Charleston Streets - Cobblestone
From Charleston Footprints:
Cobblestones are not native to coastal South Carolina, but come from places such as New England, where sailing ships built during the colonial era needed heavy ballast in their hulls to keep them upright in strong winds.
The piles of cobblestones were an easy solution to the ballast needs, but took up space that could be used for cargo. So when ships came to old Charleston to load bales of cotton or barrels of rice, their ballast was often dumped on our wharves to make room for the weighty goods.
The new stone was ideal for paving Charleston’s sandy muddy streets, and for building foundations for fortifications, and providing landfill for mudflats and marshes. By the 1720’s, Charleston customs officers were offering freedom from taxes and duties on goods in return for tons of ballast, and long stretches of street benefitted from the layers of stones.
In old pictures, it is hard to see some of the cobblestones buried in soil and sand, and it has been erroneously written that many of our streets were dirt up through the War Between the States. Cobblestones were and still are rough, however, and Belgian Block, vitrified brick, and creosote planks were also used to make some streets less teeth-chattering.
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