Charleston Time Machine
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About Charleston Time Machine
The Charleston Time Machine is an imaginary time-travel device created by historian Dr. Nic Butler. It uses stories and facts from the rich, deep, colorful history of Charleston, South Carolina, as a means to educate, inspire, amuse, and even amaze the minds of our community. By exploring the stories of our shared past, we can better understand our present world and plan more effectively for the future.
The Charleston Time Machine is piloted by Nic Butler, Ph.D., an interdisciplinary historian with an infectious enthusiasm for Charleston’s colorful past. A native of Greenville County, South Carolina, Dr. Butler attended the University of South Carolina before completing a Ph.D. in musicology at Indiana University. He has worked as archivist of the South Carolina Historical Society, as an adjunct faculty member at the College of Charleston, and as an historical consultant for the City of Charleston.
Recent Trips in Charleston's History
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Mutiny and Murder aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion, Part 2
The terrified survivors of a murderous mutiny aboard the Cuban schooner Nuestra Señora sailed from the Bahamas under the command of a hired English pilot in mid-June 1734. They sought to return to Havana with no questions asked, but the crew’s curious behavior alerted the new captain to mortal danger ahead. A secret pact forged in desperation spawned a violent counter-mutiny that spilled more blood and further depleted the crew, forcing the weakened schooner to make an emergency detour to the British port of Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina. -
Mutiny and Murder aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion, Part 1
An affluent Cuban merchant and his young pregnant wife set sail from Havana in May 1734 on a peaceful voyage to Hispaniola aboard their private schooner, but a piratical mutiny at sea claimed many lives and set the vessel adrift. Aided by a passing Bahamian mariner, the Nuestra Señora de la Concepçion came to Charleston in distress and gained protection from local authorities. Interviews with the survivors sparked a formal trial that imposed British law on foreign visitors and delivered resolution to a grieving Hispanic widow and her newborn daughter. -
Line Street: Vestige of the War of 1812
Line Street isn’t the most glamorous thoroughfare in the City of Charleston, but it recalls a significant episode in the community’s history. During the darkest days of the War of 1812 with Britain, thousands of men and women—both enslaved and free—rushed to construct a zigzag line of fortifications across the peninsula between the rivers Ashley and Cooper to protect the city against the threat of hostile invasion. The peace of 1815 rendered their work superfluous, but the erasure of the “lines” after the Demark Vesey Affair of 1822 left a permanent record of the war on the urban landscape. -
Newmarket: Charleston’s Suburban Racecourse and Slave Auction Site
Just beyond the boundaries of urban Charleston, a hundred-acre pasture straddling modern Meeting Street hosted a variety of public events during the second half of the eighteenth century. Crowds flocked to Newmarket, as the site was called, to toll their livestock, to watch racehorses traverse a one-mile oval, to witness the auction of large gangs of enslaved people, and to see Native American visitors camping beyond the pale of South Carolina’s colonial capital. On the next episode of Charleston Time Machine, we’ll explore the tangled history of one of the community’s earliest and least-remembered suburbs. -
Policing Rural Charleston, from Colonial Posse to County Sheriff
From the dawn of the Carolina Colony to the early twentieth century, residents of rural Charleston County enjoyed no police protection beyond their own vigilance. Ancient customs, imported from England and transformed by the institution of slavery, obliged free men to patrol their own neighborhoods on horseback, apprehend lawbreakers, and deliver them to justice. A paid rural police force gradually emerged in the early 1900s, fostered by the proliferation of automobiles, and eventually led to the creation of the modern Sheriff’s Department in 1991. -
Charleston's Forgotten First Orphan House, 1790–94
Shortly after the creation of the nation’s first municipal orphanage in 1790, the citizens of Charleston contributed generously to the construction of a large and well-documented edifice on Boundary (now Calhoun) Street that housed thousands of children between 1794 and 1951. The location of the institution’s initial home, visited by President George Washington in May 1791, is far less remembered, however. A search for clues to the location of Charleston’s first Orphan House leads to a forgotten Pinckney family property in the heart of Colleton Square.
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Think of a podcast as a radio show that you can get on the internet and listen to, pause, restart, and skip through anytime you want. You have a couple options: You can listen to a podcast through a website like CCPL's, which is called streaming; or you can download the podcast, which means it is saved to your phone, tablet, or computer so you can listen to it anytime -- even without an internet connection.
To stream the Charleston Time Machine: Visit the Time Machine page and either choose an episode from the player above or choose which story you want to know more about. In each story we embed a player of that episode so you can listen as you read.
To download: Use an app and it will be delivered each week to your phone, tablet, or computer. You'll get a fresh Time Machine podcast every Friday afternoon! We offer downloads through services you may have heard of before: Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher, and Tune In. Just click on the icon above of the service you want to use and click the subscribe button. It's that easy!
