Charleston Time Machine

Latest Episodes:

Episode 249: Searching For The Curtain Wall of Charleston’s Colonial Waterfront Jan 27, 2023

Show notes

If you’ve ever walked along the east side of East Bay Street in the heart of Charleston, you’ve stood atop a forgotten brick wall that once defined the city’s waterfront. This half-mile-long “wharf wall” or “curtain line” commenced in the 1690s to separate the street from the harbor, but it quickly evolved into a defensive fortification. Damaged by a series of hurricanes in the early 1700s, it was substantially rebuilt several times and finally leveled after the American Revolution. We’ll trace the rise and fall of Charleston’s eastern curtain wall and follow its path below the modern streetscape.

Episode 248: Savannah Highway: The Private Roots of a Public Thoroughfare Jan 13, 2023

Show notes

Can you imagine Savannah Highway as a narrow toll road traversing a patchwork of rural plantations? The present broad ribbon of asphalt covers a modest country path created more than two centuries ago by a private corporation. Its purpose was to funnel agricultural goods, animals, and people from the hinterland to markets in urban Charleston, across the first bridge connecting the city to the Parish of St. Andrew. We’ll explore the commercial roots of a nine-mile path that evolved into a vital transportation corridor.

Episode 247: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Joy and Fear during the Era of Slavery Dec 16, 2022

Show notes

During the era of legal slavery in the United States, most people living in bondage enjoyed a brief respite at Christmas. Their holidays often included celebratory meals, music, and dancing, sometimes in company with their White neighbors. This seasonal liberty also generated great anxiety, however: Slaveowners dreaded Yuletide acts of resistance against their authority, while enslaved people feared violent rebukes of their festive joy. Conversations about the history of Christmas in the South benefit from an honest appraisal of the holiday’s troubled past.

Episode 246: Park Circle: Vestige of the Original North Charleston Concept Dec 02, 2022

Show notes

Long before the rise of the present municipality, a group of capitalists coined the phrase “North Charleston” in 1912 to describe a bold development scheme on the west bank of the Cooper River. The heart of the proposed, 6,000-acre city was an upscale segregated community called Pinewood Park, nestled within a circular array of broad streets and verdant lots. Economic gloom eventually crushed the corporate scheme, but the footprint of the circular neighborhood survived and evolved into the modern community called Park Circle.

Episode 245: The Grand Model: John Culpeper's 1672 Plan for Charles Town Nov 18, 2022

Show notes

How did a maritime forest between the rivers Ashley and Cooper become the urban streetscape we call Charleston? The spark of this long transformation occurred in 1672, when South Carolina’s Surveyor General drew a plan for a town on the verdant peninsula called Oyster Point. Although John Culpeper’s “model” of the town was imperfectly inscribed on the forested landscape, the grid of streets and lots created 350 years ago framed the growth of Charleston and continue to shape the way residents and visitors experience the Palmetto City in the twenty-first century.

Episode 244: Planning Charleston in 1672: The Etiwan Removal Nov 04, 2022

Show notes

Charleston on the peninsula called Oyster Point became the capital of South Carolina in 1680, but plans for the port town commenced a decade earlier. The first step in its creation was an act of displacement ignored by later historians. Like the Dutch colonists who purchased Manhattan from Native Americans in 1626, English settlers around the year 1672 paid Etiwan Indians to abandon the land between the rivers Ashley and Cooper. The Charleston Time Machine explores the context and the evidence of this forgotten transaction.

Episode 243: Ghost Island: Desecration on the Ashley Oct 21, 2022

Show notes

Many years ago, a local family dedicated a small, wooded island near the Ashley River as a solemn refuge for their deceased relations. A mortuary vault of brick and stone sheltered numerous coffins from the passing seasons, but could not repel the intrusion of gnawing vermin and curious humans. After scores of visitors vandalized the secluded crypt, descendants gathered more than a century ago to salvage the remains and demolish the vault. This Gothic story of decay and morbid curiosity underscores the virtues of remembrance and respect in our historic community.

Episode 242: Hispanic Prisoners in Charleston during La Guerra del Asiento Oct 07, 2022

Show notes

During a decade of naval warfare in the 1740s, a number of British warships and privateers brought scores of Spanish-speaking prisoners to Charleston. South Carolina’s provincial government confined most of these mariners within cramped facilities behind iron bars, but provided comfortable accommodations and relative freedom to the gentlemen officers. Charleston Time Machine will explore the forgotten details of the capture, incarceration, and exchange of Hispanic prisoners during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, also known as La Guerra del Asiento.

Episode 241: The Mermaid and the Hornet in the Hurricane of 1752 Sep 23, 2022

Show notes

The powerful hurricane of mid-September 1752 destroyed nearly every watercraft in the vicinity of Charleston, with two dramatic exceptions. His Majesty’s warship Mermaid was driven ashore near the Wando River, while HMS Hornet nearly capsized in the harbor. Descriptions of these harrowing events, written by the officers of both ships, have gathered dust in London archives for nearly three centuries. We’ll explore their forgotten eye-witness accounts of the deadly cyclone and the herculean efforts required to get their vessels back in ship-shape.

Episode 240: The Stono Rebellion of 1739: Where Did It Begin? Sep 09, 2022

Show notes

In early September 1739, dozens of enslaved men residing near the Stono River launched a violent campaign to gain their freedom. The events of that bloody uprising, commonly called the Stono Rebellion, form a pivotal and well-known episode in the history of South Carolina, but our understanding of its geography is imperfect. We'll review the documentary clues relating to the path of the rebellion and propose a new interpretation of its point of origin.

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