maximum capacity is 188 passengers. It also meant that there was no crowding at the fort. The tour boats are the only ones that can dock at Fort Sumter. We asked a ranger if private boats could come to the fort, he told us they can anchor off the island and swim in, but cannot dock there. There is a sand bar between Fort Sumter and a point on James Island. For a few hours, twice a day, at mid-point between low and high tides it is possible to walk to Fort Sumter. Interestingly, it is not a natural sand bar, the Army Corps of Engineers did some dredging that created the sand bar. The sand bar is constantly getting larger, so at some point there may be a permanent land bridge out to the fort.
When we headed out and came back we passed within 50 ft. of the stern of the USS Yorktown, which Ernie thinks was really neat. On the way to Fort Sumter we passed Pinckney Castle, which looks like a fort because it originally was a fort. When viewing it from White Point Gardens in Charleston we kind of wondered if it was Fort Sumter, but decided it was too close and too small. We had a little more than an hour at the fort, so Ernie decided to walk around while Dale listened to part of the talk a ranger was giving before joining him. We have been to a number of old forts and they pretty much are the same, but we are glad we visited this one. One interesting thing we had not seen at other forts, there are unexploded shells still embedded in the walls where they hit. The last display we looked at before heading back to the tour boat was the tattered flag that was flying over the fort when the southern forces fired on it.
When we returned from the Fort Sumter tour, we went through the area where the ships are docked to a boardwalk that goes through the marina to a resort where there is a restaurant where we had lunch. Upon returning to Patriot's Point we intended to visit the USS Clamagore first, but as we approached it we noticed a large school group heading that way, so we visited the USS Laffey first. After walking throughout the USS Laffey we went to the USS Clamagore. We did not take any pictures of either of these two ships. We have been on destroyers before and there was not much different to see on USS Laffey. The one thing we did notice, that we may have just overlooked on other destroyers, there are three bridges on the USS Laffey. The tour of the USS Clamagore consisted of entering through the forward hatch, walking through to the aft hatch, and exiting through the aft hatch. There is nothing else to explore on this submarine, which is basically a tunnel going through all the sections of the sub. We did take note of the very close quarters in the sub thinking we would not have been able to live on a sub for days nevermind months at a time. It also brought to mind how much worse the conditions must have been for the men on the H.L. Hunley.
The USS Yorktown is why most people come to Patriot's Point. This was the first time either of us had been on an aircraft carrier. The USS Yorktown is huge, but not the unimaginable size that is depicted in movies and documentaries. When we saw the relatively short distance the pilots had to get up to speed to take off and stop after landing, we were just that much more impressed by the skill of these pilots.
We entered the ship on the hangar deck, where they have several aircraft on display. We looked at several of the displays, then came to the Apollo 8 space capsule. The Yorktown is the ship that retrieved this capsule upon splashdown after orbiting the moon. The capsule is setup as an interactive display. We went into the capsule got into the position two astronauts would have been in, and watched an encapsulated video of the trip around the moon from take-off to splashdown. It is a really enjoyable experience, though Ernie could not get comfortable. There are two seats?, not sure how to refer to these. It is sort of a bench with a low section and a high section with pads on each section. You lay on the lower section with your upper legs pointing straight-up from your hips and your lower legs across the upper section. Ernie had to scrunch down to keep his head on the lower section and his knees were well above the upper section so his lower legs were angled down with just the back of his heels touching. Now we know why at least at the beginning of the space program astronauts were required to be no more than 5' 9". Though he was uncomfortable the experience was so good Ernie would happily do it again.
After the capsule experience we tried to find the way to the flight deck. We followed some signs for one of the tours, but it dead-ended so we had to re-trace our steps. We final found someone who told us which stairway to use. Once on the flight deck Ernie headed straight to the stern so he could experience looking the length of the deck. A very strong wind was at our backs and the fence at the end of the deck is only a little more than waist high on Ernie so he approached it carefully. We then walked to the bow end of the deck, fighting not to be blown back by the wind. We then looked over some of the aircraft on the deck as we made our way to the entrance to the bridge.
After visiting the bridge, we went back to the hangar deck where we discovered the fighter plane that we were allowed to go in finally did not have anyone waiting to do it. Ernie climbed up into the plane. When he was in the eighth grade Ernie and his cousin were invited to a party at the Air Force base near where his cousin lived. The father of the girls who invited them was the CO of the base. He took them on a short tour of the base including climbing up to look into the cockpit of a fighter plane, but they were not allowed to go into it.
This was a really enjoyable day. ( Pictures)
Charleston ItineraryThe morning of our third day visiting Charleston, we went to the McLeod Plantation which is on James Island. We were there about ½ hour before the next guided tour was to start. We walked through some of the area that would not be included in the guided tour.
We went to the slave graveyard on the plantation. Though they refer to it as a cemetary we have to go with the term graveyard, because it is not like any cemetery we have ever visited. There are no markers nor any other other way of determining where the graves are. If not for the sign, put up since the plantation became a tourist attraction, it would appear to be just an open area amongst some trees.
Just beyond the graveyard is Wappoo Creek. There is a dock on the creek that was used for transporting the cotton into Charleston. To our surprise the slaves also used it to go into Charleston and to other plantations to do some trading of their own. It is only a couple of hundred yards across the creek to Charleston, so traveling to Charleston was much quicker by boat than by road which was a trip of several miles.
We were very fortunate that our tour guide was a young lady that has a masters degree in US History with emphasis on the south prior to, during, and after the US Civil War. She is particularly well versed in the history of the Gullah people who made up the slave population in the Charleston area and other South Carolina ocean islands. Gullah is a culture generated by the many different peoples of Africa brought here as slaves. In Georgia the culture is referred to as Geechee.
It was interesting to learn that the slaves on the plantation had their own community, including a building used as a church and a school. We were told that when a slave woman gave birth to a baby, after the baby was born she would be sent back out into the fields to work and another slave woman would be assigned as a wet nurse for the baby. Upon hearing this some people on the tour asked if this was so the woman having the baby would not miss too much time in the field, but Ernie was thinking that the wet nurse would have had to have recently given birth and so would have been sent out into the field when another wet nurse took care of her baby and so forth down the line. Ernie asked if the reason why they would do this was an attempt to weaken the family structure of the slave community. The answer was yes that was the main reason that they followed this practice, the slave owners were much more afraid of a slave uprising than the slaves were afraid of the owners.
It was really nice to have someone who has studied the culture of the time as a guide, we were given a look into how life actually was on these plantations instead of the usual retelling of stories of who different family members married and how opulent their lives were. Another interesting thing that we were told is that at least 2⁄3 of a plantation owner's wealth was the value of the slaves and that other than the owner's house a strong healthy slave could have a value greater than most any other single possession of the owner. The slave owners had the power of life or death over the slaves, but rarely would kill a valuable possession.
There are about ½ dozen slave buildings that we could look into and we were allowed to spend as much time as we wanted roaming around the grounds and in the plantation owner's house. ( Pictures)
Go To TopLast updated: apr 17 2018