Wicked Charleston, Vol. II: Prostitutes, Politics, & Prohibition
sample chapter
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The city is full of three types of people, the first being soldiers, the other classes are politicians and
prostitutes, both very numerous, and about equal in honesty and morality.
- Charleston Mercury -December 19, 1860
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Eat, Drink and Be With Mary
In 1692, William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, wrote to the English Lords Proprietors that Charles Town had
become “a hotbed of piracy.” As a Quaker, Penn was also outraged by the behavior of the wayward women
who frequented the taverns; he urged civic leaders to address the situation. The Carolina state assembly
ignored Penn’s complaints. However, one year later there was an entry in the 1693 Journal of the Commons
House of Assembly that ordered three women “who frequented a tap room on The Bay (East Bay Street) and
infected a goodly number of the militia with the pox” to be deported from the state. They were sent by boat to
Philadelphia. Take that, you Quakers!
Charles Town was one of the busiest port cities in the colonies by 1720. There were often more than 150
sailing vessels from Portugal, Spain, England, France, Italy, and the Caribbean at dock in the Charles Town
harbor. With an average of twenty sailors per ship, that would an influx of 3000 men in the city who roamed
the streets in search of one thing: entertainment, usually in the guise of wine, women and song. Soon, a
thriving hotbed of taverns, bordellos and gaming houses were catering to the needs of sailors, backwoods fur
traders, militia, and locals along Bay, Elliott, Union (State), Chalmers, Queen and Cumberland Streets. All
these men were looking for a place to eat, drink and be with Mary.
One of the earliest brothels was located on Union Alley (currently 17 Chalmers Street – The Pink House)
which today is an art gallery. The small three-story Pink House was built by John Breton out of Bermuda stone
before 1712. The building consists of one room per floor with the first floor used as a tavern and working girls
on the second and third floors. When one walks up the narrow wooden staircase to the second and third
floors today, it feels cramped and claustrophobic, due to the very low ceiling. Many people instinctively lower
their heads and hunch their shoulders as they stand in the third floor room. Keep in mind that people were
much shorter in the 18th century than they are today. Besides, how many times was a man actually standing
up on the third floor?
The Pink House later became a law office. What a perfect transition. Nothing changed except the hourly rates
went up. The main difference between a lawyer and a prostitute is that the prostitute won't charge you after
you're dead.
The Charles Town night life brought so much increased rowdiness and violence that many citizens, led by
cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe (whose workshop still stands at 54 Queen Street), wrote a letter to the city
complaining that these Ladies of Eden were spreading disease and disrupting their commerce. It didn’t help
matters that more than thirty members of the Night Watch sold “Juggs of Liquor to Seamen & Negroes” while
on duty. By the 1760s there was a dramatic increase in the “vagrants, drunkards . . . notorious bawds and
strumpets and idle persons roaming the streets, swearing and talking obscenely.” Mary MacDowell of
Pinckney Street was cited for keeping “a most notorious brothel” and for “harboring loose and idle women”.
Even the Assembly criticized the “superabundance of licensed Taverns and Tippling Houses, gaming houses
and disorderly houses.”
Deitrick Olandt’s tavern was described as “an improper and disorderly house” because he maintained several
females “in the upper portion of his house.” Cornel June’s brothel at the corner of State and Guignard Streets
(near the current location of Palmetto Carriage’s Big Red Barn) was denounced for keeping “between six and
fifteen white women in service against their will.”
Many of the ship’s captains and factors tried to keep the sailors out of the brothels lest the ships would lack a
full crew when the tide and wind were ready. Rarely did the law ever interfere with the operation of a brothel.
One of the only recorded instances of police action against a brothel was when a patron was robbed of his
wallet, which had been left on the floor in a pair of quickly discarded trousers.
The Ladies of Eden
During the War (Between the States) many of the taverns in the city closed due to the scarcity of liquor,
however, the bordellos remained opened for business. Confederate officers were supposed to be protecting
the city, but spent most of their time in bars, brothels and gambling dens. Apparently these officers and
gentlemen felt it was their duty to keep a close eye on the women, just in case some of them might turn out to
be Yankee spies.
In a city already notorious for its wanton behavior, “free colored street walkers and loose white women
impudently accosted passers-by. Gambling saloons were opened and drove a thriving business. Both officers
and men were swept away by the same current of vice.”
The City Assembly passed a law “closing all bar rooms in which liquor is retailed.” In February 1862, Colonel
Johnson Hagood established a military police to prohibit “all distillation and sale of spirituous liquors.”
Because the law was routinely ignored, often by the military police themselves, it was finally lifted, and the
night life continued with the whorehouses, brothels and bordellos all doing booming business. The
differences among a whorehouse, a brothel and bordello are of quality and price, with the whorehouse being
at the bottom rung of the ladder.
Most prostitutes that were arrested were usually called by their first and last names . . . in an effort to publicly
shame them. However, it had little effect, and was often viewed by the women as free advertising - a way to
create their reputation. There are instances of several Madams being upset and angry with judges and
newspaper editors for leaving out the name of the house in the court document, or in the news account. Free
publicity was free publicity.
After 1836 prostitutes were classified as vagrants, a misdemeanor, not to be heard by general sessions court.
Many court documents that list “female vagrants” are referring to prostitutes. Until 1860, the punishment for
vagrancy was to be sold as indentured servant until the fine was paid, or 39 lashes and banishment.
However, the keepers of bawdy houses were to be tried by judge and jury. Madams accounted for fifteen
percent of antebellum court indictments.
The Big Brick
Grace Piexotto was “a notorious woman who kept the worst kind of brothel for years, where harlots of all
shades and importations break the quietude of night with their polluted songs.” She was also the daughter of
Selomoh Cohen Peixotto, the chazzan (music leader) of Beth Elohim synagogue. A good Jewish girl opened
the most notorious brothel in the history of Charleston.
Grace’s business, The Big Brick, was “openly tolerated by leading men in of the city.” Grace’s girls at The
Brick serviced white gentlemen, lower class sailors and ruffians, even free black men and slaves. In the
capital of slavery the most integrated place was a brothel.
However, she did not like college boys and worried about the number of male students from the College who
were frequenting her house. She wrote a letter to the faculty requesting that they encourage the students to
stop frequenting her business. She wrote: “They come early, stay late, have no money and get in the way of
my paying customers.”
The Brick was constructed by Grace Piexotto in 1852 at 11 Beresford Street (now Fulton Street) on a lot
measuring 62ft x 82ft for which she paid $2000. She subsequently built a complex of buildings in a courtyard
arrangement - the still-standing three-story main building, a two-story and another three-story building. Well
until the 1940s the Brick was the most prominent and notorious house in the city, the hub of prostitution.
Grace once complained to the police chief about the treatment she was given. She commented,
I know that you policemen have to make your money on the side and that we have to pay you for
protection, and that's all right. I know that you have to have a raid every once in a while and
fine us, and that's all right. But there's one thing I object to. I object to you writing the charge
against me for maintaining a disorderly house. I want to have you know that I have the most
quiet, respectable, ladylike whores south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
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