Charleston is full of beautiful homes and many of them are pre-civil war era homes. As you walk the quaint streets and peer over the walls the homes seem glamorous and I wonder what it would be like to live in some place like those homes. I toured one yesterday. The Aiken-Rhett house was built in 1820, added to in 1840 and again in 1850. It was owned for 142 years by the same family that included a former governor of South Carolina. If you peered over the fence in 1970 the impressive home, still lived in by a granddaughter of the Governor, is not one you would have found comfortable. Large drafty rooms, serious structural issues, no central heat nor air (in Charleston!), minimal bathroom facilities, poorly lighted rooms, no closets and barely functioning electric service would have been a challenge every day. And the house, a museum since 1996 is not being restored but kept as found. The contrast between what you expected it would be like and how the last occupant actually lived is striking. Yet the more intriguing part of the tour is the reminder that what made these homes elegant and sustainable in 1860 were the enslaved population. And at this house the reminders, unlike most of Charleston, are still there. In the “working yard” there are two structures a block of stables and quarters on the second floor, and the laundry and kitchen spaces with the living quarters for several enslaved families one level up. The number of people here varied from a few to 19 and it was not a pleasant place to live or work. The kitchen and laundry had fires going year round, that added significantly to the heat experienced most days of the year in the five upper level rooms, three of which have no immediate outside windows. The five rooms have a long hallway dotted with open windows, for fresh air and lot of bugs. The two end rooms have a window. Three of the five rooms have a small fire place. There would be a rough table, a chair or two, pegs on the walls to hang clothes and sleeping mats that could be rolled up for storage. The Aiken-Rhett house provides a rare glimpse of what daily life was like for the enslaved population of Charleston.
The laundry is the left door, the stairs the next, the kitchen the next two.
The upstairs hall
Stable block on the right side
No place to escape the watchful eye of someone from the main house.