Over the holiday season, I went on a search for information on my father’s ancestors who first landed in historical Charleston, South Carolina. While visiting Charleston, I fell in love with this beautiful seaside city full of charm, history and grace. If you ever plan to visit Charleston, my family has a long history of being involved with Charleston. However, I never experienced the city as an adult and had not been back in Charleston in over 30+ years. Though the trip started as a search for a family past, it quickly became a chance to discover this unique and lovely city and explore all it has to offer.
While we all have multiple grandparents and great grandparents, my family name comes from a gentleman by the name of Thomas Carey. He was my great-great grandfather who landed in Charleston in the late 1840s. He escaped Ireland with his three brothers and came to the New World seeking a better life. They wanted a life free of hunger, oppression and cultural prejudice at the hands of their British masters at the end of the great Irish Potato Famine. The other three brothers ended up landing in New York City. Their histories and whereabouts are lost to the mists of time. For some unknown reason, Thomas decided to try his luck in Charleston. In doing so, he left behind him possible starvation, grinding poverty, religious and cultural prejudice. He also left behind possible genocide by a Protestant British government against their Irish Catholic subjects in the United Kingdom.
Now times were not any easier for my great-great grandfather in Charleston than they were in the United Kingdom. On a social scale in Pre-Civil War Charleston, Irish Catholics were only slightly above freed African Americans and slaves. They were Catholic in a Protestant city. Most of the time they were not well educated, and popular assumptions were that the only things they could do well were farm, drink and sing songs. Yet this is not a story of how the Irish progressed in American society. This is the story of the Carey family and how they progressed in Charleston. This journey into the past was also not a story of who married whom and where they’re buried. This is more a story of how the Carey family lived and worked in historical Charleston.
Little is known about what part of Ireland Thomas came from and what his skill set may have been. All I managed to find out is that not long after he arrived he purchased a three-story building at 25 Queen St. The building was just behind the French Huguenot Church on Church St. He opened a bar on the ground floor, and his family lived on the two top floors. Along the way, he also became a stereotypical Irish cop walking a beat in Charleston and later a night watchman.
Thomas is remarkable for two things in terms of family history. First, he managed to fight in all five battles that took place around Charleston during the Civil War. This included the attack on Fort Sumter and the battle that was made famous in the movie “Glory” starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. Second, he also started a tradition that would last for four generations of Carey men. They only married Irish Catholic girls. Because of this, my DNA according to Ancestry.com is 60% Irish even though the Carey family has been here for over four generations. My father was the first Carey male to marry someone who was not of Irish descent and outside the Catholic faith. He married my mother, who was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister.
Thomas married a good Irish Catholic girl, and they had several children including a son by the name of James John, who is my great grandfather. James John grew up in Charleston and became a very successful business owner. He made his fortune installing gas lighting in people’s homes and along the streets of Charleston. He was so successful that he became an Alderman, which was unusual for an Irish Catholic to accomplish in Charleston at that time. With his success, he bought a building at 157 King St. which was the most prominent street in Charleston. His plumbing and pipe business was located on the first floor and his family lived above. He and his wife Jennie Devine had three daughters and one son. The son was George Thomas Carey, my grandfather. James John passed away very young, at age 36.
My grandfather was raised in Charleston and met my grandmother, Anna Sylveria Reynolds. At some point, George and Sylveria moved to Charlotte, NC, and raised five children there. In leaving Charleston, George became the last Carey male namesake to live in Charleston. His three sisters stayed in the Charleston area, and I have many cousins that live there. However, when I was very young an estrangement occurred between my mother and my father’s brothers and sisters. What caused it, why it happened no one can remember, yet it was there. When my father passed when I was in my early teens, the Carey family connections just faded into the background of my life. Now many years later I’m trying to pick up some of those threads. This trip to Charleston was part of that family journey.
Yet, the weekend was more than old addresses and digging into family history. Charleston is a beautiful, historic and very walkable city filled with restaurants, bars, shops, art galleries, theaters, and music venues. The center historical section of Charleston is the Peninsula, which has the Ashley River on one side and the Cooper River on the other.
At its widest, the peninsula is 15 blocks wide and south of Mary Street. It is 20 blocks to world-famous Battery Park where the Civil War started. Within those blocks is a very walkable section of the city. You can reach any part in less than 30 minutes on foot. It contains history that dates back to the early 1700s.
Charlestonians revel in their food, their art, their architecture, culture, and history. Some of that history is very dark. For example, if you go to the Old Slave Mart Museum, which is located in the actual old slave market, you will see a market that was active until the end of the Civil War.
I found this part of modern-day Charleston, which is very tourist-friendly, to be diverse, culturally rich, very upscale, and friendly in its southern hospitality. My partner and I snagged a very comfortable and affordable hotel room at the Hampton Inn, which is part of the Hilton chain of hotels on the corner of Meeting and John Streets. The hotel also served a delicious breakfast in the morning for free. There are more expensive and luxurious hotels within the center section of Charleston, but this was perfect for us by meeting our budget. We were one block away from King Street, which is the economic tourist center of the city.
And we walked a lot tracking down old family addresses, going to art galleries, and finding wonderful off-the-beaten-track restaurants and neighborhood bars. There was still so much more to do. We didn’t even leave the peninsula to go to the other really enjoyable areas of Charleston. For a journey into the historical past and for food that is the equal of New Orleans, I cannot recommend Charleston enough. We are looking forward to going back soon!
Special Thanks to my second cousins Cliff Roberts and Charles Cansler, my first cousin Carey Roberts, and my sister Emilie Allen for the family information and history, and Laraine Smith for walking over 30 miles in two days as we wandered the streets of Charleston.
copyright 2023 – CAREYON CREATIVE,LLC., Atlanta, GA.
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