Dancing with R2-D2

In the earliest known map of modern city of Charleston—the so-called Boyd Map of 1686—the northern edge of the town terminates next to an inlet or creek where Queen Street runs today. Although the original survey of the town, the “Grand Model” from the 1670s, did lay out a street at this watery location, and homes began to appear along its banks in the 1690s, the course of modern Queen Street remained poorly defined for the first several decades of the town’s history. And while modern Queen Street stretches for approximately seven-tenths of a mile between East Bay Street and Rutledge Avenue, we must remember that from early 1704 through at least 1730 the settled portion of this street was confined to a length of only two blocks within the bounds of the town’s defensive walls. 

On several occasions in the legislative records of the early 1700s, this street was referred to as simply “the north street,” or “the street at the northern end of the bay,” indicating that it effectively formed the northern limit of the town. By the 1720s, however, the term “Dock Street” was commonly used to describe this site in the extant records of Charleston. The origin of this name can be traced to the spring of 1706, when Captain Edward Loughton, a joiner or carpenter by trade, petitioned the South Carolina General Assembly for permission to submit a bill “ffor makeing a Dock out of the marsh or swamp between the said Loughton and Coll. Robt. Daniell.” Loughton’s bill “to make a Wharfe” was read three times by the legislature and ratified on 9 April 1706. At that time the title of the act was recorded in the legislative records as “An Act to enable Capt. Edward Loughton to make a public dock in Charles-Town for the lying up of boats and canoes,” but unfortunately the full text of the act has not survived.

Without the text of this 1706 act, and without illustrative maps or plats from that era, the precise location of Loughton’s dock has long since faded from memory. Extant records of the property of Loughton and his neighbor, Robert Daniel, can facilitate the formation of a good educated guess, however, and in the next installment of this thread I’ll discuss the possible location of the dock from which the name Dock Street was derived.

It may surprise some to learn that during the first 180 years of Charleston’s existence, the rules of the road required travelers to keep to the left side of the street. Considering our city’s British parentage, however, this fact can be more easily grasped as one of the many cultural practices borrowed from the “Mother Country.”

Charleston’s narrow, unpaved streets, most of which were laid out at the end of the seventeenth century, may have been amply commodious during the colony’s early years, but by the end of the eighteenth century urban traffic had increased dramatically. As the congestion of wagons, carts, carriages, and horses grew, tempers flared into an early form of “road rage.” Local newspapers offered a solution by reminding citizens of “The Road Paradox,” an English verse meant to advise drivers and riders of the proper etiquette:

The laws of the road are a paradox quite,
For when you are trav’ling along,
If you keep to the left you’ll be sure to be right,
If you keep to the right you’ll be wrong. 

By the turn of the nineteenth century this traditional British practice had been the unwritten rule of the road in Charleston for many generations, but it was not codified by law until 1805, when City Council passed an ordinance requiring that “all drivers of carts, drays, wagons, and other carriages whatsoever, shall pass each other on their right hands, and shall always drive as close [to] the foot-way, with their left hand next [to] the same, as they conveniently can.”

This law remained in effect until the middle of the nineteenth century, by which time customary traffic practices had evolved into the more familiar pattern of driving on the right side of the road. Whether this change was a gradual process or a sudden shift is not known, but in November 1849 the stage was set for an official change. Alderman Edward North introduced to City Council a bill for altering the local rules of the road, and after the customary public readings, the new ordnance went into effect on January 1st 1850, requiring that from henceforth all drivers “pass each other on their left hand” and “drive as close [to] the footway, with their right hand next [to] the same, as they conveniently can.”

These laws were meant to create order out of the occasionally chaotic flow of traffic in Charleston’s narrow streets, but as anyone attempting to navigate the city’s thoroughfares during peak tourist times can attest, harmony does not always prevail. It may help to remember that our early Charleston predecessors who once plied these streets would be as confused by our present rules of the road as those visiting today “from off.”

Anyone who’s been to Charleston will recognize the name “Dock Street,” even though there is no such street in the city today. The present Dock Street Theatre at 135 Church Street opened in November 1937, and has become famous in recent years for the chamber music concerts held there during the annual Spoleto USA festivals. The theater, actually a renovated antebellum hotel, claims to have been built on the site of the original Dock Street Theatre that opened in February 1736. That earlier venue was a much smaller structure, however, and was actually situated a few paces to the northwest, on Queen Street. Charleston residents, tour guides, and history books will explain this confusing nomenclature by telling you that Queen Street was called Dock Street when the first theater opened, but the street’s name was changed shortly thereafter. Dock Street, they will add, was so named because the street was once an inlet that led from the Cooper River into the heart of the early Charles Town, at the end of which was a dock for boats entering from the bay.

For most people, that explanation provides a sufficient clarification of the issue, and satisfies their historical curiosity as well. For this history nerd, however, it merely stimulates me to dig deeper into the past for confirmation of its veracity and to search for illuminating details. When did Dock Street acquire that name, for example, and when was it officially changed to Queen Street? Was it really an inlet used by boats, and if so, where was the dock that inspired the name? When was the dock built, and who was responsible for its construction? When was the inlet filled to create the street? I’m hot on the trail of the answers to these questions, and in near future I’ll post the results of my attempt to get to the bottom of this matter.