ANSON STREET
The earliest documented owner of the land that now comprises Anson Street is Thomas Gadsden (1688-1741), Collector of His Majesty's Customs. Among his numerous holdings of local real estate, by 1726, Gadsden had acquired 64 acres of land along the peninula's east side, which he called Bowling Green.
For generations, tour guides have told the story of how Gadsden lost this land to pay off a gambling debt he acquired in a card game with a young sea captain named George Anson. Based on his research, however, Dr. Nicholas Butler, historian of the Charleston County Public Library, believes there may be only "a kernel of truth in the legend of the gambling debt."
While the documents related to their 1727 transaction contain no hint of a gambling debt,
the legend of the card game endures while contemporary documents demonstrate that Gadsden conveyed the property in question to Anson in a legitimate manner. Using the once-common legal method of lease and release, Anson paid £300 sterling (nearly two years’ worth of his professional wages) on 23–24 March 1726/7 for “sixty-three or sixty-four acres . . . whereon the said Thomas Gadsden now lives.”[3]
his local tradition first appeared in print in Joseph Johnson’s 1851 publication, Traditions and Reminiscences Chiefly of the American Revolution in the South. Let’s consider Johnson’s brief text in its entirety: “When Lord Anson arrived in Charleston about the year 1733, he was hospitably received by the inhabitants, and entertained by the collector, Thomas Gadsden. His lordship was so fond of gambling, that he has been censured for even winning money from his humble midshipmen. It was said that Mr. Gadsden played with his lordship, lost a large sum of money, and paid the debt of honor by giving him titles for all these lands, which to this day bear the designation of Ansonborough.”[4]
I’ve yet to find any evidence that the Lords of the Admiralty scolded Captain Anson for gambling with his subordinates, but let’s ignore that rabbit hole for the moment and focus our attention on local matters. Note that Johnson did not specify that the men in question were playing cards, but were simply “gambling” in a more general sense. The author also misremembered the dates of Captain Anson’s tenure in Charleston; he first arrived in 1724, departed in 1730, and then returned in 1732. If you read the rest of the text surrounding the aforementioned quotation, you’ll also see that Johnson possessed a limited understanding of the original geographic boundaries of that large property. In short, Joseph Johnson, writing in 1851, misremembered the details of both George Anson’s career and the early history of Ansonborough. To what extent, therefore, can we consider him a reliable source of information for the alleged gambling debt?
George Anson (1697–1762) was a young captain in the British Navy when he resided in Charleston for a total of nine years between July 1724 and June 1735, during which time he commanded three different warships in succession—His Majesty’s ships Scarborough, Garland, and Squirrel. Besides protecting the Carolina coastline from pirates and privateers, Captain Anson also purchased several pieces of property in the Lowcountry, including a small lot in urban Charleston, a suburban plantation just outside the town, and a large tract of wilderness near Hilton Head Island. Commodore Anson became a national hero in Britain in 1744 after completing a four-year voyage around the globe and returning to London with ships filled with tons of Spanish treasure. Following another promotion, Admiral Anson defeated a French fleet in the Atlantic in 1747 and earned the title of Lord Anson, Baron of Soberton. Meanwhile in South Carolina, Anson’s local attorney subdivided his suburban plantation, called the Bowling Green, into a new residential neighborhood called Ansonborough, the many parcels of which were sold between 1745 and 1761.
Prior to Anson Street's development in 1745-46, this area was part of an area owned by known as Bowling Green.
Anson Street was the central part of Charles Town's first suburb of Ansonborough. It originally extended between George and Centurion streets, the later of which is now part of Society Street.
Scarborough Street, named for one of Lord Anson’s ships, ran from George to Boundary (Calhoun) Street. To the south, Quince (named for Parker Quince, husband of Susannah Rhett), ran from Centurion to Pinckney, through Rhettsbury, and Charles Street (named for Charles Pinckney) ran from Pinckney to Market, through Colleton Square. By city ordinance, in 1805, Charles, Quince and Scarborough streets were combined to become part of Anson Street.
the stories of this unique neighborhood and how it went from an area that was threatened with “urban blight” in the mid-1900s to becoming a premier residential area on the Charleston peninsula through Historic Charleston Foundation’s first in the nation Revolving Fund and nationally recognized Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project. You will also hear the story of the 36 “Gaillard Graves,” an African American cemetery, unearthed during the construction of the present-day Gaillard Center. This is an intriguing neighborhood, and we know you will enjoy the tour we’ve put together for ticketholders.
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