





AUGUST
August 11
1775 -- The slave Thomas Jeremiah went on trial under the Negro Act of 1740 for helping to arm other enslaved Blacks in support of the British cause. Found guilty, he was sentenced "to be hanged, and then burned to ashes." (Source: Charleston, Charleston! by Walt Fraser, p. 145)
August 12
1775 -- A local mob seized a British soldier "for some insolent speech he had made," tarred and feathered him, and "putting him in a cart paraded through the Town ... using him very cruelly all the time." But the afternoon, the crowd had grown to 400, who roamed through the streets, stopping at the houses of suspected Crown sympathizers, using the soldier to demonstrate what their fate might be if they continued their support of the Crown. (Source: Charleston, Charleston! by Walt Fraser, p. 145)
August 13
1901 -- The city of Charleston sold the former Chicora Plantation, a few miles north of the city and along the Cooper River, to the U.S. Navy to create a base and shipyard.
August 15
1741 -- As reported in the Gazette, an enslaved man named Boatswain was brutally excuted after being named as a co-conspirator in a arsonist's plot. The disturbing article shows evidence of the increasing fear whites had as the enslaved Black majority of the colony increased.
August 17
1695 -- John Archdale, a Quaker, was appointed Governor of the Carolina colony.
1775 -- Jemmy, the slave who testified against his brother-in-law Thomas Jeremiah, recanted his testimony that Jeremiah had been involved in transporting British arms to this enslaved colleagues. (Source: Charleston, Charleston! by Walt Fraser, p. 146)
1780 -- Capt. Archibald Broun, a Revolutionary hero of Brounsfield Plantation in Mt. Pleasant, married Mary Deas, the daughter of his wealthy neighbors, John and Elizabeth Allen Deas of Thoroughgood Plantation.
August 18
1775 -- Despite his brother-in-law's recanted tesimony that he was distributing British arms to enslaved Negros, Thomas Jeremiah was hanged anyway, then burnt to ashes as his sentence decreed. He had maintained his innocence to the end. S.C. Gov. William Campbell believed Jeremiah was innocent, as did the Royal Attorney General, saying Jeremiah was the victim of local hysteria. (Source: Charleston, Charleston! by Walt Fraser, p. 146)
August 19
1764 -- Arthur Middleton married Mary Izard, "a Lady who is one of the first of her sex for sense, politeness and every female accomplishment."
August 20
1694 -- In his will written on this date, Capt. John Coming left his entire estate to his widow, Affra Harleston Coming.
August 22
1863 -- Some time around 10:45 p.m., Union Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore sent a note to Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard demanding Charleston's immediate surrender or else at midnight he would commence firing from a new battery recently built between James and Morris islands to hold the canon known as the Swamp Angel.
August 23
1863 -- Union Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore began firing upon Charleston using the canon known as the Swamp Angel. It blew up on its 20th shot.
August 24
1526 -- Spanish explorer Lucas de Ayllon visited the area around Cape Romain, naming the area Cape San Romano, as this date is St. Romano's Day. (Source: Home in the Village by Walter Bonner.)
1863 -- The Swamp Angel exploded on its 20th shot of the evening.
August 29
1951 -- Seventy-three orphans left the Charleston Orphanage for the last time before it is torn down to make room for a new Sears Department Store.
August 27
1782 -- In the waning days of the American Revolution, John Laurens was shot off his horse and mortally wounded.
August 31
1886 -- The largest earthquake ever recorded on the East Coast, estimated to have been a 7.2 on today's Richter Scale, struck Charleston.







