Day 20 Historical tour of Charleston and lunch at Poogan's Porch

 Today we learned a lot of history of Charleston.  Our guide, Diana learned all 20 of our names and really knew her stuff!  Then we ate lunch at a restaurant called "Poogan's Porch" and had low country shrimp and grits and fried green tomatoes!  We played corn hole back at the campground with another couple and they're coming over in a few minutes to play a game with us.  So I'll post most of the pictures tomorrow afternoon after our day of traveling -- we'll probably make it up to Virginia.

Shrimp and grits and fried green tomatos at Poogan's Porch. Yum!

                                                                                    

The restaurant is named for a dog.  This is a mural in the parking lot showing people at a table on the upper level porch of the restaurant.  Not sure about Poogan sitting on the restaurant table. Looks like a fun time though.

Pictures of the restaurant outside (abouve) and the bar area inside:

                                                                                   

 A very early map of "Charles Towne" founded in 1670 and named for King Charles II.  This shows the Charleston Bay to the south and the city gate at the northern point in the map.  This was a walled city at the beginning and to build the wall they had to build a trench on 3 sides of the city which naturally filled with water.  So very early on Charleston was surrounded by a large wall and a moat!        

          

The amazing workmanship on the steeple of St Phillips Church  -- a slave named "Will" (the only name they have) saved an earlier version of this church when it was built of wood.  He ran toward the fire and pulled off the burning roof tiles with his bare hands.  The parishioners we so grateful that they took up a collection for him and raised $200 which was used to buy Will's freedom.  

                                                                                        

This beautiful church is the Huguenot Church.  Charleston was a wealthy city from the very beginning and had lots of money to build beautiful churches like this.  This colony made a lot of money for England -- with the early crops of rice and indigo and later cotton.  

Inside the Huguenot Church:

                                                                                        

             One of the oldest pipe organs in the U.S. was playing while we were in the church.

                                                                                                                                           

The guide told a wild but supposedly true story of a young Englishman at age 18 who joined a voyage -- a "reconnaissance" mission to "Carolina" whose duties were as doctor and butcher!  He befriended the natives in the area and learned 5 native languages.  There were apparently lots of adventure and intrigue and even a story of  being kidnapped by hostile Indians and turned over to the Spanish in Florida.  When he converted to Catholicism, that pleased the Spanish ruler and he was freed.  After surviving a shipwreck he ended up back in Carolina and was helpful in founding South Carolina and Charleston because of his helpful knowledge of Indian language and customs.  He also helped establish rice as a big cash producing crop:  "Carolina Gold".

                                                                                

These nasty looking steel"no trespassing" spikes are so sharp that our guide said she drew blood when pointing them out once.  At one point in Charleston history homeowners were afraid of slave uprisings.

Denmark Vesey was a slave who won the lottery in 1799 and purchased his and his family's freedom.  He set up a successful carpentry shop in Charleston and became a leader in the black community.  He and 34 others planned a slave revolt -- the biggest in American history but a house slave overheard the plans and alerted the homeowner who happened to be a colonel.  Vesey and the others were quickly rounded up and many were executed including Vesey.

                                                                                

This is the Mills House Hotel.  Confederate General Robert E. Lee stayed here once in 1861 and during his stay, the hotel caught fire and he is credited with saving the hotel by having people hang wet linens out the windows and under the doors.  The wind carried the fire diagonally and 540 acres and some believe over 1000 buildings were lost.

We're on the road today -- April 11 -- and will be stopping overnight at a Walmart near the Potomac River on our way to Lewes, DE.  Hope the propane holds out if it turns cold before we leave early tomorrow morning!

I'll post more of our Charleston tour tomorrow when we're on the road again.