Charleston County

As the largest private bank in antebellum South Carolina, the Bank of Charleston soon became regional in interest, opening agencies in the coastal cities of Apalachicola, Florida; Mobile, Alabama; and New Orleans. By 1860 the bank was one of the strongest financial institutions in the Southeast, with a reputation that carried across the Atlantic to the commercial centers of Western Europe.

The main branch of the BSSC was located in Charleston (the financial center of the state), and the new bank catered to both commercial and agricultural interests, offering planters relatively easy terms of repayment and low rates of interest. The bank was run by a president and twelve directors elected annually by the General Assembly.

By 1898 Banks was named the first head nurse at Charleston Hospital and Training School, and she dedicated her life to nursing and seeking more equitable health care for African Americans. Promoted to superintendent of nurses, Banks devoted more than thirty-two years to this hospital and the training of nurses.

Beginning in 1926, Banov served as the public health officer for both the county and the city of Charleston. He combined the two departments in 1936 and remained as director until his retirement in 1962. Despite South Carolina’s small public health allocations, Banov attracted the attention of peers throughout the country and both federal and private funding sources because of his efficiency and diligence.

Initially settled by the English in 1627, Barbados had become an exceedingly wealthy, sugar-dominated economy by the time of South Carolina’s settlement in 1670. Sir John Colleton, who probably led the effort to gain the Carolina charter for eight English noblemen, had become a Barbadian planter after the defeat of the royalist cause in the Puritan Revolution.

William Bartram’s interests were broader than his father’s (John Bartram). In addition to botany, his book contains a great deal of information about animal life and both English and Indian societies.

In 1961 Bass moved back to Columbia, working for the Columbia Record before moving to the State as part of their governmental affairs staff. While in that position, Bass became interested in the changing politics of the South in connection with the civil rights movement, a major theme in his writing.

Battery Wagner was the principal fortification on Morris Island during the Civil War.

Their term "Oyster point" originally described the peninsula in general, but after Charleston was relocated to the eastern shore of the peninsula in 1680, the terms “Oyster Point” and “White Point” were used to refer specifically to its southernmost tip.

Bee’s brigade was the first to reinforce General Pierre G. T. Beauregard at Manassas Junction, Virginia, and he was instrumental in ensuring the Confederate victory on July 21, 1861, by delaying the Union advance. While holding off the Federals, Bee saw the brigade of Thomas J. Jackson standing to the rear and not assisting his command. Bee called out, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.”

In contrast to his time in Philadelphia and London, Benbridge achieved success almost immediately on settling in Charleston. Replacing the rigid colonial portrait style of the aging Jeremiah Theus, Benbridge worked instead in a manner that demonstrated the many different sources and influences he was exposed to in Europe.

His first and most famous work, Master Skylark, appeared in book form in 1897. A tale of Shakespeare’s time, it is considered one of the best American historical novels for children. In 1898 ill health drove him to Charleston, where he renewed his acquaintance with the Smythe family, whom he had met a few years before at Salt Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Bennett’s second book, Barnaby Lee, was published in 1902.

It was Bennett’s response to the Vesey crisis for which he is best remembered. In a message to the General Assembly on November 22, 1822, the governor chastised Charleston authorities for the mass execution of alleged conspirators.

Bernardin was a popular bishop, renowned for administrative skill and respected for his work to benefit children, the elderly, the poor, and the sick.

The locomotive had its formal debut on Christmas Day 1830, pulling passenger cars from Charleston to Dorchester. Its performance exceeded expectations, with one observer writing that passengers “flew on the wings of the wind at the speed of fifteen to twenty miles per hour, annihilating time and space.”

In 1824 forty-eight members of Beth Elohim, led by Isaac Harby and Abraham Moise, whose requests for changes in worship services had been rejected by the adjunta (board of trustees), formed the Reform Society of Israelites. This was the first attempt to reform Judaism in the United States; it functioned for nine years. The synagogue, now the oldest surviving Reform synagogue in the world, became a National Historic Landmark in 1980.

Arriving off Charleston, South Carolina, in mid-May 1718, he blockaded the port for a week, seizing prizes and hostages for ransom. This infamous feat “struck a great Terror to the whole Province of Carolina.” Plundering eight or nine ships for supplies and specie, Blackbeard held hostages, including Samuel Wragg, a councilman. Under the threat of the hostages being murdered, a reluctant Governor Robert Johnson agreed to a ransom of a valuable chest of medicine.

Blair joined NBC-TV in 1950 and moderated “The American Forum of the Air,” a debate program. He was named Washington, D.C., correspondent for “The Today Show,” which was launched on January 14, 1952, as an experimental morning news program. The innovative enterprise eventually won acclaim with Dave Garroway and Jack Lescoulie as hosts and Blair as newscaster. Blair worked with twenty-five hosts during his twenty-three years on the show.

Sometime after his arrival in Carolina, Blake was named a proprietary deputy and member of the Grand Council. Blake returned to the Grand Council during Philip Ludwell’s brief term as governor and remained a member until November 1694, when he succeeded Landgrave Thomas Smith as governor.

Charleston served as the Confederacy’s main port from November 1861 to July 1863. During this time some thirty-six steam-powered blockade-runners made 125 trips in and out of Charleston, carrying out nearly 30,000 bales of cotton. The majority of the ships operated out of Nassau, although some came from Havana and Bermuda. Primarily private companies used Charleston, while Wilmington, North Carolina, was home to the government’s blockade-runners.