the seasoned traveler with george bauer

Program 210:

A Tale of Two Cities

Each year on the program, I'll focus on an important city around the world. In Season I, I took viewers to Toronto. This season I visit two American classics: cities dripping with Southern splendor and gentility. One's in Georgia, the other's in South Carolina.


Charleston's Magnolia Plantation...

For years, people have debated which Southern Belle is the better city. So I went to Savannah and Charleston to compare and contrast the two.

Both towns are on or near the Atlantic Ocean and both are small in area and population. Savannah has 132,000 residents, while 97,000 people call Charleston home. The Georgia city sits along the Savannah River. The South Carolina city is a peninsula, whose harbor meets the ocean.

Both of these urban jewels appear similar to first-time visitors and there "are" similarities but at the same time, Charleston and Savannah are very different, especially to those who know each city well.

And while this trip will highlight the enduring antebellum charm of these communities, they are both contemporary cities as well. Each has a huge port and is vying to become the most important port in the Southeastern United States.

Savannah is considered America's first planned city, reflecting the genius of the man who founded it.

General James Edward Oglethorpe and 120 English travelers on the Good Ship Anne, landed at a bluff on the Savannah River in February of 1733. Oglethorpe named the 13th and final American colony Georgia, in honor of England's King George the Second. The city he created was called Savannah, for the marshlands which surround it. Georgia was to be a debtors' colony, populated by the working poor. It was also created to act as a buffer for South Carolina, protecting it from any advance by the Spanish in Florida.

The original charter made it clear: individuals were free to worship as they pleased. Rum, lawyers, and slavery were all forbidden, at least at the start. Imagine that.


Savannah in the shade...

63 years before Savannah was founded, English settlers left the Caribbean island of Barbados, and came ashore on marshland near South Carolina's Albermarle Point. Barbados was in fact overcrowded because so many English had left their homeland to settle on the tropical island.

In 1670, the new arrivals called their home Charles Town, in honor of the British monarch, Charles the Second. A decade later, the immigrants moved their town from its marshy spot to its present location.

Over time, huge rice and cotton plantations were created and wealthy South Carolinians decided to build massive second homes in Charleston. The town grew and prospered.

After 1733, James Oglethorpe laid out Savannah in a series of grids, which allowed for wide streets to be intertwined with public squares and parks. These were to be public meeting places and centers of business. Oglethorpe developed 24 squares, 21 remain today. They are the highlight of the city, as is Forsyth Park. The original city, now the Historic District, boasts live oak trees, many festooned with Spanish moss, and azaleas bursting with colorful blossoms.

The squares became centerpieces of stylish construction. Stately homes and graceful churches blended several styles: Federal, English Regency, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Romanesque Revival, and Victorian. Savannah itself became a work of art. Today, visitors can learn about the glory days by taking a tour of the Historic District.

The wealth in Georgia came too from rich soil and a cooperative climate, allowing cultivation of cotton and rice. Huge plantations blossomed outside Savannah, just as they had in Charleston. Labor was required to work the fields, so Georgia, the free colony, which had at first forbidden slavery, now legalized it to harvest Savannah's bountiful crops.

Charleston grew outward from its lower tip, called the Battery. Settlers built not only marvelous mansions to live in but also mighty churches for worship.

St. Michael's Episcopal Church is the oldest in town and one of the largest. President George Washington worshipped here on his visit to Charleston. Nearby, the French Huguenot Church is unique in America.

To recall and celebrate many architectural styles, Charleston now holds an annual candlelight tour of homes each Autumn. Savannah's tour takes place each Spring.

Given their strategic locations, major forts were built around Savannah and Charleston, to protect the cities from invasion.

Near Savannah, Fort Pulaski sits on Cockspur Island in the Savannah River. It was named for Polish count Casimir Pulaski, a hero in the U.S. War for Independence who died in the unsuccessful Siege of Savannah in 1779. Construction started in 1829. Fort Pulaski was part of a coastal fortification system approved by President James Madison after the War of 1812. In 1861, when Georgia seceded from the U.S., the Fort was taken over by the Confederate States of America. Union Forces recaptured it in 1862 after a lengthy bombardment.

Charleston's forts -- Moultrie and Sumter -- were around much earlier and they played a role in some early Patriot victories during the War of Revolution.


Fort Sumpter, a Civil War timepiece ...

Fort Sumter too is on an island, accessible by boat from downtown Charleston. It was named for South Carolina Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Sumter. And as every American school child knows, Fort Sumter played a pivotal role in the nation's War Between the States. The first shots of the battle were aimed at this structure. Despite repeated efforts by Union Forces to retake it, the Confederates held Fort Sumter until early in 1865. As Union troops advanced north from Savannah, the Rebel forces evacuated Sumter on February 17, 1865.

During the Civil War, Savannah was the final prize in General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea in December, 1864. But Sherman was so taken by Savannah, he spared the charming city and on December 22, 1864, sent a telegram to President Abraham Lincoln, presenting Savannah to the president as a Christmas present.

When the Civil War ended, cotton-growing thrived again in Savannah until the boll weevil destroyed half of Georgia's crop in the 1920s.

Savannah fell into disrepair but some determined local women organized in the 1950s to preserve historic structures. Savannah's Historic District was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and it remains one of the largest such districts in the country.

Outside Charleston, proud families rebuilt plantation properties destroyed by marauding Union soldiers. Magnolia Plantation was developed by the Drayton and Fox families who had come to South Carolina from Barbados. The marriage of Thomas Drayton Junior to Ann Fox began a long-line of family ownership of the plantation, now a tourist attraction.

Some of America's oldest gardens bloom here, as they have done since 1680. Azaleas and magnolias are everywhere, as are Cyprus trees, ponds, swamps, and a petting zoo all of which grace the exterior property.

The plantation house is the third on the site. The second was burned to the ground by General Sherman's troops. The house has maintained much of the plantation's earlier history.

Even in an age of automobiles, the historic centers of both Savannah and Charleston are small, compact, and walkable--even for seasoned travelers.

Charleston has block-after-block of mouth-watering-mansions, some of the biggest are near the Battery.


Robert Brewton House

A few blocks away, on Church Street, the Robert Brewton House is reputedly the oldest single home in the city. It was built a dozen years before Savannah was even discovered. And while you marvel at Charleston structures, be sure to see Rainbow Row, along Bay Street, where the houses are painted all the colors of the rainbow.

In Savannah, visitors marvel at the elegant architecture, ornate ironworks, fountains, and those charming squares.

Near Johnson Square, the Church of Christ is the third edifice on the site. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, preached here. President George Washington worshipped here on his visit to Savannah.

Juliette Gordon Low was born in Savannah. Her father, Andrew Low, was a leading Savannah cotton merchant but she was famous in her own right. Low was the founder of the Girl Scouts in the U.S. and was one of the nation's most influential women. Her home was Savannah's first designated National Historic Landmark. The house has been restored to reflect the Victorian era. Girl Scouts come to visit but so have a few presidents: William Howard Taft and Harry S. Truman.


Charleston's Gibbes Museum ...

Savannah and Charleston are both deeply committed to the arts and culture. The Telfair Museum of Art is the Southeast's oldest art center, displaying works from the 18 th and 19 th Centuries, while a new addition highlights more contemporary works.

Not to be outdone, Charleston's Gibbes Museum of Art is smaller, but noteworthy for its collection of American paintings, sculpture, and photography.

At night both cities come alive in an odd way. Ghost tours are popular. In 2002 the American Institute of Parapsycology named Savannah 'America's Most Haunted City'.

After a ghost tour, you'll be in the proper 'spirit' to visit cemeteries. Both Charleston and Savannah have interesting ones. Savannah's main burial ground is the final resting place of patriots and other people of note, as well as just plain folks.

So which city is better? I think it's a tough choice. I happen to like both Savannah and Charleston for different reasons and I do know this: both these Belles are cultured and refined, quintessentially Southern "ladies" and utterly charming. They are historical treasures that remain very vibrant today.