87 Church Street
City Directories and History: HEYWARD-WASHINGTON HOUSE
Outbuildings constructed circa 1740; house constructed circa 1771; altered late-nineteenth century; restored 1929- 30 and subsequent dates, “This property was granted to Joseph Ellicott in 1694. A subsequent owner, a well-to-do gunsmith, built a two-story brick single house here in about 1740. The rice planter Col. Daniel Heyward purchased the site in 1770, and his son, Thomas, began construction on the present house in 1771. Heyward razed the previous single house yet kept the former two- story kitchen and one-story stable dependencies that still exist in the rear courtyard.
The Heyward dwelling stands as a well-developed example of a brick double house with a central hall and two rooms on each side. On the second floor a large front drawing room and smaller withdrawing room extend across the front elevation, the former retaining its original paneled wood-work. On the exterior brick jack arches over the windows and the conjectural doorway provide the only decoration to a facade that supports a low hipped roof with a single front dormer.
Thomas Heyward, using this as his Charleston town house, became a signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. After the fall of Charleston, the British imprisoned Heyward and his brother-in-law George Abbot Hall in St. Augustine. Tradition holds that their wives stayed on in the house. When the women refused a British order to illuminate their windows, a mob stormed the house, which led to a miscarriage by Mrs. Hall and her ensuing death. Residing more often on his plantations after the war, Heyward rented the house to the city for the lodging of President George Washington during his week-long stay in Charleston in 1791. Washington wrote of his visit in his diary, “The lodging provided for me in this place, was very good, being the furnished house of a gentleman at present in the country.” Selling the house three years later, Heyward bought another town house down the street. By the late-nineteenth century the residence became a bakery on the ground floor and the owner installed a storefront on the southern half of the front elevation while lowering the windows and installing a door on the three southernmost bays.
The Charleston Museum purchased the property in 1929 with assistance from the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings, although this transaction was not completed until the 1950s with some help from the Society and from Historic Charleston Foundation. The architectural firm of Simons and Lapham carried forth a splendid investigation of the altered first floor, discovering the layout of the narrow front hall and finding lost mantels in the fowl house in the back. After restoration of the front door architrave and first-floor rooms, the building opened as the first cedents from the third quarter of the eighteenth century guided the creation of a parterre, planted only with flowers and shrubs known in the city in 1791.”
Information from: The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
The Heyward-Washington House is a very fine three-story brick Charleston “double house” which commemorates the residence of Thomas Heyward, Jr., one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Built in 1770-71 and acquired by Thomas Heyward, Jr. from his father in 1777, the house was implicitly deemed outstandingly worthy when chosen in 1791 to shelter President Washington when he visited the city on his Southern tour that year. Since then, the house has been called the Heyward-Washington House.
Heyward was born in 1746 in Jasper County, South Carolina, the eldest son of one of the wealthiest rice planters of South Carolina. He was one of five delegates from South Carolina sent to the Second Continental Congress in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence, and served in Congress until the end of 1778 when he returned to his home state to become a circuit judge. The house presents a massive block appearance since it is nearly square in plan and has a low pitched hipped roof pierced by only a single dormer on the street front. The high chimneys are corbelled, and all windows are topped by brick jack arches. It is one of the largest of the early houses of Charleston. The “double house” plan is a local name used to identify the common Georgian “four room” or “center hall” floor plan. At the rear (west) of the house is a little courtyard, formed by the house, a kitchen/laundry/servant’s quarters building, and a carriage house. Further west is a small formal garden of the type popular in the late 18th century. Listed in the National Register April 15, 1970; Designated a National Historic Landmark April 15, 1970.
For tour information: Charleston Museum – Tours – Also click + visit 87 Church Street for additional insights.
Other sources of interest: Charleston Tax Payers of Charleston, SC in 1860-61 and the Dwelling Houses of Charleston by Alice R.H. Smith – 1917 The HCF may also have additional data at: Past Perfect and further research can be uncovered at: Charleston 1861 Census Schedule or The Charleston City Guide of 1872
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