|
|
|
A center of luxury homes prior to the Civil War, Beaufort was one of a few southern cities spared from fire following that war, making it an architectural treasure. The area’s earliest structures were built even before George Washington was born.
Bounded by low-lying salt marshes, dense forests and swamps, Beaufort offered little security to its early settlers who founded the town in 1710. Confronted with a new and hostile environment, merchants, planters, Indian traders and adventurers had to build a city from the ground up. In doing so, they created an indigenous architecture, finding ways to exploit local resources and to bring some comfort to their surroundings.
During the Yemassee War (1715-1717), Beaufort was burned and its population dispersed. Those who returned set about building timber-framed houses, harvesting pine, oak and cypress from Port Royal and neighboring islands. They also collected oyster shells, and mixed them with sand, lime and water to produce a durable, cement-like material called tabby. Now recognized as one of Beaufort’s most distinctive features, tabby was an inexpensive and adaptable medium for churches, houses, outbuildings and stores.
One of the earliest tabby structures, Fort Frederick (circa 1735), is still visible near Beaufort Naval Hospital. Another tabby building, a three-story house and an adjacent store at 802-806 Bay Street, was built in 1796 for Capt. Francis Saltus. Diagonally opposite, portions of another storehouse occupied by the merchant Daniel DeSaussure and confiscated by British occupying forces in 1779 are also preserved. This area, once busy with ships, docks and wharfs, lost several other important tabby buildings during the “great” Beaufort fire of 1907.
Just as they experimented with different construction materials, Beaufort residents adapted their dwellings to the hot, humid climate. Homes were raised above ground on piers or arches and given wide overhangs and porches.
The Benjamin Chaplin House at 712 New Street (circa 1791) is one such house. This single-story, framed dwelling originally had just two main rooms fronted by a wide porch to the south. The attic provided an undivided sleeping space. As usual, the kitchen was distanced far enough away from the main house to prevent the spread of fire in case of an accident.
“T” shaped plans were especially popular since they maximized cross ventilation. Marshlands at 501 Pinckney Street (circa 1814), is a typical two-story central block flanked by single-story wings. Brick supporting arches and porches wrapped around the house on three sides, give it a West Indian look.
At the end of the 18th century, cotton was introduced to Beaufort from the West Indies. Cotton reached record levels between 1790 and 1825, and allowed planters to build town houses or residential compounds in Beaufort for family. Merchants did not hesitate to display their prosperity. John Mark Verdier's Palladian style house at 801 Bay Street, (circa 1801), was one of the most luxurious of its time. This building combined local architectural traditions with decorative ideas taken from European pattern books. Rope molding carved on its facade alluded to the owner’s shipping and mercantile background. But Verdier eventually overreached himself. Land speculation and extravagant building projects sent him to debtor’s prison.
West of the merchant’s stronghold on Bay Street, a high bluff attracted the most successful planters. Large lots allowed mansions of unprecedented size to be built. Some, such as the Anchorage at 1103 Bay Street (circa 1800), have been substantially remodeled. But Thomas Fuller’s tabby house, Tabby Manse at 1211 Bay Street (circa 1786) still gives the impression of a Palladian villa magically transported to the banks of Beaufort River.
Two later structures erected during the 1850s on Black’s Point (now “the Point”) are among the most impressive. Both used plantation-made brick in their construction. The Greek Revival, Berners Barnwell Sams House at 201 Laurens Street (1852) boasts porches supported on four giant Doric columns of unusual authority. Yet it retains a traditional “T” plan and central hall. Similarly, The Castle at 411 Craven Street cloaks its traditional form in neo-Gothic detail. Clustered chimneys contribute to the building’s romantic silhouette and brooding quality.
Building at The Castle was interrupted by the Civil War. Its owner, along with Beaufort’s entire white population, fled Beaufort following the Battle of Port Royal (November, 1861). Subsequently, the town was looted, first by abandoned slaves and then by soldiers. Union occupation followed. Larger houses became army offices or military hospitals. In 1862, federal agents began selling off town lots for unpaid taxes, thereby dispossessing antebellum owners of their property. These transformations were documented by “Yankee” photographers whose detailed images now provide an inexhaustible source of architectural information.
After the Civil War, freed slaves flocked into Beaufort from outlying plantations. By 1890 they had established new neighborhoods north and northeast of the old town center, characterized by residential, predominantly folk architecture. The First African Baptist Church at 601 New Street (1861) is one of a half-dozen churches built or adapted by freedmen in regular use today. The 1890s also saw the introduction of national architectural styles including an impressive group of Queen Anne dwellings on Craven Street. Like bungalows built during the late 1920s or structures dating back to Colonial times, these offer wide porches, a comfortable informality and cool, shaded interiors of a kind which have come to characterize Beaufort’s distinguished legacy of historic buildings.
|
|
|
|
|
