place

Confederate Home

Houses in Charleston, South Carolina
Confederate House c. 1890
Confederate House c. 1890

The Confederate Home is a retirement home located in an early 19th-century building at 60 Broad Street in Charleston, South Carolina. The building started as a double tenement in about 1800, built for master builder Gilbert Chalmers. From 1834 to 1867, it was operated as the Carolina Hotel by Angus Stewart. In 1867, sisters Mary Amarinthia Snowden and Isabell S. Snowden established the Home for the Mothers, Widows, and Daughters of Confederate Soldiers (the Confederate Home) and operated their housing program at the house. The Confederate Home bought the property outright in May 1874. Two stores operated on the Broad Street frontage. Educational and residential facilities were located behind.When the building was damaged by the 1886 Charleston earthquake, it was restored with Victorian details, including a mansard roof and dormers.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Confederate Home (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Confederate Home
Chalmers Street, Charleston

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Confederate HomeContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 32.776776 ° E -79.929846 °
placeShow on map

Address

Confederate Home and College

Chalmers Street
29415 Charleston
South Carolina, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Confederate House c. 1890
Confederate House c. 1890
Share experience

Nearby Places

Washington Square (Charleston)
Washington Square (Charleston)

Washington Square is a park in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. It is located behind City Hall at the corner of Meeting Street and Broad Street in the Charleston Historic District. The planting beds and red brick walks were installed in April 1881. It was known as City Hall Park until October 19, 1881 (the centennial of the Yorktown surrender), when it was renamed in honor of George Washington. The new name was painted over the gates in December 1881.The location of Washington Square once was the site of Corbett's Thatched Tavern. The city square was opened in 1818. Along the east wall of the park is a monument to Gen. Pierre Beauregard, the Confederate general in charge of the city's defenses in 1862-1864. In 2004, the monument had repair work performed to correct a lean that had developed.In May 1901, a bust of Henry Timrod was unveiled in the park.In the center of the park is a memorial to the Washington Light Infantry. The memorial is made of Carolina gray granite and is a miniature version of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. The memorial is about forty-two feet high and is inscribed with the names of important military battles and the names of the unit's dead from the War Between the States. It was unveiled on February 23, 1891.A statue of William Pitt the Elder was once located in Washington Park. The statue was moved to Washington Park from the Charleston Orphan House on Calhoun Street in 1881 and placed on a new pedestal of Fairfield County granite. The statue suffered repeated damage, including a decapitation from a falling tree branch in November 1938, before being moved to the County Courthouse. A statue of George Washington was later installed on the base of the Pitt statue following some local controversy. Plans for the new work began in 1992. The Washington statue was going to be a twice-life-size sculpture by Felix de Weldon. Eventually, Jon Michel was chosen instead. The work, which cost $165,000, was unveiled on December 14, 1999.

Charleston City Hall (South Carolina)
Charleston City Hall (South Carolina)

The Charleston City Hall is a building designed by Gabriel Manigault. The city bought the building and began using it as Charleston's City Hall in 1819, making it the second longest serving city hall in the United States (second only to New York City's). The site of City Hall was a beef market in 1739, but the market was destroyed in a fire in 1796, and the corner parcel was conveyed to the Charleston branch of the First Bank of the United States in 1800. The construction of the bank was overseen by Edward Magrath and Joseph Nicholsen (carpenters) and by Andrew Gordon (mason).While the building was being repairs in 1882, the mayor worked out of Market Hall and other city officials worked from the Union Bank on East Bay Street and the Mills House. The building was modified in 1882 when the stucco was applied over the formerly exposed brickwork, and a metal roof was added. The interior of the building was gutted at that time, and the current City Council chambers on the second floor were built. Henry Oliver was paid $14,000 as the contractor. The 1882 project had three missions: (1) a new roof, (2) accommodating all city offices, and (3) convenient public access. The work began on May 1, 1881, and the interior was entirely stripped out, leaving only the exterior walls. The council chambers are 25' by 45' and 22' high. The room was carpeted in 1882 with the mayor's seat along the south side with black walnut desks arranged in a semicircular plan for the member of city council. A gallery with a metal railing overlooks to chamber on the north, east, and west sides. The exterior of the building was changed in 1882. The exposed brick was stuccoed over, the walls were raised five feet, and a new roof was installed. The windows were changed to French windows with walnut frames.The council chambers were again modified following the earthquake of 1886 with Victorian woodwork.The 1886 Earthquake damaged the exterior, and large chunks of marble broke loose and fell off the building even in 1897. The heating system exploded on November 9, 1897, and water infiltrated the building too. Rumors circulated that City Council was investigating the demolition of the building which the local newspaper described as being "neither an ornament nor a landmark" that was rapidly becoming a "veritable death trap." A committee charged with deciding the response favored demolishing and replacing City Hall as did City Council in a unanimous vote, but the cost of building an adequate replacement for the prominent corner prompted the restoration instead.Contracts were executed in August 1898 for the new round of repairs and improvements. Work in 1898 included recoating the building with cement. New heaters were also installed, and the office configuration was changed. A plan for a two-story addition to the north facade was proposed, but the change was abandoned. Officials began returning to the repaired building in late February 1899.In 2003, city officials began discussing restoration of the building, noting that the 1886 earthquake repairs had not been done well in the first place. The expected cost of repairing the building and stabilizing it against future earthquake damage was expected to cost $5 million, but some officials suspected the price would far exceed that amount. The building reopening on June 12, 2007, after extensive restorations.City Hall has many notable paintings on display including a full-length portrait of George Washington by John Trumbull and a portrait of James Monroe by Samuel B. Morse.

St. Michael's Churchyard, Charleston

St. Michael's Churchyard, adjacent to historic St. Michael's Episcopal Church on the corner of Meeting and Broad Streets, in Charleston, South Carolina is the final resting place of some famous historical figures, including two signers of the Constitution of the United States. The church was established in 1751 as the second Anglican parish in Charleston, South Carolina. Interred in St. Michael's Churchyard are: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746–1825) Colonel in the Continental Army, member of the U.S. Constitutional Convention and signer of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Minister to France, Federalist candidate for Vice President, and later candidate for President of the United States in 1804 and 1808 John Rutledge (1739–1800) Governor of South Carolina, 1779, member of the U.S. Constitutional Convention and signer of the U.S. Constitution, Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court Robert Young Hayne (1791–1839) Senator, Governor of South Carolina, and mayor of Charleston Arthur Peronneau Hayne (c. 1789–1867) U.S. Senator from South Carolina William Dickinson Martin (1789–1833) U.S. Congressman from South Carolina Mordecai Gist (1742–1792) American Revolutionary War general Thomas M. Wagner, Civil War Lieutenant Colonel and namesake for Battery Wagner. Henrietta Johnston and her second husbandAcross the street is St. Michael's Church Cemetery. Interred here is Francis Kinloch (1755–1826) a delegate to Second Continental Congress from South Carolina. J. A. W. Iusti, Frederick Julius Ortmann, and Christopher Werner were three German born forgers of wrought iron in Charleston. Iusti's creation of the St. Michael's Cemetery Gate "Sword Gate" is one of the two most notable iron gates in Charleston, the other being the "Sword Gate" by Werner.

Pink House (Charleston, South Carolina)
Pink House (Charleston, South Carolina)

Pink House is a historic house and art gallery at 17 Chalmers Street in Charleston, South Carolina that is one of the oldest buildings in South Carolina and is the second oldest residence in Charleston after the Colonel William Rhett House. The house was built between 1694 and 1712 of pinkish Bermuda stone by John Breton in the city's French Quarter. The date of the building has been the subject of dispute. Two local historians fixed the date as 1712, but a construction date as late as 1745 has been suggested. Pink is today thought of as the traditional colour for Bermudian homes (excepting the slate roofs, which are whitewashed), which have been built almost exclusively from the soft white native limestone (limestone broken down into sand due to natural forces and blown during interglacials into dunes, which re-fused into sandstone) since the 17th Century due to stormy weather and the need to conserve Bermuda cedar forests for shipbuilding (see Architecture of Bermuda). The norm before the Twentieth Century had actually been to whitewash both walls and roofs, and this whitewash would fade and discolour to a pinkish hue if not replaced often enough. Bermuda's links with Charleston and the southern colonies (now states of the United States) were foundational, with the archipelago having been settled in 1609-1612 (the Spanish name for the previously unoccupied archipelago derived from the surname of mariner Juan de Bermudez and was officially replaced in 1612 with Virgineola, which was soon changed to The Somers Isles in commemoration of Admiral Sir George Somers, but the Spanish name has resisted replacement) by the Virginia Company as an extension of Jamestown, Virginia, with both Charleston and the Province of Carolina having been settled from Bermuda in 1670 by settlers under William Sayle, and with most of the 10,000 emigrants from Bermuda between settlement and the gaining of independence by the United States having settled in the South. The ties with Virginia and South Carolina were especially close, and Bermuda's wealthy merchant families had established branches in Charleston and other important Southern Atlantic ports to control trade through those cities and otherwise play important roles (examples including two of the sons of prominent Bermudian Colonel Henry Tucker (1713–1787), St. George Tucker (1752-1827), and Thomas Tudor Tucker (1745-1828)). Denmark Vesey also came to Charleston from Bermuda. Less wealthy Bermudians settled sometimes together, founding towns, and there are now many locations in the South that have been named after the islands of Bermuda. The close ties of blood and trade between Bermuda and the South meant most white Bermudians, at least, had strong sympathies with the South and Bermuda's proximity to Charleston made it the ideal location from which to smuggle European manufactured weapons into Charleston and cotton out via Confederate blockade runners during the American Civil War. Also during that war, First Sergeant Robert John Simmons was a Bermudian who served in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, who died in Charleston in August 1863 as a result of wounds received in the Battle of Fort Wagner. The tile gambrel roof dates to the eighteenth century. The building was a tavern in the 1750s. James Gordon was the owner of the house by the 1780s. The artist Alice R. Huger Smith used the house as a studio in the early twentieth century. In the 1930s the house was restored by Mr. and Mrs. Victor Morawetz. Currently, the house features an art gallery.