‘Meeting Street – Ruins of Secession Hall and Circular Church, with St. Phillip’s in the Distance’
John Soule
c.1863
Interesting on a number of levels, this early stereograph shows the view from Meeting Street towards St. Philip’s Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The ruined building on the left was the Circular Church, designed by Robert Mills, one of America’s earliest native-born professional architects. The church was built ‘in the round’ and modelled on the Pantheon in Rome with a massive classical portico. Completed in the early 19th century the church was the first major domed building in America. A steeple was added in 1838. The remains of the building on the right belonged to the Secession Hall. This is where delegates from South Carolina gathered in December 1860 and voted to secede from the United States, an act that proved to be one of the triggers for the American Civil War. Headstones and monuments can be seen lying in the ground between the two buildings. Both the hall and the church were destroyed during a major fire which ravaged Charleston on 11-12 December 1861. St. Philip’s was built in 1836, its spire added in 1850. Fortunately it survived both the fire and the Civil War and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Through America Darkly 