The odometer read 58, 372, when we left. Downtown, I snapped a photo of what turned out to be "Busted Plug Plaza", which is called the World's Largest Fire Hydrant. It was created by artist Blue Sky in 2001 and is meant to look like a fire hydrant that has been hit by a truck. Not what you'd expect in Columbia, South Carolina.
Like many state houses and capitols, there were monuments on the grounds. The first one we came upon is probably the newest, having been dedicated in 2001, and is certainly the most striking. It's called the African American History Monument and was sculpted by Ed Dwight of Colorado. In front is a shiny marble depiction of the Middle Passage. There is also a marble map of the African slave trade routes. There are 4 rubbing stones from regions where the slaves were captured: Senegal; Sierra Leone; Ghana; and the Congo. The history of African Americans is depicted in relief in 12 scenes. This was not something I expected to encounter here and it was totally by chance that we came upon it, but I'm really glad we did.
As we made our way around to the front of the building, we encountered the memorial for the Spanish-American War, which is not a war you see commemorated every day.
As we rounded the building to the northern side,we could get a shot of the capitol with a sabal palm or palmetto, the state tree, which seemed rather iconic.
Right out in front, unsurprisingly, is a Confederate memorial. This one went up in the first state to secede in 1879, just two years after the end of Reconstruction and fairly close to the beginning of the Jim Crow Era. Lightning took it out in 1882, but it was replaced two years later. At least, the Confederate flag no longer flies on the grounds.
I have no idea why there is a statue of Washington at the foot of the steps. It was bought in 1857. The sign below is just the first complaint about the Union Army. There's another on the wall.
We got inside at 9:31, just as folks were heading in for the introductory film. K went there and I ducked into what turned out to be a very attractive restroom before going in to see the film, too.
From the film, we learned that burning Southern cities was a bit of a thing with Sherman. South Carolina had been in the midst of building a new state house, when he came through, burning a third of the city. The building materials and plans for the new building were destroyed. The exterior walls and foundation were complete, which was something. The old State House had been wooden and burned, too, of course. So, the General Assembly met down the road a bit at the University of South Carolina for four year. They moved in before all the work was complete. The dome, porticos and exterior steps were the last things completed in 1907. Each of the columns on the porticos are carved from single stones, making them what are believed to be the largest monolithic columns in the country.
I'm afraid, this is not the clearest photo, but it might be the best one I got of the South Carolina state seal. It was on the podium in the theater. The seal has a palmetto tree growing on the seashore, meant to symbolize the Revolutionary War fort on Sullivan's Island. The Latin motto means "Prepared in mind and resources". The second oval on this podium is actually the revers of the seal and is meant to be hope overcoming danger in the form of a woman walking on a shore covered with swords an daggers at the dawn of a new day. The motto on this one means "While I breathe I hope". Both are good mottoes.
We soon discovered that our guide, an older gentleman, was truly knowledgeable, not only about South Carolina, but other states as well. He led us to the joint legislative conference room, which used to be a legislative library. This beautiful room is the only one in the building that has not been remodeled. There are twin spiral staircases, railings and pillars all of wrought iron. The impressive ceiling is pressed metal. The chandelier used to be gas-lit and weighs over 1000 pounds. It's the only original chandelier in the building. The stained glass in the doors was a lovely surprise.
The state house was designed by an Austrian immigrant named John M. Niernsee. (Fun fact- the original state house was designed by James Hoban, an Irish immigrant, who also designed the White House and appeared on a stamp in 1981.) The building was built to be fireproof and underwent a retrofitting from 1995-98 that made it earthquake-proof. Niernsee's son Frank completed the interior from 1887-1890.
Niernsee used pink Tennessee marble and white Georgia marble in the floors. This was visible between equally interesting sections of carpeting.
Even stairwells are beautifully decorated.
We went upstairs and entered the Senate Chamber. This did not have those major Southern plantation shutters that I've seen in other capitols, but rather skinny ones. There are 46 Senators who sit by party and seniority. The large central desk was carved by hand in 1915 from British Honduran mahogany in Columbia. That's John C. Calhoun behind the desk. They had something I've never seen before- a Sword of State. It represents the authority of the Senate. It symbolizes that the Senate is in session, so the Sergeant at Arms will place it in brackets at the front of the desk (it's in a glass case now) and that activates the original lamps on each side of the desk. The original sword was made in 1704 and stolen in 1941. Lord Halifax, a former ambassador to the US, gave the state the current sword in 1951. The blade is silver and etched with the state seal and flower, yellow jessamine. So, that's cool. Another pressed ceiling is in here and a great carpet. The portrait to the left of the large desk that looks like Edgar Allan Poe is actually Henry Timrod, whose poem Carolina, became the first of the state's songs in 1911. (Yes, they have two. The other is South Carolina State of Mind, which became the second one in 1984.) Another portrait of note is of Ann Pamela Cunningham, who founded the Mount Vernon Ladies Association in 1853 to oversee the preservation and restoration of George Washington's home.
Out in the hall, there was another terrific ceiling.
Next was the House of Representatives, which seats 124 members by county. The large desk here is also British Honduran mahogany, but it dates to 1937. They, too, have a great ceiling and an interesting carpet. Their counterpart to the Senate's sword is the Mace. The Sergeant at Arms places it on the front of the desk to symbolize the House being in session. It was made in 1756 in London and it is the oldest original mace in this country. It was hidden during the Revolution and disappeared for over 40 years. It was finally discovered in 1819 in a bank vault in Philadelphia.
When we went back downstairs to the main lobby, I noticed the Ordinance of Session carving on the wall. Why is it that the South is still so proud of this treasonous act all these years later? This building wasn't even finished until after the war and after they were back in the Union, and yet, they still felt it necessary to commemorate being the first state to do this.
Looking back upstairs, we had a good view of the beautiful mosaic glass with the Seal of South Carolina. It is made of over 17,000 pieces of glass and dates back to the 1800s, when it was originally placed here.
There is a life-size statue of John C. Calhoun in the middle of the lobby. Calhoun had been Vice President under John Quincy Adams and then ran for Vice President with Adams' rival Andrew Jackson. So, he was VP under two different presidents. Back in Tennessee, I'd read a lot about the wives of Jackson's cabinet members refusing to associate with Secretary of War John Eaton's wife over an alleged affair they'd had during her first marriage. This came too close to home for Jackson, whose own wife had been hounded about their marriage during the campaign. However, I didn't know it was called the Petticoat Affair, until I was looking up info on Calhoun. It was Calhoun's own wife who organized the wives. This and other problems between the men led to Calhoun serving only one term. Calhoun was a staunch defender of slavery and states' rights, and although he was already dead ten years by then, his beliefs heavily influenced Southern secession. So, not a Confederate, but would have been one.
A portrait on this floor probably would have irked Calhoun- Mary McLeod Bethune. She was born in South Carolina, but she is about to represent Florida in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol. Bethune, a civil rights activist and educator for whom Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach is named, will replace Edmund Kirby Smith, one of the last Confederate generals to surrender. So, good call on Florida's part-finally.
There's a really good view of the dome from here. However, it's a fake. It is not the copper-covered dome that you can see from the outside. This one is a "false dome" inside that one, but offset to put it over the middle of the lobby.
Here's a good look at the staircase. It's wrought-iron and it has the yellow jessamine, which, you'll recall, is the state flower. Nice touch.
After the tour, we repaired to the gift shop. K wanted to find a little something for his mom, who is from South Carolina. I found a few things and then saw our guide out in the lobby. I thanked him again and as we talked, it came up that we were headed down to the university. I told him that K's grandfather had taught there and it turned out that, while he hadn't had him as a professor, he knew of him. Small world!
When we went outside, we went around to the west side, since we hadn't been there yet. Here, we could see the six bronze stars marking where Sherman's cannons had damaged the building in February, 1865.
We ran into the Palmetto Regiment Monument, one of the few in the country to the Mexican-American War. It was designed by Christopher Werner and probably made by him and enslaved craftsmen in the 1850s.
Very appropriately, the statue of Strom Thurmond is on the south side of the state house. Born too late for the Civil War by about 40 years, he nevertheless championed states' rights and segregation. Late in life he moderated his positions on race, but never renounced his earlier positions. After he died in 2003, a 78-year-old mixed-race woman named Essie Mae Washington-Williams revealed that he was her father. He'd never acknowledged her, but paid for her to go to a historically black college and got money to her from time to time. His other children have acknowledged her and her name was added to the memorial as one of his children. It was quite the story back when it came out.
There are some lovely flower beds on that side and a good view of the building as you get down to the next street.
Just before you leave the grounds on this end, you encounter this memorial, which is pretty much a companion piece to the one on the front side that is to the Confederate war dead. This is to the Confederate women. The wording is a bit much.
We left the grounds about 11:20 and started walking south to the University of South Carolina, which K assured me was not far away. We reached the outskirts of the campus just three minutes later and found one of those great school signs.
Continuing down the street, we saw Flinn Hall, home to the College of arts and Sciences Undergraduate Student Services Offices. This wasn't some stuffy office building. No, it was a charming-looking house.
K decided to cut through the parking lots here and we came out on The Horseshoe, which is the U-shaped formation of the original campus. Buildings around it are old, of course. It used to be surrounded by The Horseshoe Wall, which was 6 feet 9 inches tall. It had failed to keep students out of the taverns in town, but it did save the campus during the burning of Columbia in 1865, by keeping the flames off the campus. The area is now a beautiful park/quad.
We chanced upon the school mascot, Cocky the gamecock, sitting on a bench ready for photos. It's really a rather cool idea.
It was a little more complicated to get to the building on Bull Street that we wanted, but we made it at 11:37.
K had an appointment with the former chair of the Department of Geography. We managed to find her office in this rather old, very warm building. She was most gracious and she really spent a lot more time talking to us than I had expected. You see, not only had K's maternal grandfather been a professor at USC, but he had also been the very first department chair of Geography, when it was separated from Social Studies. She had pulled out old maps of South Carolina that his grandfather had hand drawn. One, for example, was population map for 1890 and he had put the dots, both big and small on it, thousands of them. It was really cool to see them.
Then, she took us downstairs to the seminar room named for his grandfather. In response to my question, she said that it was indeed well used. Students defended theses in here among other things. There was a plaque with his granddad's name at the top and the recipients of the Geography award named for him. I got pictures of this and took K's photo with his grandfather's photo over his shoulder. When, I posted this on Facebook, his maternal cousins thought it was really awesome.
When we left, we aimed for a more direct route back to the car. Right around the corner from the Callcott Building was the campus bookstore. There were many, many young people going in and out and we decided they must be incoming freshmen getting books. We went in and spent more time than it should have taken searching for a school pin for my collection. Achieving success with not one, but two pins, we left around 12:43.
We passed historical markers, the Thomas Cooper Library and Reflecting Pool, and the Longstreet Theater, which definitely didn't meet the Americans with Disabilities Act and I didn't photograph it.
As we passed the iron fence at the end of The Horseshoe, there was a group of cheerleaders approaching us. Rather than being polite, they kept right on walking and we had to step off the sidewalk to avoid getting run over.
We didn't really see any place to eat along the way, which was just as well due to the time. We reached the very hot car at 12:55 and were on the road two minutes later.
At 1:20 (58,397), we got off I-20 at Exit 80 for gas at a Shell station, where we got 12.025 gallons for $3.209 each, saving 5 cents a gallon with my car. The car had gone 484.3 miles on that tank and had gotten 40.274 miles per gallon!
At 1:36, we were at the nearby McDonald's for a quick lunch. I got my usual Tomato, Mozzarella, Grilled Chicken Meal for $8.39, and K got a hamburger for $1.19 and fries for $1.59 and shared my drink. With tax, it came to $12.29.
We were on the road at 2:08. I did some needlework, as usual. We made a pit stop at 3:23 (58468) and were back on the road at 3:28. We were due at our next stop, my cousin T and her husband J's house in North Myrtle Beach at 5. However, the drawbridge near her went up as we approached and I had to text her. She wrote back that it happened all the time and it was a pain. We finally got to her house at 5:09 (58,546).
T is the oldest of 9 first cousins on my mother's side. I am the second oldest and 3 years younger than her. We commuted to college together her senior year and my freshman. I was in her wedding and she was in mine. We have not seen each other since my father's funeral eleven years ago, but that made no difference whatsoever. Conversation among the four of us flowed easily. She made a delicious chicken and rice dinner with salad and a peach cobbler for dessert. We gave them wine from Biltmore and they gave us wine to take home from their wine club. It was unfortunate that her sister, third in the cousin line, couldn't make it down from North Carolina for the evening.
K noted that we still had an hour to travel to our hotel, so we had to say good-bye at 10:45. It was indeed a long drive down the coast to Hampton Inn Pawleys Island, which isn't on the island, but inland up the coast in the Lichtfield area. We arrived at 11:51 (58,592). We unpacked everything and hauled it up to room 317. We'd only gone 220 miles, but it was a long day.
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