Charleston Firsts

Here is a partial list of Charleston firsts that I have compiling. I'm sure there are more. If anyone knows of any, and can substantiate them . . . I'd love to know.

1. First rice planted in America in the late 1680s. By 1690, rice was being exported and by 1700, according to the Collector of Customs in Charleston, there was so much rice being imported that "there were not enough ships in the harbor to export it all".

2. America's first woman artist was a Charlestonian, Henrietta Johnson, wife of Colonial Commissary Gideon Johnson. Between 1707-1728, she painted pastel likenesses of such wealthy Charlestonians as Gov. Thomas Broughton, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, and Col. William Rhett.

3. 1734: First theatre in America is built. Dock Street theatre.

4. 1735: First opera performed in America.

5. 1736: America's first fire insurance company, the "Friendly Society for the Mutual Insuring of Houses Against Fire", was organized in Charleston. The devastating fire of 1740, which burned over 300 bldgs., bankrupted the company.

6. In 1737, Dr. John Lining made America's first scientific weather observations from his home at the corner of Broad/King Streets.

7. 1748: First cotton exported to England – 7 bags.

8. 1749: Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, was organized and in 1824 became Reformed. First Reformed Jewish Synagogue in America. By 1800, Beth Elohim Charleston had the largest Jewish community in America – 500.

9. First commercial crop of indigo, a dye plants destined to become a valuable colonial export, was planted and harvested in Charleston. Eliza (Elizabeth) Lucas (later to become the wife of Chief Justice Charles Pinckney) obtained indigo seeds form the West Indies and experimented with the plants as a young girl. By the start of the Revolutionary War, Charles Town was exporting more than a million pounds a year.

10. 1773: First American Chamber of Commerce was organized in Charleston. (In Shepherd's Tavern –corner of Church/Broad St.)

11. 1773: First science museum

12. 1775: The American Colonies' first independent flag (to replace the Union Jack) was designed by Col. William Moultrie, then commanding the state militia units that occupied Fort Johnson on James Island. It was a blue flag decorated with a white crescent, in honor if the crescents which decorated the hats of the militia.

13. Nov. 11, 1775, South Carolina's first Revolutionary War naval battle took place when two British men-of-war, the HMS Tamar and HMS Cherokee, fired upon the newly-commissioned South Carolina schooner Defence, a converted trading ship. Lord William Campbell, the last Royal Governor of South Carolina, was aboard the Cherokee during the battle. Campbell returned with the British fleet on June 28, 1776, and later died of wounds received off Sullivan's Island

14. June 28, 1776: First decisive American victory of the Revolutionary War. Although greatly outnumbered, and with vastly inferior armaments, South Carolina troops under Col. William Moultrie kept the British fleet from entering the harbor and held off the army trying to invade by land (Isle of Palms). Small fort of palmetto logs and sand, located on Sullivan's island, withstood the fire of the British fleet.

15. 1780: First American imprisoned by the British in the Tower of London was Henry Laurens, a Charlestonian who had been President of the Continental Congress 1777-78. In 1780, he was sent to get money from Holland for the American cause, but the ship was captured at sea. Laurens was taken to London, condemned for high treason and incarcerated in the Tower. The fact that he was exchanged for Lord General Cornwallis in 1781 shows the high value placed on Laurens by both the British and the Americans.

16. 1780: First prescription drug store (apothecary) in America.

17. 1786: First golf club in America was organized by a group of Scotsmen on Harleston Green, between Calhoun and Beaufain Streets, from Rutledge Ave to the Ashley River.

18. 1800: First Apt. bldge – Vanderhorst at 78 East Bay.

19. First fireproof bldg. in the United States was designed by Charleston architect Robert Mills, also known for designing the Washington Monument and the Treasury Bldg, in Washington, D. C. Was designed as a repository for public documents was completed in 1827 at a cost of $56,000 in the Greek Doric style.

20. 1830 – First regularly scheduled train offering passenger service originated from Charleston at the fantastic speed of 15 m.p.h. Part of the wreckage of that train "Best Friend", was used to cast the first cannon to be built in the Confederate States.

21. 1839 – College of Charleston becomes the first municipally supported college in America.

22. April 12, 1861: First shot of the Civil War is fired from Ft. Johnson to Ft. Sumter.

23. Feb. 17, 1864: World's first successful submarine attack took place at the mouth of the Charleston Harbor. The Confederate Hunley slid out of Breach Inlet to ram and sink the Union warship Housatonic. The Hunley also sank during the attack.

24. 1889: First U.S. successful commercial tea farm

25. Caroline Gilman, published and edited The Rosebud, the first child's newspaper in the country.