Exchange and Provost Dungeon

The Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon in Charleston, above, is at East Bay and Broad Streets, a short walk from our hotel. It is a museum now, but it was an important historic building. It was completed in 1771 initially to serve as a custom house for goods being shipped in and out of Charleston Harbor.

Like the rest of the American Colonies, the people of Charleston objected to the British Tea Act of 1773. A meeting was held at the Exchange on December 3, 1773, thirteen days before the Boston Tea Party, to decide what to do about a shipment of East India Company tea that had arrived two days earlier.

[T]he present government of the state of South Carolina traces its lineage to this anti-tea rally... The meeting of December 3 led without a break to subsequent meetings and then to the General Committee, the Provincial Congresses, and finally the state General Assembly.

Many important revolutionary meetings were held in the Exchange. It was where South Carolina elected delegates to the First Continental Congress in 1774. It was where the Declaration of Independence was read to the citizens of Charleston in 1776. After the American Revolution, it was where South Carolina ratified the new United States Constitution in 1788. It was the site of many events, including a ball and a concert, during President George Washington's week-long visit to Charleston in 1791. By then, the government of the state of South Carolina had moved from Charleston to Columbia.

An exhibit in the museum likened the significance of the Exchange to Philadelphia's Independence Hall and Boston's Faneuil Hall.

And what happened to that tea? Unlike the Bostonians, the Charlestonians did not dump the tea in the harbor. The tea was stored in the Exchange until it was sold in 1776 to help finance the war against Britain.

The history of the Exchange is not all positive. The British captured Charleston in 1780 and used the Exchange as a barracks, and the basement as a prison - the Provost Dungeon. Slaves were sold outside the Exchange for generations prior to the Civil War.

The Exchange served as the Charleston Post Office from 1815 to 1896 with brief interruptions due to earthquake and war. The United States government decided to sell the Exchange in the late 1890s, and the sale was finally accomplished in 1913 to the Daughters of the American Revolution who now operate the museum.

Click here for more information about the Exchange. That link is the source of the quote above.