By: Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, Pub. 1906, reprinted 2020, 564 pages, Index, soft cover, ISBN #0-89308031-4.
This intriguing book, first published in 1906, is a thorough and historical story of the beginning of one of America's most famous cities. Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel not only tells the history of earliest days and the move from Old Towne to Charleston, as its known today, but brings life to the personalities of many of the lord proprietors and even the bold captain, Robert Sanford, who landed in Port Royal and "took sezin by turffe and twiggs" in the name of the King and realm of England. Some of the topics covered in the book are the history of the ill-fated Scotch colony, naturalization of the Huguenots; church acts; the conquest of pirates; the controversy between the King and the Lords; establishment of the State Government; the seige and fall following the Prevost's raid; capture, deliverance and restoration during Revolutionary times; the visits of Washington and laFayette and structure of society. The final chapters deal with the War of 1812; the social topics during the Mexican War and Confederate Charleston. Truly, the book is the story of Charleston and its people.