Name/Title
121 Calhoun Street (Harleston-Boags Funeral Home)Entry/Object ID
CALHOUN.121.1Scope and Content
Constructed 1915. Edwin G. Harleston, a prominent African American who planted rice on the Cooper River and spent twenty years as a sea captain, entered the undertaking business in 1901 with his brother. Reorganizing the firm in 1913, Capt. Harleston constructed a new three-story wood building in the traditional Charleston vernacular style to house his extensive business, including office, showroom, morgue, embalming room and a chapel seating 150 persons. Capt. Harleston's son Edwin A. Harleston, following studies at Atlanta University, Harvard and the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston, returned to Charleston to become a portrait and genre painter and to assist in the family undertaking business. The younger Harleston was the lead organizer of the Charleston NAACP chapter in 1917. Harleston and his wife, the photographer Elise Forrest Harleston, set up the Harleston Studio in the building and resided here as well after 1920. From the outset, meetings of the NAACP were often held at 121 Calhoun Street and various prominent black leaders visited here, including W.E.B. DuBois, Mary White Ovington, James Weldon Johnson, and Mary McLeod Bethune.
File contains news article about the recent renovation of the building (2015); excerpt from African-Americans in Charleston (Smith, 2010).Collection
Historic Charleston Foundation Property RecordsAcquisition
Accession
CALHOUN.121Source or Donor
121 Calhoun Street (Harleston-Boags Funeral Home)Acquisition Method
Collected by StaffLexicon
Search Terms
Calhoun Street, Ansonborough, African American history / Black history, 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 17Shelf
Prop File Shelves, Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentRelationships
Related Publications
Notes
Buildings of Charleston (see Abstract), pg. 429Created By
admin@catalogit.appCreate Date
June 29, 2015Updated By
admin@catalogit.appUpdate Date
February 17, 2023