Colonial Charleston Crime, Punishment & Policing

The Guard House was at Half Moon Battery (corner of Broad St. & E. Bay St. - red circle) from 1680 to 1769, now the site of the Old Exchange Bldg.  A new Guard House was finished in 1769 (southwest corner of  Broad St. & Meeting St.-blue circle) and served as the Guard House for several decades thereafter.

Town Watch:

From the Preservation Society of Charleston:

In colonial Charles Town, public safety and law enforcement were managed by the Town Watch, a paramilitary unit. After the City of Charleston was incorporated in 1783, the City Guard took over the function and buildings of the Town Watch. The City Guard became a uniformed police force in 1856. The various organizations were all housed at the southwest corner of Broad and Meeting streets from 1769 until 1886. 

The Watch House or Guard House was a police station, with rooms for offices, meetings, and drills, and a barracks for the guards. By 1711, there was a Watch House in the building above the Half Moon Battery. In 1767 the Commons House of Assembly granted an appropriation to build a new Watch House, and to build a waterfront Exchange and Custom House above the Half Moon Battery. The Act of Appropriation stipulated that "A convenient, proper, and handsome Watch House is first to be built in Broad Street, between the Public Armory, State House, St. Michael's Church, and the Market. When that is completed, the old Watch House is to be pulled down and the Exchange and Custom House erected in its stead." 

The new Watch House, constructed by William Rigby Naylor and James Brown, was complete by 1769. The size of the force grew along with Charleston’s population, and the buildings were altered and remodeled several times. In early 1838, City Council determined that Charleston’s 160-man guard required an entirely new building. They needed large halls roomy enough to use for drills, a court room and detention area, and quarters for the men. . . .

The Half Moon Battery was leveled and the Old Exchange Building built overtop.

 [T]he brick, Half Moon Battery was constructed in 1701–2, and the one-story “stone” Watch House was erected sometime between 1698 and 1703. Readers familiar with the Bishop Roberts’ 1739 “Exact Prospect of Charles-Town” will note that the latter structure appears in that publication as a two-story building called the “Council Chamber above & Guard House below.” The same aforementioned colonial legislative records also reveal that the early “Watch House” was enlarged into a two-story government structure in 1727, and acquired its new name by the spring of 1731.