We decided to take a tour of Charleston today. To be picked up at 9:20 well he was early and I was ¾ through the blog writ-up and had to quit right then. I write it in Word and transfer to the blog later.
We had a very comprehensive tour of the small historic and closely aligned areas. Again the flowering azalea’s are at there peak. The metal work is all over, gates, fences, window guards and ornamentation. Much hand forged metal items are being done by a man who is 96 years old. He now only lays out the material and others do the forging. We learned much about the civil war and the generals who participated. We were looking at some of the old houses and the guide pointed out that the side porch was called a piazza and the front porch the porch. this came from the British housing. Also the closeness of the house and in some case there were two houses one behind the street house. There was a house with a house number of 40 and on a gate next to it was a 40 1/2. That house wa behind.
We were looking at a very fashionable house by the bay, roughly 6.5 million, that had a cannon on the middle of the third floor. No, not put there, it was fired from three streets down. They had only placed gunpowder into the barrel and lite the fuse with no cannon ball in the barrel. The cannon flew the three blocks down into the third floor. Off that same bay we spotted two dolphins sauntering off the sea wall.
There is an intersection called "the four corners of law" hosting buildings from each level of government: the courthouse (state law), City Hall (municipal law), the Federal Building and U.S. Post Office (federal law), and Saint Michael's Episcopal Church (canon law). We saw the first fire protection for housing. On the center of the front there was an emblem. When smoke was seen in the air the fire trucks from the different fire protection would race to the fire. If the first truck saw it was not one of there houses they would just turn around and go back to there firehouse. The beginning of insurance. As we went through the city he asked the question; what is the difference between a graveyard and a cemetery? A graveyard is next to a church and a cemetery is away from the church. He also mentioned that they call themselves the “Holy City” and that’s because it has over 100 churches.
We then grabbed a quick wine and split a fish sandwich at TBonz Restaurant. Do not waste your time on their food. Thin slice of fish and small on top of that.
Off to our Magnolia Plantation and Gardens tour. On the way out there our guide who is southern gave the following slave description. The average cost of a slave was 1,250$ each. He then said that they would buy the slaves for there ability to work, either strength, knowledge of rice growing or some other skill. With the cost of a slave being so high, he asked the question, why would the owner treat the slave like we see in Hollywood movies? It sound to me that they are still trying to rationalize the use of slavery. He made it sound so real many never twitched a muscle, it took me a while to think through his summary.
The Plantation has nearly 500 acres of garden acres, flowering peach, camellias, and the full blossomed azaleas. We walked through the garden, picturesque foot bridges and the plantation house itself. The house is theorized to be the third one, two previous houses had burned down. This structure was covered with a phosphate mud, different than I would have guessed. We walked through the gardens down narrow winding paths with many colorful trees. The plantation had been in the hands of the first family for nine generations. We had a tram ride through the other parts of the plantation. We saw the old rice growing paddies. Rice was the most important and largest cash crop in Charleston, next being indigo plants – used as a blue dye for English soldiers uniforms and later blue jeans. With cotton being the next most cash crop. The rice crop was devastated in 1911 by a large hurricane. The hurricane caused salt water to get into the rice paddies and rice does not grow in brackish water. Brackish water is neither fresh nor salt water it is a blend.
A lady of slave background with a last name of a plantation owner as slaves had no surname and took the owners name. she was making sweet grass basketry, the middle is made of pine needles from the large needle pines, then sweet grass cord and a brown swamp grass cord and the individual cords were bound with pieces of palm leaves.
There was an old 1825 slave cabin. It was approximately 16 feet long and 10 feet in width. In the middle was a dividing wall, as two families lived there. In the rafters was a boarded area of 6 by 4 foot. This was the sleeping quarters, not sure how that worked? Nailed on the wall was a dried rat skin it was each slave’s duty to catch six rats a day so that they would not eat the rice. It turned out that rats were part of the slaves diet. Two fireplaces were in the center, one on each side of the wall. It was a superstition that if the fire went out that bad things would happen, therefore someone always guarded the fire. The house was painted green and this was supposed to keep the evil spirits out of the house. This house was close to the plantation house and would have housed very important slaves. Further out in the rice paddy area there were smaller houses with two doors on them implying two families in them? It was said that the slaves who cared for the rice slept in lean-tos. I again wonder if these slaves cost as much as the average?
We had tour of the house, fun to look at but, all but one room had period furniture and no one had lived in the house with that furniture.
Back to the hotel, and get ready for dinner. We had heard a number of times how good the food at “Magnolias” was. I called for reservations and found the place in ten minutes without getting lost. Shirleen had a Amavi Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State and I BigFire pinot noir. To start the meal we started with an appetizer, first one in a long time. We ordered homemade potato chips with crumbled blue cheese and scallions both of us loved this dish. The cheese was much like stilton cheese. The cheese was local from Clemson, therefore Clemson blue cheese. Shirleen ordered Dressed Rainbow Trout with crab and artichoke stuffing, scalloped potatoes and sautéed asparagus and I the Shellfish over Grits sautéed shrimp, sea scallops and lobster over creamy white grits with a lobster butter sauce and fried spinach. Both were good, Shirleen’s was the best, the stuffing was tasty and the fish done to a nice moist doneness, the scalloped potatoes the best, super thinly sliced and a flavorful and tasty sauce, baked to a crispy outside and moist inside. Not that I would not order mine again, the dish is their signature dish, I found the lobster – I think a rock lobster was tough, small shrimp but good sea scallops.
Now it is light out and we stopped at the Poogen’s porch for their business card which turned out to be on the street we exited from Magnolia’s parking lot. From there it was easy a left then a right and out to the motel. Well not quite, after missing the hiway 17 sign last night this evening we took the turn to soon and ended up somewhere. After a short time being lost I stopped at a gas station. I was in line and the guy behind me said how’s your night going? I said not to well, he said what’s wrong? I said I was lost and trying to find hiway 17, he said, follow me were going that way, I said sounds good to me. Thank god that I didn’t care that he was black and he drove a Dodge ram truck. We followed him back to the area we first turned around at and onward we went and back to 17, I blinked me lights bright twice and off he went. Trust given is trust returned.
Yesterday we saw that Beaufort was one of the wealthiest towns before the civil war. They had converted from growing indigo to becoming cotton growers. There cotton had long threads and easily separated cotton from the hull. This cotton was worth 60 times regular cotton and approached the fine quality of English cotton. jerr
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