Boone Hall Plantation | Nathaniel Russell House

Thursday - 24 October 2002: Charleston, South Carolina - Hello, Y'all. We woke to the happy news that two men had been apprehended in the DC Sniper case.  We also woke to pouring rain! Just when we thought the bad weather was behind us. WRONG! No matter, we dressed for 70-degrees and rain and drove north to Boone Hall Plantation. The Plantation (an actual plantation, not a subdivision) is very famous for its "Avenue of Oaks" - a half-mile drive between 200-plus-year-old Live Oaks, dripping with moss. (Today, I learned Live Oaks are not deciduous.) The first land for the plantation was granted in 1681. The plantation grew to thousands of acres and had 300 slaves. Now the present owners live on the top floors of the mansion and charge people $12.50 to look at their stuff on the first floor. In their spare time, they raise "experimental" peaches and gourmet vegetables for restaurants around the United States. Some of the buildings on the property are original, but because of a bad earthquake in 1886 and Hurricane Hugo in the early 1970s, many of the buildings have been rebuilt or restored, or are not used for their original purpose. For example, the cotton gin building now houses the Boone Hall Plantation Gift Shop!

The beautiful drive leads up to Boone Hall Plantation


Boone Hall

We took a guided tour of the house and it is simply magnificent - the ceilings in the sunken living room are at least twenty feet high! Most of the furniture is period and much of the furniture, china and chandeliers are European. The brick used in the buildings were produced on the plantation. We drove through some of the property, toured the gardens and looked for the alligator living in the duck pond, but did not spot him. Then we toured through Slave Street - a row of brick cabins where the "skilled" house slaves lived. These are some of the few remaining slave cabins in America and each cabin is undergoing restoration, one-by-one.

Slave Street on the Boone Hall Plantation


Slave housing

On the way back towards Charleston, we drove through two barrier islands - Isles of Palms and Sullivan Island. These two islands have beautiful, huge homes - island style - 2 or 3-story houses built on stilts, with room for cars under the house. The houses also have wooden shutters or metal garage-type pull-down-doors over the window and door openings for hurricane protection.

Back downtown, we parked the Honda and went to a little Italian place for a nice, light lunch - we had a lot of walking to do this afternoon.

We walked down to 51 Meeting Street (only stopping into one needlepoint shop on the way) to tour the Nathaniel Russell House. This house is a treasure. Passed down through the family and finally sold to the Historic Charleston Foundation before a developer turned the house into four apartments, the home is "widely recognized as one of America's most important neoclassical dwellings". It was built in 1808. The furniture is either original or period and the other furnishings - china, silver pieces, lamps, etc. - belong to the extended Russell family. Many oil portraits of family members hang on the walls. The home was lavishly decorated with fresh flowers in every room and the guide told us the Russell Family was having a reunion in the house tomorrow night, so the house was looking especially nice today.

Nathaniel Russell was a wealthy import/export merchant. He didn't marry until he was in his 50s and his wife was 36. This was quite unusual for the time, as it was the first marriage for both. They had two daughters and, it seemed, hundreds of grandchildren. The women in the family had a tradition of marrying the Episcopal minister from the church across the street and seriously reproducing. At one time, 12 of the grandchildren lived in the home! Possibly, the 18 household slaves helped-out? The house has many interesting features, including a circular, free-flying, three-story staircase! We were able to walk up the staircase - scary and creaky! We also toured the oval and round rooms used by the family for their "formal" entertaining, the master bedroom, Mr. Russell's office, the butler pantry and the "family room". The master bedroom had wall-to-wall roll-up carpets that could be removed in warm weather (10 months out of the year, I think) and also a wing chair that disguised a chamber pot! They hung gauze sheets across the windows to keep out the mosquitoes. Our wonderful (heavily southern-accented) guide told us so much about family life at the time in Charleston - the main meal of the day was served at two o'clock in the formal dining room on the second floor, and lasted for 3 or 4 HOURS! On the property were servant quarters, the kitchen building, the laundry building, and a stable. All of this is on a piece of property about the same size as a single-family-sized lot in America today. (Don't forget the outhouse!) This is why all the homes were tall and skinny. Mrs. Russell came into the marriage with commercial property and several slaves. She had a "marriage contract" stating she would retain her property after their marriage (she was quite wealthy also). Marriage contracts were quite common for wealthy women - we just call them Pre-Nuptials today.

One interesting aspect of Charleston homes is that many of them seem to be built "side-ways", or perpendicular, to the street.  I don't know how to explain it, except with this photo. It looks like the houses are built with a door leading directly off the sidewalk. But the door actually leads to the covered front porch! The actually "front" door of this home is in the middle of the porch. Usually each story of the house has a large covered porch. The porches look very inviting - with ceiling fans and beautiful furnishings.
We walked all around the city today - with a guide book - looking at all the old homes.

In Charleston, there is a wooden home from 1721 still standing - and still occupied by a family. The size of some of the mansions is impressive, yet they are still built 2 feet from their neighbors. Some of the streets in Charleston are still brick or cobblestone - which is very pretty, but watch your step!

Brick street in Charleston


Pretty Charleston home

It was getting dark, so we walked back to the center of town to do some shopping and stopped into an ancient restaurant for a drink. We couldn't decide if we wanted dinner yet, but found a tapas bar with such an interesting menu, we decided this would be a perfect choice - just a light dinner. Meritage had a French name, a Spanish theme and many Asian items on their menu. We had assorted olives and tapanade on toast points, asparagus and sundried tomato salad, chicken satay with peanut sauce and tuna egg rolls. I had a Pepsid-AC - just in case - for dessert. DT and I were twenty years older than the average patron, and we could barely hear our 90-lb. waitress over the noise and music. The food was very good and though not on our list of "restaurants to try while in Charleston", we were happy for this smaller meal.

RV Park: James Island County Park