THE GREAT HURRICANE OF 1752
The Great Hurricane of 1752 was probably the worst hurricane to strike Charleston in recorded history. Eyewitness accounts indicate the storm, which came ashore at Charles Town on Sept. 14, continuing into the 15th and driving an estimated 17 feet of water through city streets. All but one of the ships moored in the harbor came crashing ashore.
The following are some first-person accounts of the storm:
The Rev. William Livingston, pastor of the Dissenters' White Meeting House, survived the storm from his house near where South Battery is today. He wrote that the storm “beat off the weatherboards of the house, carried away the book that contained the church records and the furniture of the rooms on the lower floor.”
Thomas Lamboll recalled "On September 5 came on the great hurricane which was attended with such an Inundation from the sea and to such an unknown height that a great many lives were lost; all the vessels in Charleston harbor, except one, were drove ashore. The new Look-out on Sullivan’s Island, of wood, built eight square and eighty feet high, blown down; all the front wall and mud parapet before Charlestowne underminded and washed away."
The South Carolina Gazette wrote "All the wharves and bridges were ruined, and every house, store, & upon them, beaten down, and carried way (with all the goods, & therein), as were also many houses in the town; and abundance of roofs, chimneys, & almost all the tiled or slated houses in the town … The town was likewise overflowed, the tide of sea having rose upwards of Ten feet above the high-water mark at spring tides …
All but one of the ships in the harbor were driven ashore and most of the smaller vessels soon became one with the debris. Sloops and schooners were thrown against the houses of Bay street and the wharves along East Bay street destroyed. A brigantine beat down several houses and wound up on the east side of Church street. Eight or ten small schooners, owned by Charlestonians, and three or four pilot boats were driven into the woods, corn fields and marshes of surrounding areas."
Days later The Gazette added that the storm “has reduced this Town to a very melancholly situation,” adding that at one point during the storm, “many of the people being already up to their necks in water in their houses, began now to think of nothing but certain death.” Had the wind not shifted, “every house and inhabitant in this town, must, in all probability, have perished. ... We have daily such a Number of melancholy Accounts from all Parts of the Country, of the Damage sustained on the 15th and 30th [of last month] that they would afford endless Matter for this Paper, were we to publish them."
In his History of South Carolina, David Ramsey wrote: "Colonel Pinckney, who lived in the large white house at the corner of Ellery street and French alley, abandoned it after there were several feet of water in it. He took his family from thence to… corner of Guignard and Charles streets, in a ship’s yawl. All South Bay was in ruins, many wooden houses were wrecked to pieces and washed away, and brick houses reduced to a heap of rubbish … A brick house where Mr. Bedon lived, on Church street .. Mr. Bedon and family unfortunately remained too long in the house, for the whole family, consisting of twelve souls, perished in the water, except himself and a negro wench. The bodies of Mrs. Bedon, of one of her children, and of a Dutch boy, were found in the parsonage pasture…."
