Working location

Osborn & Durbec, No. 245 King Street

245 King Street · Charleston, South Carolina

Approximate historical location. Placed by block, not by building. Two corners on King Street can be fixed in both the 1861 census and the 1884 Sanborn survey: the Siegling music house at the Beaufain corner (251–253 King in 1861, 247 in 1884) and Eibe H. Marjenhoff’s premises at the Liberty corner (333 King in 1861, still 333 in 1884, and he is listed at 2 Liberty Street as well). Between those two anchors the two numbering schemes differ by no more than about half a dozen doors. The point given here is that many doors along the block from the anchor corner, at a nominal thirty-foot frontage — the frontage the 1882 renumbering contract itself used. It is a position within a block, not a building. Osborn & Durbec stood three doors south of the Beaufain corner, in the block between Market and Beaufain streets, on the west side.

Ford's 1861 census of Charleston lists the firm as the occupant of No. 245 King Street, west side, Ward 4 — the house owned by Maj. William Laval. The firm's own mounts say 223 King Street. Both are recorded here and neither is discarded: either the depot moved between the printing of the mounts and the taking of the census, or the two are the same shopfront under two numbering schemes. Ford's numbers were, in the Charleston County Public Library's words, apparently of his own invention.

The numbering problem

Charleston's present street numbers date from the city-wide renumbering carried out under contract from 1882 and finished before the earthquake of 31 August 1886. A wartime number and a modern number of the same name are not the same address, and no conversion table survives, so this location is not matched to a modern parcel.

Who worked here

What is there now

Not established.

Where the address comes from

  • Frederick A. Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Year 1861, Illustrated by Statistical Tables, Prepared under the Authority of the City Council (Charleston, 1861). The street lists give, for every house on every street, the number, the owner and the occupant. https://archive.org/details/censusofcityofch00char

Where the coordinate comes from

  • OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Used for the modern street intersections this section pins approximate locations to. https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
  • Frederick A. Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Year 1861, Illustrated by Statistical Tables, Prepared under the Authority of the City Council (Charleston, 1861). The street lists give, for every house on every street, the number, the owner and the occupant. https://archive.org/details/censusofcityofch00char
  • Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/

Sources

  • Frederick A. Ford, Census of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Year 1861, Illustrated by Statistical Tables, Prepared under the Authority of the City Council (Charleston, 1861). The street lists give, for every house on every street, the number, the owner and the occupant. https://archive.org/details/censusofcityofch00char
  • Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/