Name/Title
37 Meeting Street (James Simmons House a/k/a Otis Mills House)Entry/Object ID
MEETING.037.1Scope and Content
Constructed ca. 1760; altered 1840s. Charlestonian James Simmons is believed to have built 37 Meeting Street in 1760. As originally constructed, the house follows a formal Georgian plan with a center hall dividing the 4 principle rooms on each floor. At Simmons's death in 1775 the house became the home of Gov. Robert Gibbes. He and his family were forced to abandon the house during the British occupation of the city in the Revolutionary War and returned to find the house heavily damaged. In the next century, it became the home of builder and financier Otis Mills. It was during Mills's occupancy in the 1840s that the facade of the house was greatly altered with the addition of the 2 projecting bays that are joined on the second floor of the house with an ornate cast-iron balcony. In 1862, the house became the headquarters of Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard, the commander of the Confederate forces at Charleston. Beauregard occupied the house until Federal shelling in the area forced him to shift his operations to a less vulnerable position at the northern end of the city. (Poston, Buildings of Charleston.)
File contains newspaper article (DYKYC, N&C, 1941); FOHG house history (undated); house history from 60 Famous Houses of Charleston; excerpt from The Majesty of Charleston; excerpt from The Doors and Gates of Charleston; "Proposal to Construct a Carriage House" by Meadors Construction (2002) (includes house history, 1846 plat, and 1884 tax map); photographic reprint of 1846 plat by Charles Parker, City Surveyor.Collection
Historic Charleston Foundation Property RecordsAcquisition
Accession
MEETING.037.Source or Donor
37 Meeting Street (James Simmons House)Acquisition Method
Collected by StaffLexicon
Search Terms
Meeting Street, Eighteenth-Century Expansion, Historic buildings--South Carolina--CharlestonArchive Details
Archive Size/Extent
1 File FolderArchive Notes
Finding Aids: Index to Property Files
Level of Description: FolderLocation
Location
Shelf
Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentDate
February 7, 2023Location
Container
PF Box 69Shelf
Prop File Shelves, Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentRelationships
Related Entries
Notes
2018.015.2, 2020.005.13, MEETING.037.2a-bRelated Publications
Notes
Buildings of Charleston (see Abstract), pg. 259Created By
admin@catalogit.appCreate Date
May 27, 2010Updated By
admin@catalogit.appUpdate Date
February 17, 2023