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© Historic Charleston Foundation
Four B&W photographs of 12 Gillon Street:
a-b: South (front) elevation, taken at slightly different orientations.
c-d: Gillon Street streetscape, taken at different orientations. 12 Gillon in the foreground. 10 Gillon and 8 Gillon also in view.
Photos B and D not scanned.
Constructed c. 1740. Gillon Street, one of Charleston's few cobblestone streets, contains several significant pre- and post-Revolutionary structures. 12 Gillon housed a tavern shortly after construction in 1740. It was occupied by the colorful merchant and politician Alexander Gillon in the 1780s. Gillon rose to great wealth within a decade of his arrival in Charleston in 1764. In the 1790s he championed anti-Federalist causes and also was largely responsible for the brief reintroduction of the African slave trade between 1803 and 1808. At the east end of the street an 1840s range of factors' offices, 9 Mid-Atlantic Wharf, survives, although it was given a colonial Revival style facade in a 1941 renovation. (Buildings of Charleston, p. 119.)