Ft Sumter, Churches, Ghosts-4/29/14

As you can see from the title Tuesday was a busy day, so busy I was too tired to blog last night.  For those who have asked, Kathie Saeger is my best friend from nursing school days and Ashlie is her daughter.  We Rv'd with them out west in 2010 and found we are compatible traveling companions.  We decided together to tour southern cities in 2014.

Our day started at Ft Sumter where the "War of Northern Aggression", as the Civil War is called in the South, began on April 14, 1861.  South Carolina was the first southern state to secede from the Union after Abraham Lincoln was elected President on a platform banning slavery, which most southern states needed to harvest rice and cotton.  Five other states joined South Carolina to form the Confederate States of America.  Charleston, South Carolina was a major shipping port for the whole country thus an important place to protect.  It had been federally protected by four major forts, Fort Sumter being at the mouth of the port entrance.  On that fateful day, BG Beauregard, of the Confederate forces accepted surrender of Ft Sumter from Major Robert Anderson, who had been the BG's artillery instructor at West Point.  Truly friend against friend!!  You'll have to read about the battle of Ft Sumter, which received an estimated 46,000 shells, more than 7 million pounds of metal, during the four years of the war, to learn more!

The wind was blowing with 20 mph gusts which caused the flags to stand straight out.  The Park Ranger said the flags needed to be replaced about every four months even though they take them down at night. 

 Following our visit to Ft Sumter we did a walking tour of several of the beautiful historic churches in Charleston.  The one below is not an optical illusion.  St Philip's Episcopal Church does have a leaning tower and not from the wind!

 St Michael's Episcopal Church has an extensive cemetery in which are buried several signers of the Declaration of Independence.  The pews have doors with keys and are "owned" by very long-time residents of the city. 

The Huguenot (French Protestant) Church is the last remaining Huguenot church in the nation.  This one replaced the original from 1687 in 1800. The Huguenots left France via England when the French king declared Roman Catholicism the nation's church and aggressively executed anyone not Catholic.  The church has very simple windows, no icons and just a simple cross to show its separation from Catholicism.  Note the benches have doors!

 In the French quarter is an old stone-paved street.

This lovely home had its piazza door closed, so we didn't invite ourselves in for sweet tea!

 The Old City Jail, which was opened in the late 1700s and closed in 1939 , is now used by a very unique College which teaches the arts of restoration including carpentry, plaster casting and many of the other skills needed to maintain and restore old buildings.  Our guide, Eric, for the Ghost Tour, had many interesting stories to tell of paranormal phenomenon complete with photos people had shared with him.  The back of his shirt says "If you see me running, it is not part of the tour!" 

This stairway is a graduation project of one of the female students at the College and was what we used to enter the jail's holding cell on the second floor.  It was an octagonal-shaped room meant to house 50 but never holding less than 100-150 with only buckets for toileting!  The jail site was also used for prisoners of war during the Civil War.  Since there wasn't enough room inside they were penned in by the walls outside, again with only buckets for toileting, no bedding.  Soldiers who survived said it was the worst prison of the war. 

 Eric advised us to use flash inside to try to capture orbs or the streak which sometimes follows him, but neither Ashlie nor I caught any unusual phenomena!  The last story Eric told us was about an experience he had kicking the locked door to the kitchen.  After pounding on the door, he got a resounding thud back from behind the locked door!  Several tourists were interested on his take about the Lavina and John Fisher hangings as much controversy surrounds their execution for highway robbery.  After their hanging someone else confessed to the capital crime.  Lavina was particularly hostile about her innocence and is said to haunt the building.  Eric had an experience of having to go back upstairs at the end of a tour to lock a gate.  When he got to the gate he saw a light was left on at the end of the hall.  He ran down the hall and reached around the doorway to shut off the light.  A female voice said to him twice, "It's time to leave!"  He said he was so spooked he dashed down the hall, locked the gate and dashed down the stairs ushering the tourists out the building post-haste!