#114: History of the SC State House, The River is Wide, and Searching for Poe
For South Carolina history lovers far and wide! Published weekly on Monday mornings. Enjoy weekly SC history articles and upcoming SC historical events.
Dear reader,
Welcome to SC History Newsletter #114!
The temperatures are cooling, football is back, apple cider is showing up at the grocery store… the best season of the year (in my humble opinion), is almost upon us! Glorious fall!
Thank you to everyone who submitted questions for my interview this week with Clemson Professor Rhondda Robinson Thomas. I am excited to share the interview in the newsletter next week!
As always, I’d like to welcome the following new subscribers to our community. Thank you for your interest in South Carolina history!
bowenbradc
tracidominick
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New friends! If you are new to the newsletter, please note that there are over 100 previous SC History newsletters on topics ranging from the founding of Charleston, sunken Confederate submarines, railroad tunnels filled with blue cheese, and so much more! I encourage you to take a look at our archive here.
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And now, let’s learn some South Carolina history!
Yours truly,
Kate
(Writing from Greenville, SC)
➳ Featured SC History Events
Please note our featured SC History Event below, and click here to visit my SC History Events Calendar that organizes all the upcoming SC history events I have discovered.
Please let me know if you’d like to add an event to the calendar! Reply to this email or send me a note at schistorynewsletter@gmail.com.
Event Recommendation of the Week:
Thursday, October 10th at 6:00 pm | “Searching for Poe at the Powder Magazine” | Powder Magazine | Charleston, SC | Tickets $15 | Website
“Get ready for “Spooky Season” with a lecture about everyone’s favorite Gothic author, Edgar Allan Poe, and a dramatic reading of his works!
This after-hours event will feature an illustrated lecture by Dr. Scott Peeples titled “Poe and the Charleston Literary Renaissance.” Dr. Peeple’s talk will focus on Charleston’s embrace of Edgar Allan Poe, and the lore that surrounds his year stationed at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. Scott Peeples is a professor of English at the College of Charleston. He has written three books on Poe, most recently The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City (Princeton Univ. Press, 2020). Dr. Peeples is a past president and honorary member of the international Poe Studies Association, and he serves on the board of directors of the Richmond Poe Museum and the editorial board for the Edgar Allan Poe Review.
Dr. Peeple’s lecture will be followed by a dramatic reading by local guide and raconteur Randy Johnson of some of Poe’s most beloved works. Randy Johnson is a native-born Charlestonian. He spent his childhood exploring the ruins of Fort Moultrie and Johnson, where he developed a deep appreciation and respect for the utterly and profoundly sublime. Randy is now a recovering attorney and devotes his time to conducting ghost walks for Bulldog Tours. He is a lifelong Poe enthusiast and has self-published two works, one titled Charleston Eagle: The Butcher’s Temple and the other titled The Baptist Mystic (a gothic tale set in Magnolia Cemetery).
Tickets are $15 per person and seating is limited (40 people maximum), so don’t wait to register!”
➳ SC History Book & Article Recommendations
“The Water is Wide: A Memoir” by Pat Conroy
(Note from Kate: This book was recommended to our readers by my wonderful podcast guest last week, Brian Hicks, journalist at the Post & Courier and prolific author of books on South Carolina and Southern history. Pat Conroy grew up in South Carolina and is a beloved Southern author.)
Here is the publisher’s description:
“Yamacraw Island was haunting, nearly deserted, and beautiful. Separated from the mainland of South Carolina by a wide tidal river, it was accessible only by boat. But for the handful of families that lived on Yamacraw, America was a world away. For years these families lived proudly from the sea until waste from industry destroyed the oyster beds essential to their very existence. Already poor, they knew they would have to face an uncertain future unless, somehow, they learned a new life. But they needed someone to teach them, and their rundown schoolhouse had no teacher.
The Water Is Wide is Pat Conroy’s extraordinary memoir based on his experience as one of two teachers in a two-room schoolhouse, working with children the world had pretty much forgotten. It was a year that changed his life, and one that introduced a group of poor Black children to a world they did not know existed.”
Do you have a book or article on South Carolina history that has caught your attention? Reply to this email to let me know!
➳ SC History Topic of the Week:
Let’s discuss the history of the South Carolina State House!
The impressive state house we see in Columbia, South Carolina today was not the first state house!
The original state house was built in 1753 in Charleston and it was a two-story brick building covered in stucco at the northwest corner of Broad and Meeting streets.
At the time, James Glenn (1738-1756) was the governor of South Carolina and the first meeting in the Charleston State House occurred in 1756.
In 1786, the South Carolina assembly voted to move the state capital to Columbia to provide a more centralized location for the seat of the state government.
The second South Carolina State House was finished by 1790 in Columbia and it sat at the intersection of Senate and Richardson (now Main) streets. It was a wooden structure with a brick basement.
By the 1840s, the State House had fallen into disrepair and the General Assembly was “concerned that official public records being stored in the state house would be damaged as a result of the deteriorating conditions.”
The decision was made in 1850 to build a fireproof building next to the State House. The building would serve as (1) storage for official public records and (2) as a new wing for yet a third State House (the 2nd in Columbia), which would eventually become the present-day State House.
Construction began in December of 1851, and the first (Columbia) State House architect was P.H. Hammarskold. By June of 1854, Hammarskold was fired from the project because his work was shoddy and showed structural flaws in the construction.
Hammarskold was replaced by Vienna-born John R. Niernsee of Baltimore, Maryland. Niernsee had to dismantle much of Hammarskold’s previous (shoddy) construction, which resulted in $72,267 loss to the state.
New construction began in 1854, and by 1860, Niernsee reported that the structure had risen to 66 feet above the foot of the foundation. The value of the work put into the building at that time was $1,240,063. In today's dollars, that would be equivalent to roughly $41,000,000.
Work on the current State House building required the labor of “375 and 500 men, about 60% of whom were enslaved African Americans, and many others Irish immigrants, cutting and hauling stones from a quarry near the Congaree River.” Their work ceased in 1861 with the start of the Civil War.
As the Civil War raged on, a fateful day arrived at the state capital on February 17th, 1865. General William T. Sherman and the Union Army attacked the city of Columbia and captured the State House. From the State House website:
“The old State House was destroyed by fire. Niernsee reported it cracked five ‘bells of St. Michael's Church, Charleston,’ which had been ‘sent up here some time ago" and "deposited under one of the sheds.’ It consumed the valuable State House library, offices and workshops, a vast quantity of finished marble and rough material, estimated by Niernsee to be worth $700,000; and, Niernsee's library of architectural and scientific books, engravings and several thousand drawings, the result of his practice of twenty-five years. ‘These,’ said Niernsee, along with ‘one of the latest and best busts of Calhoun’ and all the valuable detail State House drawings, contracts, and so forth, which had accumulated during Niernsee's ten years on the job, ‘were utterly swept away during that terrible night — an irreparable loss.’”
A monument is displayed on the grounds where the old State House stood. The inscription reads:
HERE STOOD THE
STATE HOUSE
BUILT 1786-1790
JAMES HOBAN ARCHITECT
BURNED BY
SHERMAN’S TROOPS
FEBRUARY 17, 1865
During Sherman’s attack, the State House was set on fire, and the interior sustained the most damage. Perhaps most famously, shells from Sherman's cannons which were of “light caliber” only slightly damaged the outside of the State House building. Today brass star markers on the west and southwest walls of the building show where Sherman’s shots landed. 10 shots were fired and 6 “struck the western front with little damage.” 4 shots struck the interior of the building.
The Civil War left South Carolina in poverty and disarray and funding for the completion of the State House was brought to an abrupt stop. However, a temporary roof was placed on the State House, yet the building wouldn’t be completed until 1907.
From Historic Columbia SC’s website:
“In 1869, a temporary roof allowed the government – the only African American majority state legislature in the history of the United States – to finally occupy the building for the first time. More than 80 African Americans served as legislators from 1868 through 1877. After Reconstruction ended, black people were systematically eliminated from government and businesses throughout the South, especially in South Carolina. In 1970, Herbert Fielding, James Felder, and I.S. Leevy Johnson won election to the S.C. House of Representatives, the first African Americans to serve in the State House since 1902.”
Most of Niernsee’s architectural drawings for the State House building were destroyed in the fires of 1865. However, from what historians can gather, his original architectural plan did not include a dome like we see on today's State House. Instead, there was meant to be a tower! From the State House website:
“Niernsee’s plan did not contemplate a dome that looked anything like the dome on today's building. His was a lofty and finely proportioned tower, which rose one hundred eighty feet from the ground through the center of the building supported by piers and arches; ‘a rectangular lantern,’ somewhat pyramidal in outline, and thirty feet square at the base; its projected cost was $200,000.”
The next repairs to the State House wouldn't come until 1877, under the governorship of Wade Hampton III. At first, the priority was landscaping the grounds, but pretty soon, urgent attention was turned to the building’s leaky roof.
In 1883, under the governorship of Hugh S. Thompson (1882-1886), John R. Niernsee was asked to return as the architect for the State House. Because his original plans were destroyed in the fires of 1865, he had to start from scratch. Sadly, 2 years later, Niernsee died after years of failing health.
The state then hired Niernsee’s associate James Crawford Nielsen of Baltimore as the next State House architect. Nielsen made the unwise decision to hire an assistant to handle affairs in Columbia, while he directed the project from afar in Baltimore. Needless to say, this plan did not work, and Nielsen was dismissed.
October 1st 1888, in an interesting twist, Francis (Frank) McHenry Niernsee, son of the State House’s former architect John R. Niernsee, was appointed the new State House architect. He focused on fulfilling the plans his father had begun 30 years before. From the State House website:
“His plans included a permanent slate roof. To fireproof the interior of the State House, he installed marble floors, pressed metal ceilings and used metal and ceramic tile and cast iron to complete the interior architecture. He also introduced plumbing and electricity to the State House.”
In 1900, Frank P. Milburn became the architect of the State House. Between 1900 and 1903, the roof was replaced, the dome, and the North and South porticoes were completed.
The State House was finally completed in 1907 by Hartsville native Charles Coker Wilson.
The finished building weighs more than 70,000 tons and is constructed of native blue granite, most of which came from the Congaree Quarry two miles from the site.
The State House dome is covered with 44,000 pounds of copper.
From what the records show, the State House cost at least $3,540,000 over the course of 50 years to build. In today’s dollars, that would be roughly $125,000,000.
In February 1962, the Confederate Flag was placed atop the dome of the SC State House. From the South Carolina Encyclopedia:
“Generating little attention or publicity at the time, the presence of the flag above the Palmetto State’s legislative seat would become an enduring public controversy in the 1980s and 1990s. Controversy would linger after the banner’s removal from the dome and its placement on a flagstaff behind the monument to South Carolina’s Confederate soldiers on the State House grounds in July 2000…The final decision to remove the controversial symbol came in 2000 amidst increasing pressure from the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, as well as a national boycott of South Carolina instituted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In a special ceremony held on July 1, 2000, two cadets from the Citadel, one white and one African American, lowered the flag from the dome and placed it near the Confederate monument on the grounds of the State House. The flags were also removed from the chambers of the S.C. House and Senate. The NAACP vowed to continue its economic boycott, however, with the goal of having the flag removed completely from the State House grounds.”
After almost 100 years, by 1992, it had become increasingly concerning that the SC State House did not comply with modern fire safety, building accessibility, and earthquake protection standards.
A $51,530,000 renovation began from 1995-1998 that installed new electrical and mechanical systems, remodeled the interior, and made the building handicapped accessible.
The grounds that surround the State House (22-acres) are also historically significant and include many interesting markers, monuments, and more.
Here is an overview of some of the landmarks you can visit:
Grave of Swanson Lunsford: Swanson Lunsford, a Revolutionary War veteran and early commissioner of Columbia, is buried here. He passed away in 1799, with markers placed in 1837 and 1953.
George Washington Statue: A bronze replica of Jean-Antoine Houdon's statue of George Washington, cast in 1857 and acquired by South Carolina in 1858. From the Historic Columbia website:
“Originally installed on the ground floor of the South Carolina State House, the statue expressed the kinship that antebellum South Carolina politicians felt with the revolutionary hero and slaveholder as they defended their own right to continue as a society defined by slavery. The statue was moved from the ground floor of the state house outside in 1889 and to its current location in 1911. In its 1931 report, the Historical Commission of South Carolina reported an expenditure of $40 for a bronze plaque “reciting the abuse accorded it by Federal soldiers in February, 1865.” This plaque provides an explanation for Washington's broken cane.”
George Washington sculpture at the SC State House (Image Source: Historic Columbia) Palmetto Monument: Funded by the legislature in 1856 and created by Christopher Werner, this cast iron and copper monument honors the Palmetto Regiment of South Carolina, who served in the Mexican-American War.
Wade Hampton III Statue: Unveiled in November 1906, this 16-foot bronze equestrian statue by Frederick W. Ruckstull depicts Wade Hampton III, a Confederate general, South Carolina governor, and U.S. Senator. It symbolizes both his military role and his post-Reconstruction governorship, and was relocated to its current position in 1969.
Wade Hampton III Statue (Image Source: Historic Columbia) Revolutionary War Generals Monument: Dedicated in 1913, this monument by Frederic W. Ruckstull, commissioned by the South Carolina Daughters of the American Revolution, honors Generals Andrew Pickens, Thomas Sumter, and Francis Marion.
South Carolina Monument to the Confederate Dead: Erected in 1879, this Confederate memorial features an obelisk designed by Muldoon, Walker, and Cobb, with a sculpture by Carlo Nicoli. It was originally planned for a different location but was placed on the State House grounds after the end of Reconstruction. It was damaged by lightning in 1882, later replaced, and moved in 1969. The Confederate battle flag flew behind the monument from 2000 to 2015. On July 10th, 2015, it was removed by a state bill following the murder of nine African Americans at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
An honor guard from the South Carolina Highway patrol lowers the Confederate battle flag as it is removed from the Capitol grounds (Image Source: Statesboro Herald) Monument to Women of the Confederacy: A bronze statue by Frederic W. Ruckstull, erected in 1912 and supported by the United Confederate Veterans. Initially located on the south steps of the State House, it was moved to the northeast corner of the grounds in 1935 and later to its current location around 1972.
Monument to Women of the Confederacy (Image Source: Historic Columbia) Spanish Cannon Mount: An eighteenth-century Spanish cannon, a gift from the U.S. government for the Spanish-American War, was mounted on the west side of the State House in 1900. It was scrapped during World War II, but its mount now features plaques commemorating both the Spanish-American War and civilian contributions during World War II.
Gun from USS Maine: A gun retrieved from Havana Harbor in 1910 was initially installed in Irwin Park in 1913 as a tribute to the Spanish-American War. It was moved to the State House grounds in 1931 and rededicated with flags celebrating the reconciliation of North and South.
Gun from the USS Maine (Image Source: Historic Columbia) James F. Byrnes Monument: Dedicated in 1972 following a private fundraising campaign, this monument honors James F. Byrnes, who was a significant South Carolina politician who had served as: U.S. Senator (1931-1941), Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court (1941-1942), US Secretary of State (1945-1947), and Governor of South Carolina (1951-1955).
Strom Thurmond Statue: Erected in the late 1990s, this statue honors former governor, senator, and Dixiecrat presidential candidate Strom Thurmond. The original inscription was later amended to include his bi-racial daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams.
Benjamin Tillman Monument: Dedicated in 1940, this monument to U.S. Senator Benjamin Tillman is controversial due to Tillman’s white supremacist views and violent racial attacks during his life. In 2017, protestors called for its removal.
Dr. J. Marion Sims Monument: Located near Assembly and Gervais streets, this monument honors Dr. J. Marion Sims, a pioneering gynecologist. The monument is controversial due to Sims’ surgical experiments on enslaved women without anesthesia.
African-American History Monument: Authorized by Act 457 and unveiled on March 26, 2001, this monument celebrates African-American history and includes a series of bronze sculptures and bas-reliefs that depict key figures and events, including scenes of enslavement, education, and civil rights struggles — capturing both the hardships and achievements of the African American community. Notice on the path in the lower part of this photograph, there is a bronze recreation of a slave ship.
African-American History Monument (Image Source: Historic Columbia) Law Enforcement Memorial: Erected in 2005, this memorial honors South Carolina law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty.
Captain Swanson Lunsford Marker: Captain Swanson Lunsford, a Virginia-born Revolutionary War officer and early landowner of the State House site, is commemorated by a marker erected by his descendants in 1953.
2 weeks ago my family had a lovely afternoon exploring the State House and its grounds. Here are my husband and stepson below :)
The State House also has a fun gift shop and a GORGEOUS South Carolina quilt — full of eye-popping detail — on the wall that you must admire.
From the website: “The State House is also open for tours each Saturday except on the Saturdays after Thanksgiving and Christmas. Tours are given at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. Visitors can also tour at their own pace using brochures available in the State House. The State House will be open between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.”
Do you have stories from visiting the South Carolina State House and grounds? We would love to hear! Leave a comment below!
➳ SC State House — Article Sources
“1200 Gervais Street.” Historic Columbia, Historic Columbia, https://www.historiccolumbia.org/tour-locations/1200-gervais-street-3. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
“Confederate Flag Controversy.” South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina Press, https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/confederate-flag-controversy/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
“Dome Tour.” South Carolina State House, South Carolina State House, https://www.scstatehouse.gov/studentpage/Explore/TourOutside/dome.shtml. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
Historic Columbia. “1100 Gervais Street.” Historic Columbia, Historic Columbia, www.historiccolumbia.org/online-tours/main-street/1100-gervais-street-0. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
HMDB. “1100 Gervais Street.” The Historical Marker Database, HMDB, www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=7381. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
“Inflation Data.” Inflation Data, Inflation Data, https://www.inflationdata.com/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
“South Carolina State House: Explore History.” South Carolina State House, South Carolina State House, https://www.scstatehouse.gov/studentpage/Explore/history.shtml#:~:text=Charleston%20was%20the%20home%20of,was%20Governor%20of%20South%20Carolina. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
“State House Monuments Tour.” Historic Columbia, Historic Columbia, https://www.historiccolumbia.org/online-tours/state-house-monuments-tour#:~:text=Since%20Columbia's%201786%20founding%2C%20the,and%20more%20than%2030%20monuments. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
“South Carolina State House.” SC Picture Project, SC Picture Project, https://www.scpictureproject.org/richland-county/sc-state-house.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2024.
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Capitol story One of your best. Complete synopsis of so many varying facts and rumors. Well done.