63 Columbus Street

Photo provided by Susan Millar Williams

by Susan Millar Williams

Since the dawn of the nineteenth century, the southwest corner of Columbus and Drake Streets has seen the rise and fall of many enterprises, including a textile factory, a homeless shelter, a small mill village, and an elementary school.  

A cotton factory was built on the site in 1847, but it failed in less than five years. The city of Charleston bought the building in 1852 to serve as an Almshouse. Denizens of the old Poor House downtown (on the corner of Mazyck and Magazine streets) were transferred to the new Almshouse on February 28, 1856. Many of these so-called “inmates” were elderly or ill, and quite a few seem to have been suffering from addictions. After 1865, a number were Confederate veterans. Charitable institutions observed the color line: the Almshouse served whites only.

Residents who were able-bodied were expected to work, and all were required to follow strict codes of behavior. The unruly were subjected to solitary confinement and near-starvation diets. Children were often among the residents, and abandoned babies, known as “foundlings,” might be assigned to the care of women who lived there. The Almshouse also provided food and fuel to a number of “outdoor pensioners,” who did not live in the building.

The earthquake of 1886 damaged the Almshouse, and the cost of making repairs was so high that the city discussed moving it elsewhere, possibly to the historic Mills House Hotel, in the heart of downtown.  The very idea caused outrage. The Almshouse building was patched and the occupants remained where they were, out of sight and out of mind for most affluent Charlestonians.

In the late 1880s the Charleston Manufacturing Company erected a small complex of two-story brick cottages behind the Almshouse building, hoping to lure skilled workers and make them loyal to the factory. The foundations can still be glimpsed behind a fence that runs along Drake Street.

 In 1913 city council changed the name of the Almshouse to the less censorious “Charleston Home.”  In 1924 the outdoor pensioner system was discontinued. When federal legislation established social security and other welfare programs in the 1930s, the number of residents dwindled. In 1949, the Home closed, and the building was soon demolished.

Photo provided by Susan Millar Williams

In 1957, Columbus Street Elementary School was built on the site of the old Almshouse. Columbus Street was a so-called “equalization school,” intended to stave off federally-mandated integration by demonstrating that facilities for black and white students were equally modern and well-equipped.

Mary Annette Edwards, longtime Eastside resident and Palmer Campus employee, attended Columbus Street Elementary. She remembers running to school every morning, excited about the opportunity to learn in such a beautiful new building. This picture of Mary in front of a mural was taken after the school  closed. 

Columbus Street was eventually renamed for educator Wilmot J. Fraser. The school was shuttered 2009.

For more information:

For more on the care of the poor in nineteenth century Charleston, see Keith L. Eggener, “Old Folks, New South: Charleston’s William Enston Home” in the South Carolina Historical Magazine, July 1997, 250-280.