 |
|
 |
| |
Following the death of Sarah Russell Dehon in 1857, the Nathaniel Russell House was sold to Robert Francis
Withers Allston, a successful Georgetown rice planter and governor of South Carolina.
Allston was born in Georgetown District, S.C., in 1801, and graduated from the United States Military Academy at
West Point in 1821. He was elected to the S.C. House of Representatives in 1828. Following the end of his term,
Allston was elected to the state senate, where he served from 1833 until he was sworn in as governor in 1857.
R.F.W. Allston succeeded equally in business as in politics. His endeavors in rice cultivation produced for him
enormous wealth and earned him a medal at the Paris Exposition of 1855. Given Allston's substantial fortune, his
family was able to maintain two houses in Georgetown and several plantations, including the Allston ancestral
home on the Pee Dee River, Chicora Wood.
Allston purchased the Russell House in 1857 at the age of 56. His relocation to Charleston just one year into his
term as Governor of South Carolina appears to have been politically motivated, as Charleston was a major center of
South Carolina politics and culture during the antebellum period. Gov. Allston and his wife, Adele Petigru Allston,
had new wallpapers and carpets installed before moving their family into the Russell House shortly before Christmas in 1857.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Allston's eldest son, Benjamin, joined the Confederate forces. The remaining
family members took refuge in North Carolina during the Union bombardment of Charleston, which lasted for eighteen
months. Gov. Allston died in 1864 at the age of 63. At the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, Adele Allston
returned to Charleston with her children to find the Russell House relatively intact despite the three cannonballs
that had damaged the house during the bombardment.
As with many wealthy Southern families, the Allstons lost much of their fortune during the economic turmoil that
followed the Civil War. In 1866, Adele Allston sought to make a living by opening a small boarding school at the
Russell House, "Mrs. R.F.W. Allston's Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies." She and her daughters taught
classes in English, French, literature, music and math. The school also provided "moral, intellectual and physical
training" to a handful of young ladies. Mrs. Allston closed the school in 1869 and retired to the Allston family plantation, Chicora Wood.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
LOCATION
Downtown at 51 Meeting Street, two blocks south of the "Four Corners of Law" (intersection of Broad and Meeting streets)
Click the map above for Driving Directions.
HOURS OF OPERATION
Monday - Saturday : 10 a.m. - 5 p.m
Sunday : 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Last tour begins at 4:30 p.m.
PURCHASE TICKETS
$10 or visit both the Nathaniel Russell House and the Aiken-Rhett House for $16. Tickets may be purchased at either site.
Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
INFORMATION
Phone: (843) 724-8481
Email: vperry@historiccharleston.org
|
