Remembering Columbia

By John M. Sherrer III and Historic Columbia

Columbia, South Carolina, is very much a tale of two cities. Founded as a political compromise, forged by an economy shackled by slavery, and physically vanquished by fire, the Palmetto State's second capital became a proving ground for a new society less than a century after its establishment. During the course of the next 100 years, Columbians--new and old, black and white, rich and poor--would physically transform their city in ways that reflected their needs, aspirations, fears, and wherewithal.
?Remembering Columbia is a visual road map that merges images with accounts of people, sites, and events pulled from historical newspapers, diaries, and ephemera. Building upon the efforts of previous generations, this account explores South Carolina's capital city from its early years through the mid-20th century in ways previously underdeveloped or altogether unrepresented. The result is an intriguing detective story that will be enriching, surprising, and compelling to life-long residents, newcomers, and visitors alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439653128

John M. Sherrer III

Founded in 1961, Historic Columbia is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to heightening public awareness of and preserving the cultural heritage of Columbia and its environs. Remembering Columbia is the latest historical resource from author John Sherrer, a Columbia native who has benefited from unprecedented access to local archival and private collections in his role as the institution's director of cultural resources.

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INTRODUCTION

In 1786, South Carolina’s legislature sought to establish a new state capital so that citizens living beyond the coastal plain could benefit from greater political representation. Following heated debate and vying for a site, planners carved out a two-mile square in the center of the state on plantation lands overlooking the Congaree River. Charleston’s appointed successor—Columbia—was born. The city grew modestly during its next few decades; however, by the 1830s it was considered more than just an upstart town. Columbia had grown into what planners had anticipated: a center of government, commerce, and education, complete with notable architecture and gardens. By the advent of the Civil War in 1861, the state’s slave-based economy rendered Columbia the largest inland city in the Carolinas. Within four years of bloody conflict, the destruction wrought on other parts of the country visited the birthplace of secession, leaving in its path a swath of destruction that laid waste to much of the city’s remarkable buildings.

Postwar redevelopment came in fits and starts, with flairs of brilliance punctuating lulls in activity. Reconstruction’s promises gave way to decades of Jim Crow race restrictions as city leaders championed Columbia as a New South city that embraced technology and modernity while campaigning for outside investment. Others heralded the capital as a resort destination for those seeking milder winters. Rarely, if ever, were the summer months addressed. Beginning in the 1890s, the original city limits failed to contain residential and business interests, as suburbanization and the rise of textile communities led to unprecedented growth. Federal investment during the first half of the 20th century changed Columbia permanently through the establishment of Camp (later Fort) Jackson, construction of interstate highways, urban renewal projects, and integration.

Only a few generations separate contemporary citizens from events that played integral roles in shaping their city. Yet no recent history has chronicled Columbia’s evolution over the course of four centuries. Through the following heretofore unpublished images and previously published photographs interpreted in different ways, Historic Columbia seeks to rectify this omission while illustrating how historic preservation and knowledge of the past may help shape the future of South Carolina’s capital city in positive, meaningful, and sustainable ways.

DUCK HUNTING ON THE RIVER, C. 1860. Columbia’s rivers captured the imagination of artist and educator Eugene Dovilliers, who is known to have painted at least two works set on the waterways. While one depicts the Congaree from its west side with the capital city in the background, the second offers a more intimate view of duck hunting beside a mill. Key elements include two white hunters and an African American man, presumably enslaved; waterfowl; and a two-story mill and waterwheel beside a rock-choked river. Though neither the mill nor the river is identified, the painting’s setting could easily be one of the gristmills or sawmills that once operated on the Congaree River during the mid-19th century. (South Carolina State Museum.)

SOUTH CAROLINA STATE HOUSE. Begun in 1787, the first State House in Columbia was a modest two-story wood-frame structure that sat atop a raised masonry foundation on the southeast corner of Richardson (today’s Main) and Senate Streets. While completed to the point that the legislature convened there on January 4, 1790, work remained to be done by the time George Washington visited the city on May 23, 1791. Though a sketch by John Drayton in 1794 offers the earliest visual impression of the building, this drawing, published years later in the August 1861 edition of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated, provides a clearer perspective on what some detractors considered a provincial structure. By this time, however, the building was admittedly worse for wear, having been uprooted from its original location to make way for construction of its grand successor. (Historic Columbia collection, HCF 2006.8.2.)

ONE

FROM "DEFICIENT IN . . .

LIFE AND FRESHNESS" TO

UNSURPASSED IN BEAUTY

COLUMBIA’S EARLIEST DAYS, 1786–1860

While Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Savannah, Georgia, are notable as Colonial-era planned cities, Columbia enjoys the distinction of being the United States’ first planned city. As with most fledgling towns or cities, the second state capital developed at its own pace and in its own style. Recorded early impressions of the city were few and varied. In May 1791, George Washington wrote, Columbia is an uncleared wood . . . surrounded by Piney and Sandy land. Less than 15 years later, in 1805, Edward Hooker went further, There is very little verdure in the town . . . the streets are very deficient in that life and freshness of appearance which usually prevails in the towns of New England. While neither account would necessarily inspire others to visit or relocate, Columbia nonetheless evolved as the 19th century progressed.

Charleston native Robert Mills heralded Columbia’s beauty in 1825 as unsurpassed . . . by any inland city in the Union. Mills’s laudatory assessment revealed that Columbia had gained ground since its earliest days. The beneficiary of unprecedented building and, for the most part, prosperity, Columbia had become an antebellum destination so much so that by 1860, Lillian Foster found it to be one of the prettiest towns I have ever visited . . . Here all that constitutes the beautiful is put forth in the luxuriance of poetical tracery.

SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE, C. 1820. Roughly two decades after the state established South Carolina College in 1801, artist T. Ulor painted the institution from the perspective of Sumter and College Streets. By this point, the campus featured a number of mature trees, most notably in the allée leading to the president’s house at the end of what became known as the Horseshoe. Ulor’s documentation of the college also offers insight into both the clothing fashions of the time and the manners in which horses were used for transportation, including the sulky on the right-hand side of the gate into campus grounds. (South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia.)

SOUTH CAROLINA STATE ASYLUM, C. 1850. Designed by Robert Mills in 1822, this sprawling landmark was erected by the state immediately outside of Columbia’s northern city limit due to the nature of the facility’s use. At the time the classically inspired building was opened in December 1828, supporters heralded it for its modern humane approach to treating mental health patients, including orienting the facility so that its dormitory rooms received maximum sunlight. Though cost overruns prevented implementing Mills’s proposed landscaping and plumbing, the structure nonetheless received an advanced heating and ventilation system. By the mid-19th century, the hospital featured a tall brick wall and a cast-iron fence that offered unimpeded views of the building’s impressive entrance. (South Carolina State Museum.)

SOUTH CAROLINA FEMALE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, C. 1850. Many of the relatively few remaining depictions of antebellum Columbia are the work of artist Eugene Dovilliers. Believed to have been living in the capital city by the early 1840s, the French immigrant created detailed drawings and paintings of landscapes and local landmarks. Among his earliest works is a rendering of this prestigious girls’ school, where he served as a professor of art and