Summer offers some of Charleston's most famous sights and sounds, as the city comes alive with  Carolina Day celebrations and fireworks displays.

Carolina Day is June 28th in Charleston, and a very special celebration commemorating the Revolutionary War victory over the British at Sullivan’s Island, 235 years ago in 1776. Each Carolina Day is observed with a parade down Meeting Street from City Hall at noon, culminating with festivities at the Gen. William Moultrie monument on White Point Garden. Carolina Day is a perfect patriotic kick-off for Fourth of July celebrations exactly one week later, and ringing the historic harbor where Americans battled the British are a series of explosive fireworks displays in a dramatically scenic setting.

The South Carolina Aquarium offers its family-friendly 4th celebration, with food, music, and 4-D theater presentations overlooking the Cooper River, culminating with the Patriots Point fireworks around 9:15 pm. Tickets are $60 for adults and $30 for children (under 2 years old free), and include beer, refreshments and food. For more information, call 843-577-FISH. Fireworks shows commence shortly after dark at Patriots Point and Sullivan’s Island, and can be enjoyed free from Waterfront Park and the High Battery. 

Fish competitively for saltwater species from the second largest pier on the East Coast at the Folly Pier Fishing Tournament, July 23rd, and August 20th. The beautiful pier on Folly Beach is fully equipped with anglers stations, restrooms, pavilion and refreshments for a magnificent view of the Atlantic surf and its various game fish. King Mackerel, Channel Bass and Ladyfish are among the prize categories for largest catch on tournament days, and offer some exciting action at one of Charleston’s most family-friendly locations. Registration is on-site beginning at 6am on tournament days, and prizes are awarded at 4:15pm. Adult fee is $12, children 3-12 $7, and adult chaperone is required for participants 15 and under. For more information call 843-588-3474 or online at www.follyfishingpier.com.

For Summer sounds under the oaks, nothing compares with the free Live Music Series at Freshfields Village, every Friday during June and July from 6-9pm. Beach music, R&B, Motown, jazz, acoustic and pop rock are all featured sounds by live bands playing in the outdoor setting on historic Johns Island, between Kiawah and Seabrook Islands. Beer, wine, sodas and food are available for purchase, but the concerts are free, and add a lively musical flavor to an area historically used for growing fresh summer crops. For more information, visit www.freshfieldsvillage.com.

The boys of summer play baseball along the Ashley River in the cozy confines of beautiful Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park. “The Joe” is designed for families to enjoy America’s favorite pastime in a pleasurable setting featuring a picnic area, shopping concourse and comfortable seats in a scenic setting. The home team, the Charleston Riverdogs, is part of the New York Yankees minor league system, and many former players are in the major leagues today. The summer season is loaded with entertaining events – all Friday night games end with a fireworks display, and fans are invited to participate in themes such as sack races, face-painting and hot dog eating contests between innings. It’s a great time in a beckoning venue. For ticket information and scheduled games and events, call 843-577-3647 or go online at www.riverdogs.com.

Paintings: A Soldiers View of the Civil War on loan from Richmond, VA museum until July 10th. As a Confederate soldier under the charge of General P.G.T. Beauregard, Chapman created his remarkable paintings of the forts and batteries in and around Charleston Harbor. Civil War, CW 150 and Sesquicentennial. www.gibbesmuseum.org

For history students and enthusiasts visiting Charleston for a summer vacation, don’t miss “City Under Siege: Charleston in the Civil War”, exhibited at the Charleston Museum at 360 Meeting Street. This permanent exhibit displays weapons, uniforms, cannonballs, artifacts, period pictures, diaries and other first-hand aspects of Charleston’s important role in the Civil War from 1860-65. For museum information call 843-722-2996 or online at www.charlestonmuseum.org .

There’s also the multi-location museum exhibit “Secessionists, Soldiers and Slaves”, featuring the Edmondston-Alston house at 21 East Battery, where Charleston’s Confederate commander, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard observed the firing on Fort Sumeter, and Middleton Place Plantation on Ashley River Road, where the saga of the Civil War homefront is portrayed in artifacts detailing the lives of slaves and slave owners. Information for both exhibits can be found online at www.middletonplace.org.

Windows in Charleston are notable on some historic buildings for their rippled, wavy texture. This is evident in many of the windows at St. Michael’s Church, and well-explained by the look of one facing Broad Street on the north side of the building. On that second window from the Meeting Street front, there is a curious-looking pane displaying raised rings encircling a small, glass-filled hole. This is a “bulls-eye”, the part of a molten mass glass attached to a pole and spun so that centrifugal force would spread the glass into thin sheets for window panes. This spinning method was widely used until the 1830’s, and it was the motion of the spinning mass that caused the familiar ripples in the old glass.

Inside St. Michael’s, there are four famous stained glass windows. Created between 1893 and 1915, the four include three made by the Tiffany and Company of New York. The centerpiece window, overlooking the chancel, is a spectacular image of St. Michael symbolically casting out the dragon image of the devil from heaven. Just to the left of the chancel, also on the east wall of the church, is a Tiffany window displaying a scene of Christ’s followers gathered on Easter morning, while on the north side is the third Tiffany displaying a scene of the Annunciation. The fourth stained glass on the south side is attractive, but is markedly less vibrant in color than the Tiffany windows, which show less leaded inserts and a truly some of the best sights in Charleston – especially considering that St. Michael’s is open to the public six days a week!

  Charleston Architecture - Houses in Charleston’s historic district often feature distinctive exterior elaborations such as quoins, earthquake plates, belt courses, fire marks, splayed lintels, chimney corbels, fanlight doorways with triangular pediments, and attached columns and pilasters. Most of these are purely architectural enhancements that show off the skill of various historic eras, as well as the wealth of those who owned the houses. Quoins, the raised exterior surface along the edge of a building, are typically protruding bricks covered by plaster, and get their name from the French word for “corner”. The first house in Charleston built with such decorative quoins is the Col. Robert Brewton house at 71 Church Street, constructed circa 1720. Belt courses are typically similar raised brick surfaces covered with plaster, extending horizontally between floors, but splayed lintels, those wedge-shaped additions above windows, are often made of granite or marble, such as those at the 1811 Nathaniel Russell house at 51 Meeting Street. Chimney corbels are again a protruding brick, created at the top edges of chimneys as a decorative touch. It took considerable bricklayer artistry to affect those at the top of the 1790 County Court House, as each brick course reaches farther outward as the top of the chimney rises. Exterior woodwork was increasingly more elaborate after the Revolution, and a popular effect was to make the entrance door look like a house. Flanking columns (rounded) or pilasters (flat) were topped by a triangular pediment and fanlight window, a good example added on the 1735 Thomas Rose house at 59 Church Street. Earthquake plates and fire marks were originally meant for utility, but later became a style. The plates were attached to iron rods run between flooring as a bracing mechanism after Charleston’s earthquake in 1886, but have evolved as an ornamentation, such as the lion’s heads covering plates on the 1838 William Roper house at 9 East Battery. Fire marks were originally the designation that a house was protected by a certain private fire company, but after the city department was created in 1881, they became keepsakes, and one of the most colorful is displayed on the 1911 Victorian house at 13 Water Street.

  Bet You Did Not Know - South Carolina is today called the Palmetto State, but that wasn’t always the case. Old vehicle license plates still exist from the early 1930’s, when a motto beneath the name South Carolina read “The Iodine State” or “The Iodine Products State”. At that time, South Carolina was promoting its farm products as sources of healthy levels of iodine, but after iodized salt was introduced, the fad faded and South Carolina became the Palmetto State.

South Carolina’s state tree, the Sabal Palmetto, is also the state tree of Florida, which fortunately took the motto “Sunshine State.” The Palmetto has historically been a military symbol in South Carolina, dating to the famous battle of Sullivan’s Island on June 28, 1776. In that battle against the British at the outset of the Revolutionary War, the palmetto tree came in handy as a defensive bulwark against English cannonballs. South Carolina soldiers defended Charleston’s harbor entrance from the attacking British by building a fort on Sullivan’s Island, firing guns from behind palmetto logs packed with sand. The palmetto, which has a spongy core instead of bark, absorbed British cannonballs and smothered their fuses without exploding, winning the battle for the defenders.

Palmetto flags were used by South Carolina troops in succeeding years, and it was such a banner that was raised over Chapultepec by U.S. troops during the Mexican War. In honor of the tree’s significant role in South Carolina’s independence, it was added to the first official state flag, adopted in January of 1861. Today the Order of the Palmetto is among the state’s most prestigious awards for its distinguished citizens, and the name Palmetto State is South Carolina’s to keep.

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