Building Charleston: Town and Society in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic World

Chapter 3: “Stupendous Works”: Building Urban Dynamism into the Low Country

65  n “Stupendous works” Building Urban Dynamism into the Low Country B etween 1730 and 1780, with Charleston emerging as the Low Country ’s commercial entrepôt, the demand for both urban homes and business premises increased. A successful agricultural economy and a thriving urban marketplace were making Charleston into an attractive destination for New World immigrants, and these many arrivals needed housing. The town’s fast growth proved so remarkable that, reporting on the state of Charleston in the 1760s, the South Carolina Gazette heralded “the stupendous works now nearly completed by Mr. Christopher Gadsden Esq. at the North end of this town . . . which is reckoned to be the most extensive of the kind ever undertaken by any one man in America.” Gadsden’s achievements were accompanied by development in White Point, at the end of the Charleston peninsula, “which for many years was almost a desolate spot, [but] is lately almost covered with houses, many of them very elegant.” Furthermore, the newspaper announced, “in other parts of the town, it is computed, that within five years, upwards of 300 houses have been built, and are building.” As we have seen, similar dramatic growth in London, and in Britain’s provincial towns, emerged as one of the cornerstones of urban dynamism in the metropole from the late seventeenth century onward. London’s vitality , along with urban population growth, further destructive fires, interest in 66 building charleston new classical architectural forms, and the appearance of newly wealthy town dwellers looking to invest their business profits, colluded to stimulate considerable evolution in these urban landscapes. Together, such changes were an important spur to both industrial and consumer revolution, as they ushered in more capitalist practices in the building industry, increased the complexity of mechanisms of credit, and made ordinary townhouses as well as country mansions into fashionable accessories. As they benefited wealthy tradesmen , these developments also impacted the social structure of Britain as a new urban commercial class—separate from the rural gentry—frequently anchored their newfound wealth in property speculation. Charleston’s overall expansion was a consequence of South Carolina’s flourishing economy, and, as Russell Menard has observed, the capital accumulated by its residents from trade became a vital source of finance for the continued expansion of the staple sector. But a settler who came to Carolina seeking a living through the staple economy—whether by growing or selling the staple, or by importing or buying slaves and British goods—contributed only indirectly to the actual increase of the town. On the ground, Charleston was growing because of the activities of skilled settlers, interested colonial officials, and slaves, who all put their minds and their hands to the business of actually constructing an urban landscape. Just as a planter improving his land or a merchant investing in his ocean-going fleet made colonial America a wealthier place, so the activities of these groups contributed to economic growth in the New World’s more urbanized regions. In the Low Country, urban settlers made the town into a considerable source of income and capital, and Charleston became an engine of regional growth in the same way as its urban counterparts elsewhere in the British Atlantic. At the same time, the distribution of this new, urban, wealth among certain sectors of the population encouraged the emergence of groups within the Low Country who did not primarily identify their fortunes with rural land, but rather with town lots. Often, such settlers were not as wealthy as the great planters who were beginning to dominate South Carolina’s coastal parishes, and the riches they contributed to the overall economy not as great, but they nevertheless had a marked impact on the structure of Low Country society. Through its very development as an urban landscape, therefore, Charleston shaped the socioeconomic character of the Low Country. What is more, as those Charlestonians who had activated such processes of urban growth were Building Urban Dynamism into the Low Country 67 working mostly within a British paradigm, they operated according to the habits of their metropolitan counterparts. Ultimately, Charleston’s dynamic potential was enabled not only through the ambitions of these urban settlers, but also through their extension of the legal, financial, and economic innovations fomenting in towns across Britain. As these innovations took root in the Low Country, becoming entangled with Low Country circumstances in the process, they acted further to bring...