Finally made it to Charleston and it was worth visiting. Coming from the northern coast, it was really easy to get into the historic part of town. Although I had trouble spotting the signs until I was on foot parking is plentiful and reasonable. The ramps and lots I saw are small and frequent and the ramps also contain public toilets. There are very few buildings from before the revolutionary war, most of the impressive stuff is mid-1800s or new and built to look like older.
The older part of town once had a defensive wall around it and the southernmost tip of the peninsula was tidal swamp like much of the coastline. Since the original settlers were french, it isn't surprising that many of the older parts of town had a foreign look to it. I found it surprising to see a look more closely resembling Quebec than New Orleans.
Originally the settlers built on Parris Island and then moved up the river and built again. When the governor decided that place would be too hard to defend, they moved to the current location. It was an orderly move. Charleston was carefully plotted and laid out. Green squares were made an intricate part of the plan and most of them still exist. Not only are there little green parks scattered around, there are many benches and walls on the streets waiting to be used. There are even free trolleys that loop around town on three different lines.
The older part of town is directed mostly to tourists. There are some shops, lots of restaurants, historical churches and buildings and then lawyer offices scattered around. Mostly I'd say it's residential with big, old, well-maintained houses and discrete apartment buildings, especially in what I think were wharf buildings. I'm guessing there are many more rentals than I saw because there are huge numbers of 20-something people using the green spaces. Everything I saw was clean; there's no trash blowing around, no graffiti, no loiterers and no obvious police or maintenance workers.
Move a little further up the peninsula and banks and hotels start appearing. They are built in keeping with the 1800s and with a french flair, but they have a new, sharp-edged look to them that the older buildings lack. Some of the older buildings have had face-lifts and most at least a good scrubbing. . Apparently it was customary for a plantation owner to have a town house for summer. Sea breezes keep Charleston cooler and healthier than a plantation in summer where the mosquitoes and gnats are supposed to be fierce. Course their slaves were still there.
Even though there weren't as many tourists as I prepared for, there were enough that I saw some kind of tour nearly every block. There are small tour buses, bicycle cabs that give tours, walking tours, harbor tours and horse-drawn wagon tours that were the most popular.
The first couple of wagons I saw were pulled by a single Clydesdale that made a funny sound as it walked by. Then I saw a pair of mules and they too sounded strange. When I took time to get a good look, I saw they were all wearing wooden shoes. Are they to protect the paving when the roads get really hot or to protect the horses feet?
One of the older buildings is the city market dating from 1841. Its made of brick and most of it is still open air. Lots of the vendors are blacks selling sweetgrass baskets. Originally the slave women made baskets as they had in Africa. Whether the original style was wide and flat I don't know, however what they made here was and the baskets were used for winnowing the rice after harvest. A plantation with 4-500 acres in rice would use lots of baskets so those women and their children would have perfected their skill. After the Civil War, some of the free slaves settled on the barrier islands, developed their own culture and continued to make baskets. I don't think many blacks can afford to live on those islands today though they do continue to make and sell baskets. Some are very elaborate and some are plain. All smell really good because of the sweetgrass that is the primary ingredient. The grass is worked into strands and coiled. The coils are sewn into each other with palmetto leaf cut into thin strips and pine needles are used to add color. They keep an even coil besides adding other colored material into it and then hide the ending so the buyer won't be able to see it. Besides the many sellers at the market, there are stands lining the highway where other women sell their baskets. All the baskets I saw were wonders of creation.
I could have bought a ton of stuff at the market. There was whimsical critters made out of spark plugs, nuts and bolts; nice collections of well-made jewelery; tacky t-shirts; hairbrushes with back and handle cast as cat, fish or bird; some appealing pottery patterned after items used in the 18th and 19thcentury; the usual local spices and mixes; and a collection of non-typical mementos – posters advertising slave auctions or offering rewards for runaways.
Charleston and surrounding area played a huge part in the slave trade. There was a port used principally in slave shipment and one of the few remaining original buildings is the slave market. This town is the only one I've seen that labels slavery as inhumane. Other southern cities have mentioned slaves or slavery however none have stood up and declared it as I saw here. The blacks here act like the ones at home and Charleston's acknowledgment may play a part in that. Most blacks I've seen in the south do not make eye contact unless they are challenging nor will they speak more than necessary if addressed. Not here, here the black people I've met expect me to acknowledge they are equal.
This visit I mostly looked at the outside of buildings as I walked down to the Battery Park at the southernmost end of town. There are lots of churches in town, some with the mandatory attached cemetery. One, painted a bright white, has a lighthouse instead of a belfry that was used into the 20thcentury. The houses have street-side gates set in high walls that hide small gardens or driveways. Porches are everywhere. On the newer houses they are open to the air while the older houses sport shutters that block the sun and also block the view when if they are still used as sleeping porches.
All of the visitors I talked to were southerners themselves. One woman was from Atlanta and was going crazy over all the photo opportunities. Another was from Columbia SC, that's a bit like someone from Duluth visiting the Twin Cities. And, surprise, there were more french speaking tour groups than asian ones.
Total aside – a tow is going by –its dark and I can't see more than a small tug at each end. I wish they would go by in the daylight instead of the pleasure boats.
Later I compared notes with Joan, one of the camp hosts. Its been a pleasure to share views with another outsider. Once in awhile even I like to verify I'm walking on the same side of the street as other folks, at least in some things.
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