Cooper’s History Blog
We love giving walking tours in Charleston, but our passion for sharing the city’s past continues far beyond just the streets. It continues on our history blog. If you’ve ever taken a history tour with Cooper you know the boy likes to talk about history. On his blog, he dives even deeper into Charleston’s fascinating stories, offering fresh perspectives and exploring topics that bring this historic city to life.
Whether you’re a seasoned history enthusiast or just starting to explore Charleston’s past, this blog is a treasure trove of information. For even more resources, check out the Video Blog, Just Ask Eric, where former city historian Eric Write unravels the city’s intricate narratives, or if you like to read, explore our curated Reading List, perfect for deepening your understanding of Charleston’s dynamic history.
Whether it’s walking the streets of Charleston or compiling information, our mission is to transport you back in time, sharing the untold stories and lesser-known facts that make Charleston a unique blend of charm and complexity. Explore the past with us, both on foot and through the pages of Cooper’s history blog, and discover why Charleston remains an intriguing symbol of Southern history and culture.
One Giant Penis in Charleston
Brothels have used signs and symbols to attract customers, identify a house discreetly, or create a recognizable public image. The symbols varied by place and period; no single mark was universal. In Charleston, hearts in shutters and a phallic carving above the doorway at 22 State Street have prompted speculation about local brothel signals. These details make for a compelling story, but a suggestive symbol is not, by itself, proof that a building was a brothel or that its owners intended the symbol as advertising.
The story of James Island
James Island helped shape Charleston through agriculture, harbor defense, and the enduring culture of its people. Across the Ashley River from the peninsula, this South Carolina sea island supported the city long before bridges connected their neighborhoods. Its story reaches from ancient Indigenous communities to Revolutionary War soldiers, celebrated musicians, and families who transformed emancipation into landownership.
Why Thomas Jefferson Shipped a Dead Moose to France
In 1787, Thomas Jefferson found himself involved in one of the strangest scientific arguments in early American history. The future president was living in Paris, representing the young United States in France, when he decided that the best way to settle an international debate was to ship a dead moose across the Atlantic Ocean.
Women in the Revolutionary War
Women who traveled with the Continental Army played an essential role in the Revolutionary War. Commonly called camp followers, they were usually soldiers’ wives, partners, children, servants, laundresses, nurses, cooks, or sutlers who sold food and small necessities. The name can make them sound like spectators. In reality, their work helped transform an improvised force into an army able to remain in the field. They marched with the baggage and handled labor that kept soldiers fed, clothed, cleaner, and ready for duty.
Johns Island Stud is horse racing history
Long before Kentucky became famous for Thoroughbred horses, Charleston had an important racehorse breeding center of its own. The Johns Island Stud was established around 1750 at Fenwick Hall, a plantation on John’s Island owned by Edward Fenwick Sr. It became one of the best-known horse breeding programs in America and helped introduce carefully selected English racing bloodlines to the American South.
Slaves in Charleston…Three Days of Freedom
Across South Carolina, a three-day Christmas holiday for enslaved individuals was very common, generally beginning December 24 and ending December 26. Some plantations allowed more time and others less. Essential chores continued, but regular field labor was suspended. For slaves who worked under constant supervision, those three days created an unusual space to rest, socialize, celebrate, and reconnect with family.
Money Diggers in Charleston
Long before the California Gold Rush, Americans were already digging for sudden wealth. These treasure hunters, often called Money Diggers, searched for coins, bullion, pirate chests, Spanish mines, and valuables supposedly hidden during wars. The practice became especially visible in the Northeast between about 1780 and 1830. It combined economic hope, local folklore, Christian belief, folk magic, and the dream that one discovery could transform a person’s life.
But why the Constitution and two other documents?
To understand the United States, it is necessary to understand the three documents that created its identity: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They were not written for the same purpose. The Declaration explained why Americans should separate from Britain. The Constitution created a national government capable of holding the states together. These three documents form the foundation America is built on.
Hey…Where are all the Black people buried?
The answer begins before there was a city to walk through. In 1670, English settlers established Charles Towne at Albemarle Point in West Ashley, and Africans were present in the colony from the beginning. The earliest Black burials were likely not in formal cemeteries, but near work sites, homes, plantations, and the first settlement landscape. Enslaved people were often buried where they lived and died, with wooden markers, shells, plants, fieldstones, or no permanent marker at all.
The Story of Daniel Island
Ok, let’s unpack the biggest myth surrounding Daniel Island. The Myth that Danial Guggenheim owned the island and named it after himself. Daniel Guggenheim never owned the island; His son, Industrialist and philanthropist Harry Frank Guggenheim, purchased Daniel Island in 1947, primarily using it as a private hunting retreat and cattle ranch. After his death in 1971, ownership of the land passed to the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, which later orchestrated its transformation into a master-planned community before selling the land in 1997. Daniel Island was named after Robert Daniell, an early colonial merchant and later Governor of the Carolina territory.
Medieval Knights in Charleston?
It may sound impossible today, but there was a time when Charleston was home to its own version of medieval knights. They did not wear armor into battle or defend castles, but they certainly dressed the part, rode magnificent horses, and competed in tournaments inspired by the Middle Ages.
These wealthy men called themselves “The Chivalry,” and for much of the nineteenth century, they transformed the social life of Charleston into something that seemed to have come straight from the pages of a medieval romance novel.
Hartford Convention: The north succeeded from the Union in 1814?
The foundation of our country has always rested on the issue of States Rights. In 1814, the Hartford Convention was a secret meeting where New England Federalists came closest to organizing secession long before the Civil War.
It was not identical to the Southern break with the Union in 1860, because like the 16 other states before them, which had secession attempts in the timeframe of 1795 (The Whiskey Rebellion), and 1860 (The South Carolina secession). The Hartford Convention did not actually leave the United States or issue a declaration of independence. Still, the convention deserves its reputation as a serious states’ rights crisis.
The Story of Folly Beach
Long before Folly Beach became the city we know today, it was a much more dangerous and divided place that few people frequented.
Its story begins not with boardwalks and beach houses, but with shipwrecks, quarantines, battlefields, and a story that would be memorialized in the minds of many Americans. To understand Folly Beach, you have to look past the modern nickname “Edge of America” and remember the early days of Big Folly, Little Folly, Coffin Land, the Civil War, and the island where George Gershwin crafted the story of Porgy and Bess.
Grave robbing in Charleston
Grave robbers stole bodies from Charleston cemeteries. Grave robbing in Charleston during the 1700s and early 1800s was the result of a growing medical market, weak cemetery oversight, racial inequality, and a legal system that treated the dead body differently from the objects buried with it. The practice likely reached its highest risk in Charleston between 1794 and 1807, when the city used a public burial ground at Coming and Boundary Street, now Calhoun Street, for strangers, paupers, hospital patients, enslaved people, prisoners, and free people of color.
The Charleston Railroad Experiment
Charleston helped shape the future of American transportation, and part of that story began as people gathered on an ordinary city street to watch the future of rail service in Charleston. Long before railroad travel became familiar, a small public experiment on Wentworth Street helped local people imagine a new machine-age future and the influx of new trade in Charleston. Two men, a small track, 36 bails of cotton, and great new possibilities for Charleston.
Yes – The North had slavery during the Civil War
It is easy to frame the Civil War as a battle between North and South. That version is simple, dramatic, and easy to remember. But it also hides a harder truth. Slavery was not only a Southern institution, and the road to emancipation was not as direct as many Americans believe.
During the Civil War, several Union states still practiced slavery. Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were all slaveholding northern states. West Virginia entered the Union in 1863 with a gradual emancipation plan rather than immediate freedom.
The Constitution and the mess it cleaned up
Americans often imagine the years after the Revolutionary War as a triumphant national beginning. In that familiar story, thirteen united states defeated a tyrannical king, won freedom, and immediately began building one country together. That version is emotionally satisfying, but it is not historically accurate. The truth is more complicated, more fragile, and far more important. Before the Constitution, the United States was a loose collection of independent countries struggling to survive.
The story of Isle Of Palms
The history of Isle of Palms is far deeper than its modern reputation as a beautiful beach destination near Charleston, South Carolina. This barrier island has moved through many identities over time: Indigenous homeland, colonial landholding, military landmark, seaside resort, residential community, and modern coastal town. Its story reflects the larger history of the South Carolina Lowcountry, where natural beauty, transportation, war, tourism, development, and preservation have all shaped the land and the people connected to it.
Brick with slave Children’s fingerprints?…. Not likely
If you have ever been on a history tour in Charleston you have no doubt heard that the finger prints in the bricks were made by slave children. A heart wrenching story to be sure, but is it true?
The honest answer is more complicated than the story many tour guides want you to believe. In many cases the fingerprints in old Charleston masonry are real, but not always.
Now that’s Mail Delivery—1959 style
From the time human beings learned to write, there was a need to send messages across distance. That need created one of the most important public services in American history: Mail delivery. Long before instant messages, email, and smartphones, letters carried business news, family updates, political arguments, military orders, and the ideas that shaped a nation. The history of American delivery systems shows a constant search for speed, reliability, and innovation.
The story of Sullivan’s Island
Sullivan’s Island is often described today as one of the most beautiful barrier islands near Charleston, but its deeper history is far more layered. Long before it became a residential beach town, Sullivan’s Island was a strategic outpost at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. It served as a lookout, a military station, a quarantine ground, a salt production mill, and eventually the community we see today.
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