Wednesday, October 16, 2013
During our stay in Charleston, we have toured the Charleston Harbor area, toured the oldest unrestored plantation in America, and walked through the historic downtown area. Charleston has several historic forts we would like to have seen, but the Federal Government shutdown ended our chance of seeing any of the forts up close. The last remaining item on our agenda was to see where the original colony settled, and that's what we are going to do today.
Kitty and I arriving at the visitor center and museum.
This Avenue of Oaks was planted by the last owners of this property in 1930, before they donated the property to the State of South Carolina.
The first ship to arrive here from England was the Carolina. A second ship from England, called the Albemarle a few days later, and finally, the Port Royal arrived. These three ships left England with 150 people and all of the necessary supplies to start a colony. Two people died during the voyage, and one can only imagine the excitement the survivors felt when they finally spotted land.
The Adventure is a replica of ships that were typically used for trading along the the east coast.
Making their way into the harbor area, they decided to settle in an area along the Ashley River, and the colony was called Charles Town (1670 to 1783) and remained in this spot for a few years. They felt this location would be difficult to attack because of the surrounding marsh land and the dangers for war ships trying to navigate the river. The Spanish war ships would harass them for about a decade, but never mounted a serious attack. In 1783, they shorten the name from Charles Town to Charleston.
The original settlers included people with a variety of skills needed to survive in this unsettled land including farming, trading, sailing, trapping, carpenters, sewing, & cooking. Some of these folks were indentured servants, who were worked extremely hard building living quarters, fortifications, and many other tasks. The local natives were helpful in getting the settlers through that first year. In 1671, 200 African slaves arrived from Barbados. The slaves and indentured servants were treated harshly and forced to work many long hours each day with little food and clothing. The only difference between the two was the indentured servants served the master for the number of years on their contract while the slaves were never given their freedom.
Here's a couple of pictures of their fortification.
There are no original buildings left today. But, a few replica buildings have been made based upon archaeology digs of the area & available information. It is believed this structure may be what a common house looked like. A common house most likely housed indentured servants and slaves.
The cash crops grown on the large plantations in Charleston would make it the wealthiest town in USA. Then, when slavery was abolished in the civil war, Charleston would fall on hard times for many years until it could develop it's sea port and tourist trade.
This Live Oak Tree is 700 years old! Imagine what stories this tree could tell us if it could talk!
Now if this Gator could talk, he would porbably say, "Cross this pond and you're dead meat!"
We have all seen pictures of stocks used to punish people in colonial days that break the rules. They were usually punished in a public display, and people often threw despicable things at the folks locked in stocks.
I tried really hard to get Kitty into this stock, but she refused. I thought it would be a great picture for this blog. I even promised I would let her out. Of course, the fact that I did not mention when I would let her out may have had something to do with her not agreeing to get in there!
We enjoyed our stay in Charleston. The history is plentiful and interesting. But, it is time for us to move on. We will spend one night in Georgia before arriving in Ocala, Florida on Friday to visit with some friends for a few days. More good stuff ahead!
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