Hibernian Hall, Standing at the Edge

The Ionic portico of Hibernian Hall at 105 Meeting Street, intact, photographed across the open cellars and foundation lines of buildings that no longer exist. A boy stands at the right, on the pavement between the two conditions.

The emptiness in the foreground is the track of the Great Fire of 11 December 1861, which broke out near the foot of Hasell Street in the evening and burned a diagonal swath across the peninsula from the Cooper to the Ashley, taking Institute Hall — Secession Hall, its new name not yet a year old — the Circular Church, and the Cathedral with it. The fire line ran close here, and this hall kept its columns while its neighbors across the way were reduced to the cellar lines the camera looks over.

The Library of Congress catalogs the building as the 'place of meeting after the burning of Secession Hall.' Which body met here, and when, the catalog line does not say, and no record consulted for this caption settles it; the claim is reproduced as the repository has it.