A Walking Tour of Charleston-The Battery, South Carolina
The nascent city of Charles Town was enclosed by a protective wall from 1690 to 1720 which extended down to today’s Water Street. Water Street itself was Vanderhorst Creek which was later filled in. Outside the wall, at the entrance to the harbor an earth wall was held together with sticks and topped with grass along the water. Wooden boards were laid across the wall and guns aimed out across the mouth of the harbor.
In 1787, after the British had departed the city, work was begun to improve the wall. Ricks used as ballast in ships were piled into the wall. By 1820 a granite wall was completed. At this time the city’s richest merchants and bankers began building Charleston’s finest mansions with views of the water. The open space at the tip was used as a public park beginning in 1837.
After the Civil War began on Fort Sumter in the Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861 the bombardment of the Battery ensued. Only one house, at the corner of Atlantic Street and East Battery was destroyed. Eventually the park became known as White Point Gardens because of the pile soft bleached oyster shells on the point.
This walking tour will visit Charleston’s oldest and finest homes in the Battery below Broad Street, an area that is virtually completely residential...
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