A History of the College’s Land

Locating the Land

If walls could speak, they could tell quite a tale. But the land of the College Campus, predating all our buildings, has quite a history, too.

The story of the land that encompasses the College or Charleston campus reflects the history of the city.

The peninsula of Charleston was home to Native Americans long before the first permanent European settlers arrived in 1670. As soon as they entered the harbor, the first settlers saw a large oyster midden, the mounds of discarded oyster shells left by the indigenous people. (They named that area White Point, the site for White Point Garden today.) The tribes in the area included the Wando and the Etiwan. Relations between natives and newcomers started out equitably, but the sad tragedy of native displacement by the Europeans (through enslavement, conflict and disease) that is part of American history also played out here.

No one owned the lands, until they were claimed by England’s King Charles II, who granted them to the Lords Proprietors, who, in turn, granted them to others. What is now our campus was beyond the limits of Charles Towne, which was moved from its original location at Albermarle Point, west of the Ashley River, to the peninsula in 1680. Our land, granted first to Henry Hughes in the 1670s, passed to John Coming. In 1698, a part of that parcel, containing the core of the campus, was conveyed by Coming’s widow, Affra Harleston Coming, to the Pinckney family. (The names of Coming St., which runs through campus, and Harleston Village, just west of it, reflect this early history.) In 1724, a Pinckney heir sold some of this land to the Commissioners of the Free School, making public education the land’s now fulfilled destiny. The large tract of land bounded to the north on a marsh (now Calhoun St.between St. Philip and Coming streets, an area that still floods occasionally) and southerly (south of present-day George St.) on a tract donated by Affra Harleston Coming to St. Philip’s Church. (This gave rise to other street names in the neighborhood – St. Philip and Glebe – the latter word meaning property of a church.) Some of the first structures on the land in the Colonial era were wooden barracks, soon replaced by two brick barracks. The barracks were used in the American Revolution by the Second SC Regiment under William Moultrie. Plats indicate that those buildings were in the approximate area of what is now Cistern Yard.

The College’s first president Bishop Robert Smith, who lived nearby, was not just a clergyman, but a plantation owner whose wealth came from enslaved people who worked his land. (Almost all early endowments came from similar sources: Benjamin Smith, the first contributor to the College, no relation to Robert Smith, was a wealthy slave and plantation owner, as well, and Miles Brewton, another donor, was a slave trader.) President Smith, who would own more than 200 human beings at his death in 1801, was in the position to advance the struggling College funds to repair the barracks classrooms; records also reveal that people he enslaved worked on related projects, for which he billed the institution. To pay off those debts after his death, the College trustees, mostly wealthy slave owners themselves, cut Green Street (now Green Way, converted to a pedestrian mall in the 1970s) through its lands, attempting to rent lots along it. The College’s land was now quartered into four approximately equal squares or blocks, the extreme outer limits being Boundary (now Calhoun), St. Philip, George and Coming streets, with College Street running north/south through the parcel, and Green Street running east/west through it. In 1817, the College was forced to sell most of its land to satisfy the debt, restricting its precincts to the southeast square of land bounded by George, College, Green and St. Philip streets.

On these lands, fringing the compact campus, rose houses, large and small, of men and women white and black, free and enslaved, many of whom could not legally attend the school whose student body consisted mostly of the white slave-owning elite. (There were religious, educational civic buildings and graveyards in the neighborhood, too.) As the College grew and eventually became state supported in the 20th century, it began to acquire more of the surrounding property. Many buildings were torn down, some were saved, and others relocated. After all these changes, the College of Charleston now includes the approximate parcel it possessed at its founding, and more: the campus now extends north of Calhoun Street, east of St. Philip Street, across Coming Street and as far south as Wentworth Street. There are other non-contiguous College lands on the peninsula and others across both the Ashley and Cooper Rivers.

Within the over 30 acres of the downtown campus are innumerable stories to discover.

Audio

Audio version of this essay The audio version of this essay was voiced by Joy Vandervort-Cobb, associate professor of theatre at the College of Charleston.

Images

Bird’s Eye View of the city of Charleston, South Carolina, 1872
Bird’s Eye View of the city of Charleston, South Carolina, 1872 Campus lands are in the center near number 26. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Ichnography of Charleston, South-Carolina
Ichnography of Charleston, South-Carolina This 1788 map was used by the Phoenix Fire-Company of London. College lands (and the colonial era barracks seen as two parallel lines) are in the top right corner, just beneath “Harleston.” Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
"Plan of Colledge Lands by Purcell, 1801"
"Plan of Colledge Lands by Purcell, 1801" The one remaining barracks building was used by the College for classrooms. Other lands in the plat show parcels laid out to sell or rent. McCrady Plats. Courtesy of the Charleston County Register of Mesne Conveyance.
Plat of College lands
Plat of College lands This plat was drawn in the early 1800s when original College lands were being sold or rented to settle debts to the estate of Bishop Robert Smith. The barracks building is roughly drawn in along St. Philip Street. Courtesy of the South Carolina Historical Society.
John Rubens Smith Sketch
John Rubens Smith Sketch This circa 1812 graphite drawing by John Rubens Smith shows the original barracks/class room building of the College. The sketch looks southward toward present day George Street. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
3D Rendering of the Barracks
3D Rendering of the Barracks Using an array of geographic data and historical documents, College of Charleston student Alexandra Heath, '20 rendered this 3D model of the barracks.
Aerial view, ca. 1960s
Aerial view, ca. 1960s College and Green streets have yet to become pedestrian malls and many buildings on St. Philip Street, since destroyed, are still standing. Courtesy of College of Charleston Libraries, Special Collections.
Circa 1801 Plat of College Lands
Circa 1801 Plat of College Lands This plat shows a closed “College Yard” bounded by the barracks building and three brick walls. "Charles Parker, Plat of the College Lands in Charleston, Laid Out into Lots in Area Bordered by Coming, George, Boundary, St. Philip, and College Streets, Ward No. 4. Courtesy of Charleston County Register of Deeds, McCrady Plat Collection #222."
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Charleston, SC, 1888
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Charleston, SC, 1888 The square in the upper right-hand corner shows the College; the “shop” is no longer standing. Pink denotes brick buildings, yellow denotes wood buildings. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
College of Charleston Expansion Study, 1973
College of Charleston Expansion Study, 1973 In 1973, the Science Center and Physicians Auditorium (where Rita Liddy Hollings center is now) were under construction, as were wings on either side of the Robert Scott Small library. Four houses remained on St Philip Street in the block where Simons/Cato Center would be built. The Sottile House and 14 Green St. were women’s residence halls; 4 Green St. was biology faculty offices; 9 College St. held botany labs and accounting offices. Bishop England High School was across Coming Street, where the Addlestone Library would open in 2005. Courtesy of College of Charleston Office of Facilities Management.
Map of the Campus of the College of Charleston
Map of the Campus of the College of Charleston A bird’s eye view of the College's central campus in the early 21st century, looking north from Beaufain Street. Insets show non-contiguous parts of the campus. Courtesy of the College of Charleston.

Location

66 George Street, Charleston, SC 29424

Metadata

Harlan Greene, “A History of the College’s Land,” Discovering Our Past: College of Charleston Histories, accessed March 29, 2024, https://discovering.cofc.edu/items/show/13.