DI Speaker Series takes audience back in time

Guests at the Daniel Island Speaker Series event on Nov. 8 took a step back in time with a bearded gentleman dressed in Colonial-era attire who guided attendees on an hour-long journey through the history of Charleston over the last three centuries.

Who was this mysterious speaker spouting stories of war, secret meetings and lavish soirees involving America’s first president? Not a real time traveler, of course, but perhaps the next best thing.

Tony Youmans, executive director of the Old Exchange Building and Provost Dungeon, kicked off the event at the Daniel Island Club by delighting the audience with tales behind South Carolina’s most historic building.

Youmans, who worked for carriage companies in Charleston for two decades, has an in-depth knowledge about the area’s history.

In early 2004, he began his current position at the Exchange Building and has since been able to continue to share his love for history while working somewhere that George Washington, one of Youmans’ favorite men in history, was entertained.

After South Carolina’s staple crop, rice, exploded the state’s economy in 1767 and ‘68, City Fathers in Charleston and the Council of Safety commissioners maintained that there was a need for a new exchange building to be erected, explained Youmans.

“We construct the Exchange building, designed by William Rigby Naylor, a gentleman architect at the time,” he said to the audience. “But he doesn’t win the bid to construct it. John and Peter Horlbeck, two German brothers, won the bid. Sixty-thousand pounds of incredible architectural details are ordered here, shipped from Great Britain and attached to this magnificent building. Well over a million bricks are used in the construction of it. I’m pretty sure that’s why the building is still here today. Two hundred and forty-six years later, the Exchange building still stands on the corner of Broad and East Bay.”

According to Youmans, the building ended up being the last British colonial structure built in the colonies. In fact, at the height of British colonialism, the Old Exchange Building was the seat of British government. That is what makes his next story so ironic.

The H.M.S. London arrives at the lower Cooper River on Dec. 3, 1773, about 100 meters south of the Exchange, with over 67,000 pounds of newly taxed tea, continued Youmans. The ship, like those in Boston, Philadelphia and New York, was not permitted to unload. In response to this, there was a special meeting called at the Exchange Building.

This gathering, Youmans explained, would go down in history.

“This meeting is the first time of true representation in South Carolina,” he said. “You have the plantation elite and then you have the middle class—the merchants. They want to unload the tea and consign it and sell it. Then you have the lowliest individuals—the street sweeper. He’s at this meeting also. Historians acknowledge that is the birth of modern South Carolina, as far as representation goes.”

Although an important and historical meeting, it would act as the perfect diversion for the tea to be unloaded in secret and stored, added Youmans.

“In McCrady’s History of the American Revolution, they describe how the tea was ‘secretly unloaded’ from the London and then stored in the cellar of the Exchange building,” he said. “I’m not really sure how you can secretly unload 67,000 pounds of taxed tea, but they managed to do it under the very meeting that’s happening upstairs in the Great Hall.”

Three years later, on June 28, 1776, war would arrive in the Holy City, specifically Sullivan’s Island, Youmans explained. On the north end of Sullivan’s Island protecting the bridge inlet, Colonel William “Danger” Thompson and his rangers defeated the British forces attempting to make landfall, at what is today Isle of Palms.

“Overall, this particular day is a tremendous victory for Continental forces and it is the first victory over the British land and sea forces,” he said. “It’s incredible. President of South Carolina John Rutledge is watching from the Great Hall [of the Exchange Building]. This is a tremendous victory and has such incredible consequences.”

Just two short months later, on Aug. 5, 1776, the Declaration of Independence would be presented to South Carolinians for the first time at the corner of Meeting and Broad Street.

“With a wonderful parade march, President John Rutledge reads the Declaration of Independence to South Carolinians on the very footsteps we walk every day and then up in the Great Hall in the Exchange building—very powerful document,” exclaimed Youmans.

After the great victory of June 1776, South Carolina would go dormant in the war until 1779 and ‘80. This time, when the Colonial forces returned to Charleston, they were prepared, ultimately leading to the “single worst defeat in the American War for Independence,” he continued.

“They [British forces] make landfall in Kiawah and Edisto,” Youmans explained “This time, they bypass the harbor completely and bypass Moultrie, march around and make a landfall and kind of creep up and settle in at Drayton Hall, Magnolia, Middleton and then cross the upper Ashley and lay siege to General Benjamin Lincoln and 5,600 continentals and several hundred militia…It was the only Southern army. When Charleston falls on May 12, 1780, it is the single worst defeat in the American War for Independence. They have captured the fourth largest American city, the wealthiest colony and an army. It is an awful defeat.”

With the aftermath of this defeat still lingering in the air and the effects of 42 days at siege starting to sink in, soldiers were acting obscenely with no repercussions. Enter the beginning of the Provost at the Exchange Building, Youmans recounted.

“Over the next 18 months, the entire structure becomes the Provost,” he said. “It’s a very powerful place. There were several round ups. If you had done something crazy, like sign the Declaration of Independence, into the Provost you go.”

At this time, the war was a year and a half from coming to an end. These last 18 months are referred to by historians as the Southern Campaign of the American War for Independence.

“More battles are fought in South Carolina—over 160 battles are fought—than in all states combined,” Youmans specified. “More South Carolinians lose their lives in this effort than all states combined. South Carolina acquires more war debt than all states combined.”

After the revolution came to an end, because of the lack of a strong central government, Washington and the Founding Fathers feared for the collapse of their entire endeavor for independence, continued Youmans.

“Amazingly enough, George Washington and these other fine men, including James Madison and John Rutledge and Charles Pinckney from South Carolina, they hammer out in four and a half months the U.S. Constitution. Talk about getting something done. They create the document and then they very carefully stipulate that each state have a special convention to consider the question. And in South Carolina, we do that in the Great Hall of the Exchange Building.”

To attempt to promote this new federal idea, Washington goes on a political tour that started in New England and then headed south. According to Youmans, the United States’ future first president visited the Exchange Building four separate times, more than any other location he visited.

“The City Fathers spend $20,000 on the best beer, port, pastries and lemons for him,” he explained. “He is absolutely enamored with Charleston. When he finally leaves after seven days, he writes in his journal that he is completely exhausted from his trip. He takes a harbor tour — who does that? Everyone. He takes the tour and reviews rebel defenses. He finds the city absolutely fantastic. He dances with 250-some odd women upstaters in the Great Hall. I believe he had an absolute wonderful time.”

The first 20 years for the Exchange Building are undeniably unmatched, which is why the building is considered the state’s most historic building, continued Youmans. Unfortunately, by 1899, the federal government was finished with the building and there were plans to tear it down. In fear of losing a precious piece of the city, state and country’s history, Lee Cowen Harby, a member of the Rebecca Mont Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, began a letter writing campaign to the government to obtain the building on behalf of the South Carolina State Society Daughters of the American Revolution. Today, the building is privately owned by the organization.

“In 1976, the State of South Carolina came on board by centennial commission and committed millions of dollars to restore the building to its colonial glory,” said Youmans. “In 1989, Mayor Joseph B. Riley, Jr. stepped up and the City of Charleston manages the building for a state level commission.”

In the 40s, 50s and 60s, the building was rented out to numerous different parties until, in 1966, local businessmen C. Harrington Bistle and Tommy Thornhill thought of the idea to tap into the history of the building. That is the birth of the Exchange Building of today, explained Youmans.

Since then, the building has operated off of the ongoing interest of residents and visitors in the building’s rich history and occasional funding from the state, he added.

“Our revenue picture is this: General admission—People walking by, seeing that building and its upkeep, and coming in; we have an education desk—we host around six to 10,000 school groups from around South Carolina and the region; evening event rental and, of course, the gift shop. That’s how we make our money. The building, since 2004 has operated in the black, sometimes a very small margin. For the most part, the building takes care of itself.”

The building is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 7 to 12 and free to those six and under. Tours of the Provost Dungeon are offered every half an hour and the rest of the building is self-guided. For more information, visit http://oldexchange.org/.

The Daniel Island Speaker Series, now in its sixth year, is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Daniel Island, the Daniel Island Community Fund, the Daniel Island Business Association, and the Daniel Island Club. For a schedule of future speakers, email Steve Slifer at sslifer@homesc.com.