The Yorkville Enquirer reported on June 12, 1879 – “The Simms Memorial Association of Charleston unveiled a bronze bust of the distinguished writer in White Point Garden, the principal pleasure resort of the Charleston citizens. The bust is of large size and rests on a large granite pedestal. It was executed by J.Q.A. Ward and was unveiled by two granddaughter’s of Mr. Simms.”
City Directories and History: This “public pleasure ground” (also known as the Battery)
was developed in the years after the city began to buy up land in this area for a park. Known as “White Point” or “Oyster Point” from the initial settlement of Charles Town due to the oyster shells found along the south shore of the peninsula, it served as the site of a series of forts and batteries. A mid-nineteenth-century bird’s-eye view shows the present park with immature plantings and double axial paths. A bathing house served as a popular attraction on the water side of the park through much of the nineteenth century.
Although the cannons and mortars are commemorative rather than relics of the wars they represent, the park, with its mature live oaks, serves as the setting for a number of statues, memorials, and monuments. These include E. T. Viett’s statuary monument to the Palmetto Guard and the magnificent bronze memorial to the Confederate defenders of Charleston. The latter sculpture, a bronze figure standing before a representation of the goddess Minerva, carved by H. A. MacNeil and cast in Paris in 1932, allegorically depicts the soldiers’ defense of the city. The cast-iron handstand was given in 1905 in memory of Mr. and Mrs. George W. Williams.
The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
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