Charleston County
http://www.charlestoncounty.org/
http://www.sccounties.org/counties/charleston.htm

Charleston County and the city of Charleston, its county seat, are the most
historic locations in the state. English settlers arrived in the colony of
Carolina in 1670 and established a town at Albemarle Point on the west bank of
the Ashley River. The settlement, named Charles Town in honor of King Charles II
of England, was subsequently moved a few miles away to a peninsula between the
Ashley and Cooper rivers. Charles Town (renamed Charleston in 1783) was the
political, social, and economic center of South Carolina throughout the colonial
and antebellum periods, and it served as the state capital until 1790.
Charleston District was formed in 1769, but portions were later split off to
form Colleton (1800) and Berkeley (1882) counties. Present day Charleston County
includes the old parishes of St. Philip, St. Michael, Christ Church, St. Andrew,
St. John Colleton, and part of St. James Santee. English and French Huguenot
settlers and their African slaves built indigo, rice, and cotton plantations
along the area's rivers and on its sea islands, while merchants of many
nationalities made Charleston one of the busiest ports on the Atlantic. During
the Revolutionary War the American forces defeated the attacking British fleet
at Charleston in June 1776; a palmetto log fort (later named Fort Moultrie) on
Sullivans Island withstood the British cannon balls, and the palmetto tree was
subsequently given a prominent place on the South Carolina flag. At another
Charleston fort, Fort Sumter, federal troops were fired on by Confederate forces
in April 1861, signalling the start of the Civil War. Charleston County has had
many famous residents, including three signers of the United States
Constitution: Charles Pinckney (1757-1824), Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
(1746-1825), and John Rutledge (1739-1800). Other residents include architect
Robert Mills (1781-1855), writers DuBose Heyward (1885-1940) and Archibald
Rutledge (1883-1973), slave leader Denmark Vesey (1767-1822), abolitionists
Sarah (1792-1873) and Angelina (1805-1879) Grimke, scientist Ernest Everett Just
(1883-1941), and civil rights leader Septima Poinsette Clarke (1898-1987).

Compiled by South Carolina State Library 1996. 
http://www.state.sc.us/scsl/char.html

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