“Charleston County and the city of Charleston, its county seat, are the most historic locations in the state.” Situated in the Lowcountry, the county serves as a popular vacation destination but also relies on the business that results from its port. The area in general serves as a large cultural and economic hub for the state.
Charleston County was founded as Charleston District in 1769, and the district became smaller after some of its lands were used to create Colleton and Berkeley counties. The county and its seat were named after King Charles II.
The city and county are saturated with Revolutionary War and Civil War history. Three signers of the United States Constitution and two famous abolitionists resided in Charleston County, and the Civil War began when soldiers fired shots from the county’s Fort Sumter.
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John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of the Methodist Church, was in South Carolina only briefly, but the denomination he founded has had a profound effect on the province and state. From a small...
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Thomas Sumter (1732-1832) was, at his death, the last surviving general of the Revolutionary Army. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, he fought in the French and Indian Wars as a Virginia militia man...
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William Loughton Smith (1758-1812) was one of the leading Federalists in South Carolina in the early national period. Educated in schools in London, he studied law at the Middle Temple and returned to...
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A former slave who became a state legislator and U.S. Congressman, Robert Smalls (1839-1915) was born in Beaufort, and moved with his master to Charleston in 1851. During the Civil War, he was pressed...
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Hilla Sheriff (1900-1988) was a leader in shaping public health policies in South Carolina. She graduated from the College of Charleston, and was one of only three women to receive a medical degree...
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Eliza Rutledge (1776-1842), the daughter of John Rutledge, was fifteen when she was painted by the distinguished American historical painter John Trumbull (1756-1843) in 1791. She later became Mrs...
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Son of an Irish immigrant doctor, Edward Rutledge (1749-1800) was born in Charleston where he received his early education. Later, he studied law at the Middle Temple in London, returning to South...
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Born in England, Colonel William Rhett (1666-1722) came to the Carolina colony in November 1694 as a captain of a merchant ship. In the impoverished Carolina colony, pirates, former seamen who had...
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Robert Barnwell Rhett (1800-1876) was born Robert Barnwell Smith in Beaufort, and changed his name legally by act of the South Carolina legislature in 1838. Elected to the state House of...
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Alonzo J. Ransier (1834-1882), born a free African-American in Charleston, was one of two African-American men in South Carolina to achieve the position of lieutenant governor. He held this office...
