{"id":6,"featured":0,"modified":"2025-01-24 22:20:08","latitude":32.78408195692720283886956167407333850860595703125,"longitude":-79.93867456912994384765625,"title":"14 Green Way","address":"14 Green Way, Charleston, SC 29424","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/7ff2cf0eba537afb8a9fda182c019597.jpg","creator":["Julia Eichelberger","Sarah Fick"],"description":"

The College first owned this property from 1770 until 1817, when it sold some of its land to satisfy debts. Carpenter Walter Knox purchased this lot and probably built the two-story house that stood on it for decades. In 1870 his widow, Catherine Knox, sold the property to Albert Osceola Jones. An 1872 newspaper article reports, \u201cMr. A. O. Jones. . . is erecting a handsome wooden edifice . . . three stories high. It has a piazza on each story. . . with a neat little cupola on the apex.\u201d

Most published accounts of this house\u2019s history do not record A.O. Jones as the person for whom the structure was built. A free person of color listed as \u201cmulatto\u201d in the 1860 census, Jones grew up in Washington, D.C., where his father was a successful feed and livestock merchant. After the Civil War, when in his 20s, Jones moved to South Carolina and served as clerk of the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1868-1876. Intelligent and ambitious, Jones moved in 1872 into 14 Green St., a house large enough for his growing family, with elaborate ironwork decorating each piazza and Jones\u2019s initials etched into the glass of the front door along with the number 14.

Available records have not disclosed all there is to know about Jones. Although he owned additional properties in Charleston and elsewhere in South Carolina, he lost the Green Street house to foreclosure in 1881. After Reconstruction<\/a>, his job as clerk of the Republican-controlled House had ended when the Democrats regained power in 1876, following elections in which there was widespread evidence of fraud. A few months later, several Republicans including Jones were arrested and accused of misappropriating state funds, and although never convicted, Jones was among those vilified as corrupt and unfit by Democratic politicians and white-owned newspapers.

In 1879 the city directory, prepared under a post-Reconstruction administration, identified Jones as \u201claborer,\u201d but a loan document shows that this same year Jones owned two typewriters \u2013 state-of-the-art technology \u2013 in addition to other furnishings valuable enough to secure a second mortgage. In 1880, he successfully farmed over 200 acres he owned in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he lived with his wife Estelle, four children and a German nanny.

These details, together with the incompleteness of published accounts of the house\u2019s history, reflect the post-Civil War experiences and near-invisibility of many other African Americans in a majority-black state, whose 1868 constitution had given the franchise to men of all races. Deliberately forgotten by some, these individuals nevertheless worked to improve their lives in a new landscape where slavery had been abolished.

After Jones lost his house to foreclosure, 14 Green St., was owned by a series of middle-class Charlestonians, including a grocer and a King Street shoe store manager. In 1899, the College rented this house for use as a dormitory. Edward T. H. Shaffer, class of 1902 and author of Carolina Gardens<\/em> (1937), lived here while a student at the College, which he described as \u201ca kindergarten of Charleston\u2019s lingering 18th century caste system.\u201d Of the house, he wrote, \u201cThere was a relic of past grandeur in the front yard, a fountain where a mottled cherub patiently held aloft an iron umbrella regardless of the fact that no water ever flowed from it. Some wag on the faculty dubbed the establishment \u2018The Sign of the Baby,\u2019 and the name stuck until the dormitory was moved to other quarters.\u201d The College relocated its dormitory to 4 Green St. when that property came up for sale in 1901.

Architectural historians named the house for the Knox family, who owned the lot for 53 years, and for the Lesesne family, who owned and occupied it from 1918 to 1961. Charles and Frieda Tice bought it in 1961, but were unable to complete restorations. A 1964 Preservation Society newlsetter (which notes, \u201cduring Reconstruction, the house was occupied by Negroes\u201d) reports that when Tice offered the house for sale, he was contacted by a New Jersey resident who said he was A.O. Jones\u2019s descendant. The house was sold to the family of developer J.C. Long, who unsuccessfully sought a permit to raze it before selling it and the adjacent Sottile House to the College in May 1964.

By the early 1960s, the College was buying all the nearby properties it could purchase, sometimes using endowment funds at the expense of scholarships or operating budgets. The College needed more space to expand, but many trustees and President George Grice were also seeking to remove low-income renters and African Americans from the neighborhood. Minutes from a 1962 Board meeting state that \u201cparcels of property now on the market are paralleled by an increase of Negro tenants and owners occupying houses and apartments in the area of Coming Street south of Calhoun.\u201d The College, which had long been a city college, had gone private in 1949 under President Grice in order to avoid integration. Segregationist efforts ultimately failed; the College began admitting black students in 1967 and became a state institution in 1970.

The Preservation Society gave the College a Carolopolis Award for saving 14 Green St. from demolition in 1964. For a few years in the 1960s, the College rented it to the Junior League of Charleston, a women\u2019s volunteer service organization, which operated Horizon House, a residence for troubled children. The College renovated the house in 1972-73, after Green Street had become the pedestrian-only Green Way. It was used as a women\u2019s dormitory until 2013. Currently 14 Green Way is home to the College's Office of Multicultural Student Programs and Services<\/a>. Renovated in 2018, the house now has solar panels that generate about 25 percent of its energy.
<\/span><\/p>","sponsor":null,"subtitle":"Built for an African American during Reconstruction, later served as a women\u2019s residence hall","accessinfo":null,"lede":"Decorated with elaborate ironwork and a distinctive cupola, this house was built in 1872 for A.O. Jones,\u00a0African American and clerk of the South Carolina House of Representatives during Reconstruction.","website":null,"related_resources":["Bruce Baker & Brian Kelly., eds., After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Citizenship in the Reconstruction South (University Press of Florida, 2013)","

Charleston Daily News<\/span><\/i>, January 20, 1870, July 22, 1872, August 2, 1877.<\/span><\/p>","

Charleston Evening Post<\/span><\/i>, June 24, 1964.<\/span><\/p>","Charleston News and Courier, February 23, 1964.","

College of Charleston Board of Trustee minutes. Lowcountry Digital Libraries, College of Charleston Libraries. 1901, 1962.<\/span><\/p>","

College of Charleston Campus Map, 1973.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","

Dan Dickison,\u00a0 \u201cKnox-Lesesne House: Showing the Green Way,\u201d <\/span>The College Today,<\/span><\/i><\/a> July 2, 2019.<\/span><\/p>","Eric Foner, Freedom\u2019s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (LSU Press, 1993).
","G. Leland, \u201cCollege of Charleston Saves the Lesesne House,\u201d <\/span>Preservation Progress<\/span><\/i>, vol. IX, no. 3, 1964<\/span>","

Joel Williamson, <\/span>After Slavery: The Negro in South Carolina During Reconstruction, 1861-77 <\/span><\/i>UNC Press, 1965).<\/span><\/p>","

Katherine E. Chaddock and Carolyn B. Matalene, <\/span>College of Charleston Voices: Campus and Community Through the Centuries<\/span><\/i> (History Press, 2006).<\/span><\/p>","

Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, <\/span>After Slavery: Race,Labor, and Politics in the Post-Emancipation Carolinas<\/span><\/i><\/a>, 2006, updated 2016.<\/span><\/p>","

McCrady Plat Collection and Charleston County Deed Book, Charleston County Register of Deeds, Charleston, SC.<\/span><\/p>","

Nan Morrison, <\/span>A History of the College of Charleston, 1936-2008 <\/span><\/i>(University of South Carolina Press, 2011).<\/span><\/p>","

Thomas Holt, <\/span>Black Over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina During Reconstruction<\/span><\/i> (University of Illinois Press, 1977).<\/span><\/p>","

United States Census, 1860, 1870, 1880; United States Agriculture Census, June 12, 1880.<\/span><\/p>"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/7ff2cf0eba537afb8a9fda182c019597.jpg":{"id":27,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"14 Green Way","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/7ff2cf0eba537afb8a9fda182c019597.jpg","description":"The house was renovated in 2018-19. Solar panels generate about 25 percent of the house\u2019s energy. Courtesy of the College of Charleston. It is now the home of the Office of Multicultural Student Programs and Services."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/a01f387b25cba8564f642f5caa768a00.jpg":{"id":25,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Watercolor of 14 Green Way","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/a01f387b25cba8564f642f5caa768a00.jpg","description":"Artwork by Arthur Street, published in the Charleston Evening Post<\/em>, June 24, 1964. Courtesy of the Charleston County Public Library. "},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/310c41f5b9a6c41b5a1bb012fd42dd9a.jpg":{"id":24,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Iron Work on 14 Green Way","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/310c41f5b9a6c41b5a1bb012fd42dd9a.jpg","description":"This house has a very distinguished facade, unusual in Charleston. Courtesy of the College of Charleston."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/30fa7446fc033c3c3ca25c50c248f53f.jpg":{"id":26,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Charleston Daily News, July 22, 1872.","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/30fa7446fc033c3c3ca25c50c248f53f.jpg","description":"The house being built in Charleston for A. O. Jones, clerk of the SC House of Representatives in Columbia, caught the attention of the <\/span>Charleston Daily News.<\/i> Special thanks to historian Kevin Eberle for alerting researchers to this article.<\/span>"},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/579df24177e3e5c9a102beb6d2bcf6a8.jpg":{"id":69,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Green Street with parking meter, circa 1970","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/579df24177e3e5c9a102beb6d2bcf6a8.jpg","description":"This photo shows the house when Green Street was still accessible to cars. Renamed Green Way, it became pedestrian-only in the mid-1970s. Courtesy of College of Charleston Libraries, Special Collections."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/0bd8707d7b22e652b4309b8f5a0b998f.jpg":{"id":70,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"14 Green in 1973","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/0bd8707d7b22e652b4309b8f5a0b998f.jpg","description":"This photo is taken from the construction site of the science building now called Rita Liddy Hollings Science Center Located at 58 Coming St., it is named for the College's 1958 alumna. Courtesy of College of Charleston Libraries, Special Collections."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/cb370133ed26e9d8256bbe0e4201751f.jpg":{"id":122,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Piazza and front doors, 2019","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/cb370133ed26e9d8256bbe0e4201751f.jpg","description":"These doors open to the side porch. Courtesy of the College of Charleston."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/83a3779337aa55580354fbdb5ff30f7e.jpg":{"id":121,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Original Owner\u2019s Initials","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/83a3779337aa55580354fbdb5ff30f7e.jpg","description":"The initials of A.O. Jones appear in a stylized monogram etched in the glass above the number 14. Special thanks to Elizabeth Crimmins, who pointed out these initials in a Fall 2016 report she wrote for a class in the Department of Historic Preservation and Community Planning. Courtesy of the College of Charleston."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/ee820bff113376ae6071ad016cbb6492.jpg":{"id":159,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"14 Green St., 1960s","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/ee820bff113376ae6071ad016cbb6492.jpg","description":"The plaque for a Carolopolis Award is visible on the right column of the entrance gate. In 1966, the Preservation Society of Charleston presented this award to the College. The College bought the house in 1964 from J. C. Long, who had briefly owned the property in hopes of turning it into a parking lot. Courtesy of Library of Congress."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/e14c4f590bdbea357946141065486d76.jpg":{"id":179,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"14 Green Way, circa 1973","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/e14c4f590bdbea357946141065486d76.jpg","description":"Behind this student, through the back door of the piazza, a large crane is visible; a Central Energy Facility was being built there in 1972-73. In this era, 14 Green St. was preserved while new classroom buildings, a new library and residence halls were constructed around it. The 1972 yearbook devoted 20 pages to pictures of buildings being demolished. Courtesy of College of Charleston Libraries, Special Collections."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/0e36fe508c8ada8f4c06f4b9ca23276c.jpg":{"id":180,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Center of Front Gate, 14 Green Way","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/0e36fe508c8ada8f4c06f4b9ca23276c.jpg","description":"The original gate, from 1872, survives today. Courtesy of the College of Charleston."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/3bac6b56304ce75aa5a5635ebd6c4ca3.jpg":{"id":181,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Social Justice Flags at 14 Green Way","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/3bac6b56304ce75aa5a5635ebd6c4ca3.jpg","description":"Sean Dalton, a member of the Intersectional Cougar Action Network (I-CAN), posted this image on Instagram in 2019, depicting 14 Green Way adorned with flags of various social justice movements."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/original\/26d2bcce2819450d2cd1b69aaf6884eb.mp3":{"id":216,"mime-type":"audio\/mpeg","title":"Audio version of this essay","description":"The audio version of this essay was voiced by Joy Vandervort-Cobb, associate professor of theatre at the College of Charleston."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/eb6f685b1f986fa5e153cb30d8ae869b.jpg":{"id":714,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"C of C staff and faculty at the Multicultural Center","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/eb6f685b1f986fa5e153cb30d8ae869b.jpg","description":"Participants on the 2023 Maroon Walk for Juneteenth visited 14 Green Way. | Photo by Catie Cleveland, College of Charleston"},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/4e28cfe252c58807c155ad44bee27817.jpg":{"id":740,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"14 Green Way Marker","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/4e28cfe252c58807c155ad44bee27817.jpg","description":"This sign was placed on the site by the College\u2019s Committee on Commemoration and Landscapes in May 2024."}}}