Charleston, South Carolina is undoubtedly one of America’s most beautiful cities. Inhabiting an irregularly shaped peninsula at the mouths of the Ashley and Cooper rivers, Charlestown – or Charles Towne as it was originally known – was founded in 1670 and named in honor of King Charles II of England. Its colonial heritage is still visible today, especially when one wanders along cobblestone streets of the French Quarter lined with charming houses and ancient trees. Once this was a thriving neighborhood of Huguenot refugees and French merchants, and the core of the Charles Towne settlement.

Interestingly, that settlement was the only English walled city in North America. In the late 17th and early 18th century, the Spanish, the French as well as Native Americans posed a threat to the fledgling colony. The fort-like wall was built in 1690 and ran along what are now Meeting, Cumberland, East Bay, and Water streets. The north, west, and south walls were dismantled by 1730s but the harbor-side fortifications remained mostly intact until after the American Revolution. Not much remains today: eight bastion markers and a portion of the wall discovered during renovations of the Provost Dungeon in a cellar of the Old Exchange, the British customs office built 1767-1771 where Half Moon battery of the city’s fortifications used to stand. Read the rest of this entry →