Charleston - History Museum

We moved on to Charleston which was only about 90 minutes from Hilton Head/Savannah.  We decided to spend 4 days in the area as there was so much to see.  

The first morning we were up and our way to visit the Charleston Museum.

What a great surprise!  They not only had historical exhibits but other things, as well.  This sketch reminds me of the attitudes of today - if you don't "like" the other side, you take your ball and go home.

How many of the signers' graves will we see?

An assortment of slave badges.  These were given to slaves who were authorized to leave the plantation and do work for others.  Sometimes when the work was completed, the owners let them keep the money or other times they might split the money with the slave.

And look at this - the Levys are now making cameras!

Think you'd want to use one of these?

19th Century Cotton Scale.  Cotton was the driving force in the southern economy.  It required the labor of nearly two million enslaved people to grow, harvest, process, transport and export.  By 1860, enslaved people produced over two billion pounds of cotton annually which was two-thirds of the world's supply.

Lots of ammunition and weapons.

And if you needed to settle a serious argument that jeopardized your honor in the community, this was just the thing.

When I see uniforms, I always think about the fact that they were worn continuously in the heat.  How did they clean them?

Since it is a natural history museum, they had a great exhibit on animals.

This museum had some fantastic artifacts and was a real gem.  But we needed to get on the road for our next 'attraction'.  Stay tuned.