Charleston Historian Reveals the Town's Past

Ruth Miller sharing to our class

It's not everyday that someone points out a dentist's grave to you and that moment becomes the beginning of new opportunities, but it has happened to Ruth Miller. Miller is a Charleston author and historian who talked to our class. She is very knowledgeable in Charleston's religious history. In this blog post, I will share with you all what I learned from Miller. Listening about my home's history is fascinating. 

Miller shared that during Charleston's peak, there was no religious freedom anywhere in the world. So, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper changed this by inviting any and all religions to Charleston and he would even include free land if you came. After Charleston became populated, disease carrying mosquitoes emerged. To avoid them, the rich traveled up north and bought stone while they were there. Miller said that Charleston did not naturally have stone, so every headstone, brick, and pebble was imported. Sometimes you can find a headstone with the name of the carver engraved and they will likely be from Boston.

Slavery also became prominent in old Charleston. Miller states that by 1710, the majority of Charleston's population was African American slaves. 40% of the United State's enslaved people came through Charleston's harbor.

Another fun fact Miller shared with us was that if you see Latin written on gravestones, it represents the person had a college degree. Only white men who could read and write in Greek and Latin were qualified. Also, if buttons or wigs are present on a self portrait on headstones, it means the person was wealthy because they were very valuable. Lastly, Meeting Street in downtown Charleston is named after the first "meeting house" in 1860, not because there are lots of offices there!

Gravestone rubbing brought by Ruth Miller

To the right is a rubbing of a gravestone that Miller brought with her. Our job was to analyze the writing and symbols on it and then identify who it belongs to. It reads "In Memory of three respectable Black Persons, Phillis, Rose, & Fanny Chace who served faithfully in the Family of Samuel Chace Esk.". The three people named were slaves and they share this memorial.







Below is a list of the kinds of people who came to Charleston for freedom of religion and land.

• Anglicans
• Anglican Church collected taxes and came first
• St. Michael Episcopal Church and St. Phillip's Episcopal Church in Charleston are still Anglican 
• Dissenters (Congregationalists) came next
• Baptists 
• Quakers
• Widely disliked among other states, so they came to Charleston for freedom of religion
• Lutherans
• Protestants
• King of France murdered them for not converting to Roman Catholic so they fled to Charleston also
• Presbyterians came from Scotland 
• Charleston's Jews came from Spain
• Unitarians
• Congregational church's other half
• Methodists

To find out more about Ruth Miller, you can visit her website and the look at the books she has written.