City Directories and History: RACHEL LAZARUS BUILDING
Constructed circa 1839; variously rehabilitated late-198os
“Rachel Florence Lazarus, one of a number of “sole traders” (women permitted by South Carolina equity courts to operate businesses separate from their husbands), first acquired this status in 1804 and entered the dry goods business in 1817. A woman of great strength and talent, she was the only female subscriber to the Hebrew Harmonic Society, a group that provided the funds for the
installation of an organ in the rebuilt Beth Elohim Synagogue in 1841, and she bore seventeen children. After the fire of 1838, Mrs. Lazarus received one of the loans under the Act for the Rebuilding of the City of Charleston and used the funds to construct these three buildings as tenements. Although the storefronts have been altered over the years, the three-story stuccoed brick facades retain their original fenestration with stone lintels and sills, as well as masonry belt courses, and molded cornices. On the upper stories each structure follows the Charleston single house plan and most retain their Greek Revival mantels and staircases. Between the buildings, hyphen infills feature cast-iron panels boasting circular devices also with anthemion motifs. Cabinetmakers Martin Vogel and Francis Salvo completed a contemporary building of four bays next door at 235 King Street with thistle motifs in its parapet grilles.”
Information from: The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
“Rachel Lazarus built these three identical Greek Revival tenements c. 1839, with a loan from the Bank of the State of South Carolina, authorized under the Act for Rebuilding the City of Charleston, passed after the great fire of 1838. (Stockton, DYKYC, Jan. 15, 1979.)” – CCPL
Please enjoy this structure and all those listed in Roots and Recall. But remember each is private property. So view them from a distance or from a public area such as the sidewalk or public road.
Do you have information to share and preserve? Family, school, church, or other older photos and stories are welcome. Send them digitally through the “Share Your Story” link, so they too might be posted on Roots and Recall.
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
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