January



January 1

1766 -- As Charlestonians became more alarmed at the increasing ratio of the enslaved vs. white population in Charles Town, the Assembly imposed heavy import duties on all slaves brought into the colony.

1787 -- Arthur Middleton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, died.

1807 -- A federal law ended the foreign slave trade, at least legally if not in practice.

1838 -- Osceola arrived as a prisoner at Fort Moultrie.

1863 -- One of the greatest South Carolina scientists you've probably never heard of, Arthur T. Wayne, was born.

1910 -- A reporter for the News & Courier wrote: “Traveling men usually remember the places they visit by the kinds of hotels at which they stopped. In Charleston there is one hotel that the consensus of opinion has named ‘The Best.’ This is the Charleston Hotel ... a part of [the city’s] traditions.”



January 3

1918 -- Mary A. Storfer, the new proprietress of the Timrod Inn, announced in the News and Courier: "Many people have told us that the Timrod Inn fills a distinct place in the community, and indications are that our rooms will be in demand from the beginning. We shall open Monday morning and guests will be given desirable accommodations without delay."



January 5

1860-- The merchant steamer Star of the West left New York’s harbor. Though the Star apparently left its berth with only unspecified supplies aboard, it soon picked up more than 200 recruits from tugboats in the harbor before heading to Fort Sumter.

Simultaneously, Maj. Robert Anderson telegraphed Washington saying that while South Carolina was erecting batteries, he felt safe for the time being at Fort Sumter.



January 6

1704 -- Ruth Brewton, the future wife of S.C. Commissary Gen. William Pinckney and mother of Col. Charles Pinckney, was born daughter to Col. Miles and Mary Brewton.



January 8

1732 -- Thomas Whitmarsh, who had once worked for Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, published the first edition of the South Carolina Gazette.

1741 -- Feeling that the Great Conflagration of 1740 was a sign of God's displeasure with Charles Town's sinful society, Anglican evangelist George Whitfield wrote in the Gazette that even the colony's clergy did not follow in "the Footsteps of our True Sheperd." He was arrested and returned to England.



January 9

1752 -- Archibald Broun, a Patriot hero of the American Revolution, was born at Brounsfield Plantation, north of Charles Town.

1760 -- Gov. Lyttleton and his soldiers marched down Broad Street as cannons fired to welcome troops back to Charleston after signing a peace treaty with the Cherokees near Keowee. The treaty was hastily made as smallpox was ravaging the natives and the soldiers feared catching it. Several days after their return, the city's worst epidemic to date of smallpox broke out within the colony.

1861 -- Shortly after midnight, a merchant ship, Star of the West, arrived outside Charleston Harbor. In Fort Sumter, Maj. Robert Anderson faced a historic decision: should he defend the Star should it enter Charleston Harbor or continue to do nothing to provoke the Carolinians, as his orders from Washington had said. He prepared to cover the ship, his men posted at the ready. Then he waited.



January 10

1815 -- American Patriot Rebecca Brewton Motte died.

1861 -- At dawn, the merchant schooner Star of the West began to enter Charleston Harbor. What many say was the true first shot of the Civil War was fired at it by Citadel Cadets stationed on Morris Island.

1901 -- The Navy Board recommended Charleston as the site of its new Navy Base.

1947 -- Union Station was destroyed by a fire that started in an oil stove by the ground-floor newsstand that “just flared up,” according to one witness.



January 11

1747 -- George Lucas died in French captivity during the War of Austrian Succession (aka War of Jenkins Ear). He left his 17-year-old daughter, Eliza, to manage his Wappoo, Garden Hill, and Combahee plantations.

1777 -- William Tennent III addressed the state's assembly, "praying for a Constitutional Recognition of the Equal Rights of all Religious Denominations."



January 12

1723 -- Sir William Rhett, a colonial leader and captain who captured the notorious Stede Bonnet and other pirates, died.

1760 -- A smallpox epidemic broke out in Charleston.

1773 -- The forerunner of The Charleston Museum was founded as one of the first, and perhaps even the first depending on how one defines it, public museum in the colonies.



January 13

1947 -- A story in the Evening Post recorded that fate had “taken a hand in the problem of providing Charleston with the type of railway passenger facilities a community of this size and prospects is entitled to” as it reported on the fire that destroyed Union Station.



January 15

1778 -- One of the most destructive fires in Charleston's history broke out after dark near the intersection of Queen and Union (now State) streets.

1929 -- Joseph "Big Joe" Gawrych was born in North Haven, CT. According to his obituary in the Post and Courier, after his Navy service he and his Charleston bride settled in Mt. Pleasant, where he coached 11- and 12-year-old boys' baseball for more than 45 years. In 2013, the Joe Gawrych Baseball Park in Mt. Pleasant was named in his honor. He also planted gardenias on Charlotte Street in the 1970s, which his obit said have been propagated across the Southeast.



January 17

1767 -- Mary-Anne Schad, the wife of a plantation overseer, gave birth to her second child, a daughter. Planters believed that having a married overseer would keep an overseer more settled and responsible. (Source: South Carolina Women, p. 66)

1820 -- John and Lavinia Fisher’s appeal on charges of highway robbery was unsuccessful. They were sentenced to be hanged Feb. 4.



January 18

1735 -- Planter Charles Lowndes advertised his 1,000-acre Goose Creek plantation for sale in the South Carolina Gazette. (Source: Goose Creek, A Definitive History, Vol. 1)



January 19

1738 -- Captain Morris offered 100 acres in Goose Creek free for experimentation with growing silk. He also requested that the Commons House of Assembly appeal to Parliament to reduce the duty on silk. (Source: Goose Creek, A Definitive History, Vol. 1, p. 99)

1903 -- S.C. Lt. Gov. James H. Tillman, Ben Tillman's nephew, fatally shot Narciso Gener Gonzales, editor of The (Columbia) State newspaper, during a confrontation on the S.C. State House steps.



January 20

1649 -- King Charles I of England went on trial, accused by Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan allies, for high treason. The Carolina colony had been named in his honor.

1837 -- Sarah and Angelina Grimke begin the first of a six-week lecture series about slavery in New York Baptist churches.

1994 -- Shannon Faulkner became the first undergraduate woman to attend classes at The Citadel. She joined the cadet corps in August 1995, but dropped out about a week later, citing isolation and stress from the legal proceedings and her reception at the college.



January 24

1735 -- A troupe of traveling actors working with local musicians staged the colony's first theatrical season in the "long room" of Shepheard's Tavern, on the northeast corner of Broad and Church streets. The season opener was The Orphan, or the Unhappy Marriage and cost 40 shillings for a ticket.

1945 -- The Christ Church (Mt. Pleasant) flagon was returned to the Rev. Edmund Coe by Bonnie McArty, whose uncle Frank Blaine, a Union infantryman, stole it during the Civil War. (Source: Stolen Charleston: The Spoils of War, p. 11.)



January 25

1739 -- The South Carolina Gazette advertised the sale of James Moore's "very good brick two-story House" at his Goose Creek plantation. (Source: Goose Creek: A Definitive History, Vol. 1, p. 97)

1902 -- Linnelle Hall (m. Griggs) was born in Marlboro County.

1986 -- Christopher Handal married Leigh Jones.



January 27

1785 -- According to the journal of the House of Representatives, two petitions were presented, one of which called for the establishment of a school (which would later become the College of Charleston) at Charleston and the other at Winnsborough. The petitions were sent to committee for consideration. (Source: A History of the College of Charleston, p. 18, available for free download.)

2003 -- Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, Charleston resident Frank Abagnale and Tom Hanks attend a press conference in London before the UK premier of the movie, "Catch Me if You Can."



January 28

1735 -- With the performance of The Orphan, or the Unhappy Marriage having been so well received, a second performance was scheduled this evening. In an epilogue, the actors told the audience they had been "encouraged by your smiles" and that unlike the "witch hanging" crowd in New England, Charlestonians knew how "to blend amusement with life." (Source: Charleston! Charleston!, p. 59)

1861 -- The S.C. General Assembly approved Barnwell Rhett Jr.'s proposed design for a state flag featuring a blue background with a white palmetto tree centered and a white crescent with horns pointing upward in the left-hand corner.



January 29

1813 -- A man named Pierre Mathesau was hanged in front of the Old City Jail on Magazine Street. (Source: Abode of Misery: An Illustrated Compilation of Facts, Secrets and Myths of the Old Charleston District Jail)

1649 -- Charles I was beheaded as Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan Party assumed rule over England.

1662 -- Newly restored to the British throne, Charles II had the body of Oliver Cromwell exhumed on the 12th anniversary of his father's execution and beheaded the corpse.

1770 -- Lt. Gov. William Bull recommended to the General Assembly the establishment of a provincial college, which became what we know today as the College of Charleston.

1838 -- Osceola died and, contrary to his last wishes, was buried at Fort Moultrie.

1862 -- Henry Michael Lofton, of the 10th Regiment, took time off from the Civil War to marry Susan Ann Morrison at Second Presbyterian Church. (Source: Home in the Village: McClellanville in Old St. James Santee Parish, p. 76)

1866 -- The melted fragments of St. Michael's bells were shipped back to England to be recast after their destruction during the Civil War.



January 31

1861 -- In the wake of seccession, S.C. Attorney General Issac W. Hayne, who was serving Gov. Francis W. Pickens as an envoy to Washington, wrote to U.S. President Buchanan, warning him that Federal occupation of Fort Sumter "if continued long enough, must lead to a collision." (Source: Confederate South Carolina: True Stories of Civilians, Soldiers and the War, p. 19-20)

Arthur Middleton of Middleton Plantation (Credit: Image is in the public domain)

The story of the Charleston Hotel is included in our Lost Charleston tour. (Photo credit: Library of Congress, public domain)

U.S. Maj. Robert Anderson, Commanding Officer at Fort Sumter (Photo credit: Library of Congress, within the public domain)

The Rev. George Whitfield (1714-1770), an Anglican priest, itinerant preacher, and a founder of Methodism, was often called "Dr. Squintum" by detractors because of his lazy left eye. (Credit: Public domain)

Union Station, c. 1910. (Photo credit: John W. Barriger III, National Railroad Library)

The Col. William Rhett House is one of the oldest, and probably the oldest, residences remaining in Charleston's Old & Historic District. (Photo credit: Wikimedia, public domain)

Firefighters battle flames at Union Station on East Bay Street, part of our Lost Charleston tour. (Photo credit: Charleston Fire Department, 1947)

Interior staircase inside Charleston's Old District Jail. Lavinia Fisher would most likely have been housed on the third or fourth floor with the district's most notorious criminals. We visit the jail on both our Lost Charleston and Public Square tours. (Photo credit: Library of Congress, with the public domain)

King Charles I (Credit: Original by Anthony van Dyck, created Jan. 1, 1636, public domain)

We visit Christ Church graveyard on our French Santee tour. (Photo credit: Christ Church)

Leonardo DiCaprio, Frank Abagnale, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg attend a premier of Catch Me If You Can.

This is one of the most common versions of the S.C. State flag, though the state has never approved a final version; therefore the palm tree's design varies somewhat.

St. Michael's Church was built between 1752 and 1761. We visit it on our Charleston Overview tour.