"OLD CHARLESTON BY THE SEA." BY JOHN GRIMBALL WILKINS.
As one stands on East Battery overlooking the wonderful harbor of Charleston, S. C., with its two wide rivers, the Ashley and the Cooper, it makes his heart beat with pride. About ten miles up the Cooper is located the great Port Terminals costing nearly twenty millions of dollars, one of the most modern and complete line of piers in the world.
Charleston, with her new Port Utilities Commission, will bring about a favorable understanding of the city's harbor developments. Charleston is at last going to get acquainted with the live industrial textile centers of the State like Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson.
This old city of Charleston was truly great in the days gone by. Just read the shipping news printed in the issues of the Courier about 1824—which reads like ''Tom Cringle's Log'"'— ships from many foreign lands, 'full riggers,'' ''barks,"' '"'brigs,'"' ''brigantines,'' '"'schooners,"' and every sort of craft known to seamen.
In the eyes of commerce it must have been wonderful, and in the eyes of romance joyous and sweet. Out in the bay, vessels of all nations swinging hard against their anchor chains with the ebb and flow of the tide, waiting for the wind to blow off shore so they could put on sail and run out to sea, where the ocean breezes would carry them to every point of the compass.
How lovely the wide bay looks to-day, the waves sweeping in from the bar, the little sailing boats tacking about in the bright sunlight of dear old Dixie; above, the sky so blue and soft, and the warm air blowing from the tall pines just across the rivers; out at Quarantine the government building shows up so clearly. Old Fort Sumter, near the entrance of Charleston harbor, is dreaming of the war of sixty-one to sixty-five and the brave part she played under the ''Stars and Bars." In the air there is an odor of lime and oyster shells that seems to cling about the salt sea.
No wonder people from all over the country want to see "The Battery" ''Old White Point Gardens" of the Colonial days. Just walk about the "High Battery" and look out to sea. This is Charleston of the bravest history in all America, the home of the days of William Gilmore Simms, Henry Timrod, and Paul Hamilton Hayne; this is the old town that a native born never forgets—her people love her like an Irishman loves ''Old Erin's Isle''; it never quite leaves their memory, it matters not where they make their homes in after life. If you are fond of reading, it will recall the story of David Copperfield, 'Little Emily'? and David picking up shells on the sands and ''Old Peggotty'' waiting for them in the little boathouse on the beach; and if the weather is rough, you will think of the awful storm at Yarmouth, in England, where Ham Peggotty, the giant sailor of the fisher village, gives up his life in trying to save Steerforth, clinging to the broken spar. A storm on the ocean makes you think of Charles Dickens's description of the tempest at Yarmouth, or Lord Byron's '' Dark, heaving, boundless sea, endless and sublime."'
When old Charleston is approached from the sea, the day bright with sunshine, the bay peaceful, the old seaport lying just above the water line a few feet, the wide rivers sweeping around the harbor front, the scene would please an artist who loves the painting of nature, with its soft touches of beauty here and there, the green stretch of marsh land that leads away to the pines, for it is truly the American Venice— just the sea everywhere.
This old town was known in the past days of shipping, from Botany Bay, Sydney, to the Golden Gate; from Sandy Hook to Fastnet Light. On the docks of Liverpool and West
Street, New York, the deep sea seamen knew Charleston and the river front. In those days it took wind and sail to make ships move. Old St. Michael and St. Philip Churches can remember the days of commerce, for many a sailor has' watched their tall spires as their vessels dropped anchor in the stream.
When the sun has fallen away over the tall pines beyond the Ashley and the little buoy lamps are burning by quick flashes, and Ripley's light shows red, the wind rushing in strong from the Atlantic, you cannot help loving the ocean. What would Liverpool on the Mersey, or London on the Thames give for such a field of salt water? London docks cannot get the largest tonnage ships in the trade, for they are forced to lighten their cargoes out in the stream far duwn the river. Charleston has maritime pictures in her natural harbor that millions of dollars cannot duplicate in other South Atlantic ports, a scene to encourage shipping.
What can be a sweeter scene than to stand on the East Battery when the big bright moon is shining down, and watch — a big ship, her long yards stretching out over the water, with a green and red light hitched '"'fore and aft'' as she swings — with the currents of the sea; or it may be just the voice of two lonely boatmen talking to each other as they pull on their oars in a little boat out in the Bay. The wind will be — blowing in strong against your face, and beyond Morris — Light the swells are sweeping in, to break up in a soft monot- — onous splash about the heavy rocks alongthe High Battery.
Some one speaks to me—and the spell is broken: ''This is — a beautiful bay you have here; it reminds me so much of my _ home over in England; I live at Plymouth, and we have a © lighthouse not far away and the ocean rolls in just like it; does here in Charleston to-night. Have you ever read ' West- — ward, Ho!' by Charles Kingsley? It tells of the soft green shores of Devon.'' His voice was eager, and I thought how sweet the scene must be to him so far from home.
"Full riggers'"' and barks sometimes come in to port now, their sails lashed up, and tugs push them to safe anchorage; but the days of sailing ships are almost over, though still we see them occasionally, and they look like old friends that have come back to us from out of the sea. As you stand on the Old Battery at night and watch the sea roll in, the lights changing as the ships swing in the ebb and the flow of the tide, it makes a picture never to be forgotten. Over across the quiet bay the old fortifications of Fort Moultrie stand on guard to-day, as she did when Charleston was young.
It was at this old fort that Major Anderson, of the United States army, spiked his guns on the day after Christmas, 1860, and took charge of Fort Sumter until April, 1861. The Confederates did not let him remain there long, for, after
FORT
EAST BATTERY AND THE BAY AT CHARLESTON. SUMTER IN THE DISTANCE,
OLD ST. PHILIP'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH (WITH THE TALL SPIRE) AND THE OLD HUGUENOT FRENCH CHURCH (TO THE RIGHT).
'a three-day siege, he moved rapidly out, taking with him the Stars and Stripes. It was then that the Southern Cross was raised on the front wall to fly in the sweet Dixie air. From Coming Point the first gun was fired on the Star of the West. That shot changed the Old South into a new one, and it altered the finest civilization of all times. The defense of this fort was one of the bravest in all history. South Carolinians commanded it for four long years—Rhett, Mitchell, Hugenin, and Elliott. As a stranger leans over the Battery rails on some soft summer morning, he generally wants to know 'Where is Fort Sumter?''? The name seems to have a sort of magical charm about it, for just ahead of you, in the very entrance of the harbor, it shows up dark and stern.
It is getting late, the city is almost asleep, the buoy lights are shining bright, the ships are moving about on their chains out in the tide; the sky above looks so soft as the misty clouds float smoothly across the face of the moon, sending quick shadows down on the hard stone walk and white oyster shells on East Battery; out in the river a boatman is rowing, you can hear the monotonous sound of the rubbing against the oar locks and his talking in a subdued tone to his shipmate.
From the sea beyond Morris Lighthouse the swells rush
BIRTHPLACE OF GEN. OLDEST HOUSES IN CHARLESTON.