BY ADAM PARKER and JASON CATO
Contractors with Charleston’s water utility digging with heavy equipment on East Bay Street near The Battery accidently encountered what is believed to be a portion of an early brick wall fortification that dates back about 325 years.
The damage to the old city wall on May 7 — a 30-foot trench was dug to accommodate a water pipe — caused alarm inside the offices of Historic Charleston Foundation, which sits just feet away at 40 East Bay St.
Employees rushed outside to stop the work. The quick actions of foundation staff to bring the matter to the attention of the Walled City Task Force and others ensured that the work was stopped and the damaged part of the wall preserved.
Later, an excavator sat parked over a hole in the paved road. In the bottom rested an iron pipe elbow along with pieces of crumbled, bright-red clay brick and shards of stark white mortar.
Pieces of old red clay brick and white mortar can be seen in a hole dug near 40 East Bay St. for Charleston Water System to install a larger water main. The brick are believe to be part of an 18th century fortification wall built in the early years of the city.
Winslow Hastie, CEO of Historic Charleston Foundation, said the damage is regrettable and raises concerns about how best to protect historic elements of the city that are not clearly visible. From an archaeological point of view, Charleston, which was founded on the peninsula in 1680, is comprised of many layers of material.
“We are sick to our stomachs about it,” said Mike Saia, a spokesman for Charleston Water System.
An excavator sits on East Bay Street near the offices of the Historic Charleston Foundation on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Work by the Charleston Water System to install a larger water main damaged an underground brick structure that is believed to be part of an 18th century fortification wall built in the early years of the city.
The damaged structure is believed to be a portion of one of colonial Charles Towne’s earliest brick fortifications. The southeasternmost portion of the enormous wall, known as the Granville Bastion, was built in this area as part of a project that began in the late 1690s.
A piece of the wall stretches beneath the crawlspace of the Historic Charleston Foundation’s building. Another portion that survives appears to rest just a foot or so beneath the roadway.
Most portions of the wall have been identified, but the entire footprint is not known, Hastie said.
The construction crew met with foundation staff before the dig, which is being done to upgrade the size of the water pipe in that area to meet the needs and requirements of new buildings under construction behind the Charleston Yacht Club, Saia said.
Foundation staff showed workers the portion of the fortification wall under their building and explained where the wall extended elsewhere, as far as they knew.
Staff told workers that any old structures they might encounter underground likely would be buried foundations of former homes and not considered important historical artifacts, Saia said.
“We thought we were following orders,” he said.
Pieces of old red clay brick and white mortar can be seen in a hole dug near 40 East Bay St. for Charleston Water System to install a larger water main. The brick are believe to be part of an 18th century fortification wall built in the early years of the city.
All work stopped temporarily once it was clear that the brick structure encountered, and slightly damaged, was part of the fortification wall, Saia added. Work to complete the water main upgrade will resume May 13, with the portion under the sidewalk and in the parking lot, he said. The entire job should be completed by the end of next week.
Part of what is believed to be an old city wall can be seen beneath an excavator on East Bay Street near the offices of the Historic Charleston Foundation on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Work by the Charleston Water System to install a larger water main damaged an underground brick structure that is believed to be part of an 18th century fortification wall built in the early years of the city.
Perhaps a silver lining of this incident is that it can prompt preservationists and city officials to assign the necessary resources to find the entire footprint of the wall and ensure its protection, Hastie said.
One obstacle is that the city has no archaeological ordinance, and therefore no legal jurisdiction over much of its historical heritage. Preservationists have long advocated for such an ordinance, to no avail.
In 2005, then-Mayor Joe Riley agreed to establish a volunteer Walled City Task Force, which would formalize the effort to identify, document, interpret and preserve the city’s late 17th and early 18th century fortifications.
The Charleston Water Systems is part of that task force, Saia said. Other participants included city officials who were knowledgeable about regulations and who had access to heavy equipment and other resources.
During construction of the Palmetto Hotel in 2019 at the corner of East Bay and Cumberland streets, the task force was invited to examine “what appeared to be a small section of the city’s wharf wall,” The Post and Courier reported at the time.
Among all English colonies, only Charles Towne had a wall that was built to protect the city from attacks from Native Americans, as well as the Spanish and French, but also to stabilize its waterfront near present day East Bay Street.
The wall was built of earth and wood on all sides but the east, which featured a half-mile long wall along the water made of red, soft, low-fired brick and bright white mortar, dotted with angled points (redans) and other defensive works.
Receipts from the time show that more than 7 million bricks were used in the construction, Nic Butler, a historian with the Charleston County Public Library and task force member, said at the time.
Work on the wall began by 1696. A hurricane in 1700 washed much of it away. Construction resumed, and the wall was largely finished by 1712.
The brick structure ran roughly from the northern tip of the High Battery, around what was once known as the Missroon House at 40 East Bay, to the area underneath the steps of the U.S. Customhouse at Market and East Bay streets.
Another portion was unearthed and examined in 2009 by researchers and students from the College of Charleston.
On Feb. 22, 2019, historians try to determine the path of an early fortification wall in Charleston by examining bricks exposed during the construction of a hotel at East Bay and Cumberland streets.
The dig in a parking lot at South Adgers Wharf and East Bay exposed a colonial-era redan. The Charleston Water System assisted the archaeologists with heavy equipment in order to excavate down well below the water table to expose the foundation of the wall, according to a Post and Courier article.
In 1925, Charleston architects Albert Simons and Samuel Lapham examined the foundation of the Granville Bastion in the same area of East Bay Street as this week’s mishap. They found the foundation extended 14 feet below street level and was supported by a cribbing of palmetto logs and wooden planks, members of the Walled City Task Force reported.
Katherine Pemberton, director of the Powder Magazine museum and co-chair of the Walled City Task Force, called the damaged part of the wall in the just-dug trench a “sacrificial lamb” that, hopefully, will lead to a preservationist feast: more cooperation and collaboration, more resources, more research and, ultimately a fully mapped city wall and walking trail replete with signage, QR codes, a dedicated website and more.
Even the earthen portions of the wall, thought to be significantly degraded by now, likely can be identified using ground penetrating radar, she said.
In this 2019 file photo, College of Charleston senior Jennifer Thomas excavates in a parking lot near the Battery. Behind her is the tip of the exposed redan, which was part of Charleston's original city walls.
Recently, task force members met with Mayor William Cogswell, hoping to reinvigorate the group’s mission after years of turnovers and retirements, the pandemic, and other interferences. The task force’s co-chair Peter McGee died on April 27.
The team has been working diligently and quietly to advance its research, mapping the area to create overlays for the GIS system, Pemberton said. The information will be shared with Charleston Water Systems and state officials.
“The main thing now is that communication piece with Charleston Water and anyone else putting a shovel in the ground in Charleston,” she said. Another main thing, she said, is getting the city to adopt an archaeological ordinance. “There are no archaeological protections in the city whatsoever.”
Russell Huggins, the Capital Projects Officer at CWS, said his team is eager to help document the newly discovered part of the old wall. Already, CWS has seized the opportunity to send one of its employees, Inna Moore, a licensed archaeologist, into the trench, he said. And CWS has mobilized a survey crew to get GPS records of the wall.
It’s unfortunate that damage was done to the fortification in an area thought to be safe for digging, but the accident has led to new opportunities, Huggins said.
“It’s worked out really well,” he said.
