A Historical Overview of Mount Pleasant's Development
Source: Post & Courier
The area encompassing Mount Pleasant was included in a massive land deal made by a grateful King Charles II to eight political supporters who were crucial to restoring the English monarchy in 1660. The 1663 grant of the Province of Carolina made to these eight men, often referred to as the “Lords Proprietors”, was approximately 290,000 square miles of wilderness - almost triple the size of England, Ireland, and Scotland put together. It consisted of area that would eventually become the states of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, North and South Carolina. One of the Lords Proprietors, 42-year old Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, became the managing partner of the real estate development business.
In 1666, Cooper hired his doctor, 34-year old John Locke, as a full-time assistant. The following year the two began work on a business plan deemed the Grand Modell for the Province of Carolina, which included development plans for a New World settlement and a set of governing documents called the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. Cooper and Locke’s vision aspired to a utopian society based on English ideals of the period. It was adopted by the Lords Proprietors in 1669. The following winter, English settlers on board the Carolina sailed from Barbados, by way of Bermuda, arriving at Albemarle Point on the Ashley River. In March 1670, they established “Charles Towne.” This is now a State Park called “Charles Towne Landing.” It’s interesting and worth a visit.
Among the settlers onboard the Carolina was Florence O’Sullivan, who had been appointed deputy to Sir Peter Colleton, one of the aforementioned Lords Proprietors. As Surveyor General, O’Sullivan laid out the original Charles Towne development on 9 acres.[1] By numerous accounts, O’Sullivan was a “dissentious, troublesome man” of dubious character. John Culpepper, originally hired as a deputy to O’Sullivan, replaced him as Surveyor General in December 1671. The following year, Culpepper re-platted the walled settlement of 90 homes, which had been “carelessly laid out in an irregular manner.” Shortly thereafter, the decision was made to move the settlement 3½ miles southeast to the present location of Charleston - a 35-acre site on the Cooper River. Here Culpepper surveyed a simple grid of three north-south streets (Meeting, Church, and East Bay) intersected by three east-west streets (Tradd, Broad, and Queen). By 1680, one thousand people occupied Charles Towne.
Though unpopular among his fellow frontiersmen, O’Sullivan’s military background and political alliances enabled him to retain prominence in the fledgling colony. Perhaps wanting to keep him at a safe distance from other settlers, on July 6, 1680, the Lords Proprietors granted O’Sullivan 2,340 acres across the harbor from Charles Towne. The grant included land that would become “Sullivan’s Island,” as well as the harbor front property between Cove and Shem Creeks. The latter was referred to by the Indian name Oldwanus Point, later “Old Woman’s Point,” and today makes up the area known as the “Old Village.” O’Sullivan took up residence here, but later “deserted his post” and joined the “malcontents in Charles Town” in a hunger riot. He died in 1683.
Despite early challenges, Charles Towne grew as a trade center, fed by the agricultural success of the region’s plantations, including those east of the Cooper River. In 1735, the final segment of the King’s Highway, which ran between Boston and Charles Town (the “e” had been dropped from “Towne” by that point), was completed through the East Cooper area. The 60-mile segment connected Charles Town with the 6-year old city of George Town. The thoroughfare came to be known as the “George Town Road,” later, “Georgetown Road”, “SC Route 40,” “U.S. 17,” and ultimately “Coleman Boulevard.”
In 1748, transportation entrepreneur Henry Gray acquired a charter to operate a ferry between Charles Town and land he had acquired three years earlier at Haddrell’s Point near the mouth of Shem Creek. The following year, Charles Town city Treasurer Jacob Motte purchased the 56-acre Mount Pleasant Plantation just south of Gray’s ferry landing. By 1755, Motte had constructed a plantation home, a portion of which still stands near the western end of Hibben Street.
By the time the French and Indian War ended in 1763, Charles Town had grown from a 35-acre village surveyed by John Culpepper in the 1670s to a 250-acre city. For context, 250 acres is roughly the size of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan, the North End neighborhood of Boston, the Charleston peninsula south of Broad Street, and the celebrated I’On neighborhood in Mount Pleasant. With approximately 12,000 people in 1764, Charles Town rivaled New York in population, and was only slightly less populous than Boston and Philadelphia at the time. The year marked the first time that shipping tonnage cleared out of New York exceeded that of Charles Town.
Jonathan Scott was an enterprising businessman who operated a mill and tavern along Shem Creek in the 1760s. “Here,” wrote Mount Pleasant historian Mary-Julia Royall, “travelers could find food and lodging for themselves and their horses.” Observing Charles Town’s building boom, the entrepreneur saw a development opportunity and purchased 100 acres on the south side of Jacob Motte’s Mount Pleasant Plantation.
Scott called his development “Greenwich” (pronounced Grinnidge). At the time, there were only five other municipalities in South Carolina – the aforementioned Charles Town and George Town - along with Beaufort (est. 1711), and the interior towns of Orangeburg (est. 1730) and Camden (est. 1758). Scott emulated the urban design of these successful real estate developments, constructing four interconnecting streets he named “Pitt,” “King,” “Queen,” and “Bay Street.” To call them “streets” would be considered a stretch by modern standards. They amounted to sandy paths cut through the woods. Sometimes they were “paved” with oyster shells. Scott subdivided lots along the streets that were cut through 50 of the wooded acres. The 50-acre balance of land was kept as a common source of firewood for lot purchasers.
Another businessman, James Hibben, eventually took over Scott’s Shem Creek hotel business, as well as the ferry business his father Andrew had started between Haddrell’s Point and Charleston (the city’s name was shortened following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783). At the time of the first U.S. Census in 1790, Charleston had a population of 16,359 and comprised approximately 400 acres. It was the largest city in the southern United States, and the fourth largest in the country behind New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
In 1803, seeing an opportunity to expand his business endeavors, the ambitious James Hibben purchased the balance of Jacob Motte’s Mount Pleasant Plantation. Five years later, emulating the success of the Greenwich development next door, Hibben constructed six intersecting streets: Beach Street which, like Bay Street in Greenwich, ran along Charleston Harbor; Bennett, Whilden, and Boundary Streets. These were perpendicularly intersected by Venning and Hibben Streets following a northeast-southwest alignment. Hibben subdivided 35 lots along these streets, granting some to relatives and putting the rest on the market for sale.
In 1837, residents of Greenwich and Mount Pleasant petitioned the South Carolina General Assembly to charter a new municipality. Their petition was granted, and the Town of Mount Pleasant was born. Even though the development of Greenwich had been underway for much longer than Mount Pleasant, the latter name was chosen likely due to most of the activity – stores, an inn, a ferry landing, churches, and the road to Georgetown, were located in Mt. Pleasant.
[1] An acre comprises 43,560 square feet of land and is roughly the size of a regulation football or soccer field.