18th Century Charleston - East Bay St.

East Bay St is the eastern most north to south road in Charleston.  It abuts the docks and the Cooper River to the east and runs parallel to State St. and Church St. to its west.

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Rainbow Row
83-107 East Bay St (1680-1790)

 

Rainbow Row represents the longest cluster of intact Georgian row houses in the United States. The earliest structures on this portion of East Bay Street, between Tradd and Elliott Street, were built by 1680. The buildings were constructed on lots 7 to 10 of the Grand Modell, a city plan developed between 1670-1680.

Over the years, the buildings served as the shops and residences of notable merchants and planters, and fronted a cluster of wharves on the Cooper River waterfront. The buildings also fronted a segment of the eastern boundary of the fortification wall constructed circa 1704 to surround the city. Some of the houses were damaged or destroyed by fire, and the present structures date from circa 1720 to circa 1790. The homes suffered slight damage by Union artillery bombardment during the War between the States.

After the war and decades of neglect, the buildings deteriorated into slums. Susan Pringle Frost, founder of the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings, now the Preservation Society of Charleston, began her important preservation and rehabilitation efforts by purchasing some of these properties in the 1920s in order to prevent their demolition. The name Rainbow Row was coined after the pastel colors they were painted as they were restored in the 1930s and 1940s. The rear facades and gardens of 93-101 East Bay were also used as a model for the original 1935 stage setting of George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward’s opera, “Porgy and Bess.”

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90 E. Bay St.
Ancrum Wharf Building 1781

 

The Ancrum Wharf Building was constructed by Parker Quince and John Ancrum, both North Carolina natives, who were married to Savannah and Mary Rhett. The Rhett sisters were heirs to Col. William Rhett. The Ancrum Wharf Building is one of the few wharf-related eighteenth structures surviving in Charleston and abuts one of the only remaining cobblestone streets. Originally constructed as a three-story building, the Ancrum Wharf Building was altered to function as a two-story building during the mid-nineteenth century. The large windows of the upper floor were altered to mask evidence that this tall upper space once comprised two separate floors.

When first built the Ancrum Wharf Building was across from a public fish market that lay immediately to the south.

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