Charleston is a small city where residents don't leave, or having left, realize their mistake and return. Of course this is a broad assumption based on three days of evidence. Yesterday's guide was a seventh generation Charlestonian, Michael Trouche. This morning our excellent docent at the Nathaniel Russell House was a Calhoun. When I inquired after the tour he confirmed that he was a descendant of John C. Calhoun's brother William. If your US history is a bit rusty, John C. Calhoun resigned as Vice President when South Carolina seceded from the Union.
We began our day arriving at the Nathaniel Russell House punctually at the ten o'clock opening time, receiving a place in the second tour of the day. Apparently others decided that Charleston in April is a good vacation destination. The Russell house was opulently built to impress their daughter's future in-laws the Pinckney's. The centerpiece is a curved, three story, free-flying staircase. Built in the Federalist style favored by Washington and Jefferson, it is fully furnished with original family pieces.
After an excellent guided tour of the various rooms on two of the three floors (Charleston fire authorities apparently having the view that allowing the public to be at the giddy heights of the third floor is way beyond legal comprehension), and taking a few pictures in the garden, we walked to the Aiken-Rhett House. Built in 1820 and expanded in 1830 this house is much larger than the Nathaniel Russell House but it has been unaltered since 1858. Although crumbling and decrepit in many places, the house, slave quarters, kitchen, stable, and privies are still standing. Members of the family continued to live in the house until the 1950's shrinking their living space into fewer and fewer rooms. The decay of the rooms echoed the story of Grey Gardens, and the comprehensive iPod audio commentary provided an interesting contrast to the crumbling architectural history we were walking through.
The sky was sunny and the temperature around eighty when we boarded the ferry to Fort Sumter; perfect weather for a boat trip across the mouth of the two rivers. However, it is a very small and colorless island. The fort was planned to protect the Charleston Harbor after the War of 1812. It had not been finished when it became the site of the first shots of the War Between the States, or the American Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression. The preferred name depends on the speaker and the audience. Also a nearly fifty year unfinished government plan sounds quite modern. We listened to a fifteen to twenty minute talk by a park ranger, walked and looked at cannons for thirty minutes, toured the small museum, then boarded for the ride back to the harbor.
Unable to get dinner reservations at the hot spots of Fig and Husk, we had a delicious dinner at 82 Queen - yet another of the top-rated half-dozen or so Charleston restaurants. Dinner is served on covered open air brick patios which proved convenient as rain began to spatter before the end of the evening. Good food here is superb although expensive, but there are so many great places we just cannot settle for less. Note Mike's reaction to tonight's bill.
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