Ruth Miller says Charleston is better than Philadelphia? More at 11

"When you win a war, you write the history books"

This is what Ruth Miller says in regard to the history of the city of Charleston. Ruth became interested in Charleston's history and particularly the history of graveyards in the city because she used to be a tour guide and would get to see people's intrigue with these cemeteries up close and personal. There were many reasons for this intrigue, as Ruth would elaborate on later, but to begin with you have to understand the background of the city of Charleston to understand why there are so many graveyards, to begin with.

Charleston was actually established in 1670, before the city of Philadelphia, and the state of Carolina, which by that time stretched all the way from Virginia to Texas, was charter land given to a friend of the king, Anthony Ashely Cooper, as a token of his gratitude. This is similar to the charter land given to William Penn which would shrink and eventually become Pennsylvania. But why then was Charleston different from any other city?

For one, the people who came to Charleston did not come directly from England, as most other colonies' populations had. In fact, the first shipment of people to come to Charleston came from the West Indies, and with them, they brought their same system of slavery used for the harsh plantations down there and henceforth making themselves rich in the rice farming industry. This resulted in by 1710 there was a larger black population in Charleston than white, sadly not representative in the graveyards in this city, and also making Charleston more wealthy and cosmopolitan than Philadelphia by 1776. But why else is Charleston different?

Ruth says "We (Charleston) have more 18th century graveyards than any other city in this country. We have 12 graveyards marked 18th century." Why is that you might ask? Ruth explains that Charleston wasn't founded by one group seeking religious freedom, as with the Puritans in Massachusetts. Charleston actually granted religious freedom in its original constitution, saying "Therefore any seven or more persons agreeing in religion shall constitute a church". This lead to a diverse amount of religious groups setting up congregations within one city, which was vastly different from the more northern cities of the time where religious diversity was very much not ok.

Charleston to this day has a large number of churches and religious institutions dating back to the 18th century and before.

To understand each church in Charleston, I will give a brief synopsis of each denomination;

Anglicans

-St Michels Church, the oldest church in the city, built on top of the old graveyard

-They followed the Church of England so they were not persecuted or trying to escape. They came to Charleston mainly to make money in the rice trade

Methodist 

-This was a mainly black congregation in Charleston, one of the only churches to be so at that time in history

First Baptists Church

-Every southern baptist church started at First Baptists Church in Charleston 

Congregationalists

-Oldest graveyard in the city

Quakers

-Gave equal rights to women! Yay!

-No priests no ministers, just went to meeting houses, hence the name "Meeting street"

-Sadly died out :(

Lutherans

-St. Johns Church

-German-speaking 

French Protestants

-Refugees of Western Europe

-Different than New Orleans French citizens, those were Roman Catholics

Irish Roman Catholics

-not liked until after 1783

-fled from the Santa Domingo after the slave uprising in Haiti

Presbyterians

-Carvers came from Scotland

-We didn't have any in Charleston because there is no stone to carve

Jews

-Here by 1690, creating one the oldest Jewish Synagogue in the south

What is important about every denomination I just listed? They all have graveyards located in the city of Charleston. In the 18th century, only the rich had tombstones, some had hand-carved portrait tombstones, but most were diverse, ranging from skulls and crossbones to souls and angles to cherubs. With the entrance of the Victorian era began the fad of romanticizing death. This resulted in more elaborate gravestones such as weeping women and elaborate motifs. All of these styles of gravestones can be seen in Charlestons' many graveyards.

So to answer the question as to why Charleston has so many graveyards, Ruth says "Why we have so many graveyards? Nobody would bury anybody with anybody else". With such a large amount of religious diversity, every church wanted its own graveyard for its followers. This leads to the vast amount of graveyards on our small peninsula, and to Ruth's passion for discovering more about them. Overall, I thought Ruth was a wonderful speaker and I very much enjoyed listening to her tell about Charleston history and the graveyards located in our city. To read more of her work regarding gravestones, visit the links to her website here:

lowcountrylink.com 

and the link to purchase her books here:

http://lowcountryinc.com/charlestongiftshoppe.htm