August 7, 2025 • 11 mins
This episode we visit a local college with some unexpected students joining classes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today I'm the Carolina Storyteller. We talk about a college
that's got a little bit of a uh infestation of
his children running around. Stay tuned. This is the Carolina Storyteller.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
In the dark Ones with Shadows, Cream story Rise as
the camp art Reeves, John the voice of Haunts and
fil which every sale he's fence off will echoes whispered
Tonight Shawsy by the fire light of fierce time line,
(00:43):
the general lot of storyteller Ji through the stofcham of
five Fangels of darknessing night n the night it feels
a Friday. Tread every hartbat a path, we tread.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Extens hi ooks and welcome back to the Carolina Storyteller.
I am your storyteller, Jonathan Phoenix, and today we're going
to be looking into the history of my favorite southern city, Charleston,
South Carolina. Yes, I always go back to Charleston, South Carolina.
But before we get into the story, I want to
(01:28):
remind you guys that you can go and find all
kinds of extra stuff at patreon dot comport slats The
Carolina Storyteller, support this podcast, and you know that other
show I'm doing Beaumont The Black Raven chronicles, which seems
to just be a hit. You know, you can get
all behind the scenes stuff on that, but you know,
mainly you want to go there for the Carolina storyteller,
because I got the stories. So let's get into today's story.
(01:52):
I want to talk about the College of Charleston today,
where it's built, where it exists, where the Berry Houses.
It sits at the corner King and Calhoun in downtown Charleston.
But before the Berry House was there, there was another
building there, a building that was erected in seventeen ninety two.
(02:14):
The cornerstone of that building was laid by President George Washington.
I'm talking, of course, about the Charleston Orphan House. The
Charleston Orphan House was built in seventeen ninety two to
house the orphans of Charleston. It was the first municipal
orphan house in America. The idea was was that the
(02:37):
city was taking over caring for orphan children, which were
basically the children of poor white families at this point
in time that had nowhere to go where they could
get food and shelter in the things that they needed
to survive. So this was originally done by the churches
and the churches would go after the fathers for money
(02:58):
for not paying for their kids, and they would try
to find single, unwed women or families that didn't have
children could take care of these kids. Always didn't work
out for the best, but it's what they could do
at the time. The church has handled it. But when
Charleston became a municipality, it took over that responsibility of
(03:20):
caring for the vulnerable citizens of Charleston, and they decided
that they needed one solid place to do this, so
they built the Charleston Orphan House in seventeen ninety two.
During the Revolutionary War. The first building had been used
(03:42):
as a barracks, so that is why they actually built
the second building in seventeen ninety two, I think, because
I think they had another building before that. But seventeen
ninety two Charleston Worfanhouse was built. Now it housed orphans
for almost one hundred and fifty years from all walks
of life. At one point in time, they would be there.
(04:05):
They would go to school, they would get bed, they
would learn a trade, and often after a few years
of school, not like twelve years like our kids do now,
these children would be sent off to be apprentices, interns, farmers,
or domestic servants. They would, you know, you basically get
a job. You know, Okay, you're old enough. Now we're
(04:27):
going to send you off to work. Child labor laws
weren't around back then, I guess, so that was that
was the thing. Now everything went as okay as it could.
You know, I'm sure that the conditions there were not perfect.
They're not what we would i'dhere to for our standards today,
(04:50):
But generally the Charleston Orphan House was not known for
having horrible conditions. It was just where these kids were.
At one point in time, there were over three one
hundred and fifty children at the Charleston Orphan House being
carred by thirty nine staff employees full time who were
trying to take care and monitor these children. And that's
(05:15):
almost a ten to one ratio of adults to kids.
That's a really it's a really big stretch when you
think about it. Can you imagine having ten kids running
around and they're your responsibility. Dereka workers don't say that
I've got more than that, because I'm sure you do.
But I digress. The conditions in the Orphan House were
(05:39):
actually relatively good compared to the rest of the world,
and the children did get to go on and need
successful lives, many of them. In fact, there are several
famous alumni from the Charleston Orphan House, but we're not
here to talk about them or about the Orphan House.
We're here to talk about the fire of nineteen eighteen.
(06:01):
Now this is interesting because the fire of nineteen eighteen
is not listed in any official documents, and the fire
of nineteen eighteen is only talked about in folklore. But
it is something that everybody swears happened. Supposedly, on one
(06:21):
night during the summer nineteen eighteen, a fire started in
part of the Organ House, and Charleston City, of course responded.
They did everything they could, but in the fire, several
children lost their lives. Now, of course they restored part
of the building, they did everything that they had to do,
(06:43):
but the records were kind of swept under the rug. Now,
remember this is Charleston's pride and enjoy the Charleston Orphan House.
So it is possible that there was a cover up
to this fire. But the reason everybody believes the fire
to be true is that in nineteen fifty two, the
Charleston Orphan House was closed. They decided to move it
(07:05):
to a different location where it became a different entity
than it was after they got complaints for the child
welfare and something on other board. I can't remember what
it's called, but anyway, it's an agency that looked over
child welfare and they said that's not good enough anymore,
(07:25):
so they tried to find a better location for it.
And being someone that grew up in an orphanage for
a brief period of time, I can understand that sometimes
you have to make improvements, especially when the world is improven,
you have to improve the condition of children. So it
makes sense that maybe the building and the space and
(07:45):
what they had weren't adequate to the standards of what
was going on in nineteen fifty two and a per
post World War two world. After the building was abandoned,
it was torn down and later on the site, the
College of Charleston built the Berry Building that is there today.
(08:07):
Here's where the story gets It's interesting. The Bury Building
is plagued, plagued with incidences of the fire alarm acting
up constantly. This is to this day that fire alarm
still acts up. Okay, people have reported seeing figures, possibly children,
(08:31):
running the halls, hearing laughter, you know, hearing footsteps in
the middle of the night. If you walk past the
building on King Street, sometimes you can see what looks
like children in the windows or children running around the building,
you know, just shadows of things. People have reported being
touched and hearing voices all within this building where supposedly
(08:58):
several children lost their lives a fire in nineteen eighteen.
So if you ever do go to the College of Charleston,
you know you decide that you're going to pursue your
degree there, which I'm just going to say, I might
try to finish up my English major there. The College
of Charleston might have some guests that forgot to enroll
(09:23):
a long time ago, and you could run into them.
Just be prepared. That's our story for today, folks. I
hope that you enjoyed it. I hope you had a
reasonable listen to the short little yarn that I spun.
The Charleston Orphan House is an interesting legend because, for one,
(09:44):
it is believed to be true by so many people,
but there are no recorded documents of it other than
that there was a fire incident in nineteen eighteen at
King in Calhoun Street. King in Calhoun Street would be
the Charleston Orphan House unless it was on the other
side of the road or something. But there's no other
reports from that incident, no reports of death and anything
(10:07):
like that. There was a fire there, but the story
is embedded in the history of Charleston and it's still
told in Walking Towards today and the evidence which is
repeated by the students there up until this day, of
the fire alarm going off and hearing your voices and
(10:28):
all that would suggest that something did happen there. But
it might not have been the fire. It could have
been disease or accidents or things like that that have
taken children over the years. One hundred and fifty years.
That's a lot of kids, especially when at one point
in time they were swelled up to three hundred and
fifty kids in that place. So yeah, maybe some things
(10:50):
did happen, and maybe those children are still running around there.
And if you just so happen to go and visit,
don't be surprised if the kid comes to play with you,
just saying, uh, just a little shout out right now
if you're in HM, looks like I had a technical
(11:22):
difficulty there, but just a little shout out here. September fifth,
I will be at the Terrace Theater with the Charleston
Absent Friends for their Rocky Horror Picture show shadow Cast.
I'm my mic keeps cutting off, so I'm just gonna
(11:48):
say that's it for the show. Folks, Stay spooky, my friends,
Today I'm the Carolina Storyteller. We talk about a college
that's got a little bit of a uh infestation of
his children running around. Stay tuned. This is the Carolina Storyteller.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
In the dark Ones with Shadows, Cream story Rise as
the camp art Reeves, John the voice of Haunts and
fil which every sale he's fence off will echoes whispered
Tonight Shawsy by the fire light of fierce time line,
(00:43):
the general lot of storyteller Ji through the stofcham of
five Fangels of darknessing night n the night it feels
a Friday. Tread every hartbat a path, we tread.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Extens hi ooks and welcome back to the Carolina Storyteller.
I am your storyteller, Jonathan Phoenix, and today we're going
to be looking into the history of my favorite southern city, Charleston,
South Carolina. Yes, I always go back to Charleston, South Carolina.
But before we get into the story, I want to
(01:28):
remind you guys that you can go and find all
kinds of extra stuff at patreon dot comport slats The
Carolina Storyteller, support this podcast, and you know that other
show I'm doing Beaumont The Black Raven chronicles, which seems
to just be a hit. You know, you can get
all behind the scenes stuff on that, but you know,
mainly you want to go there for the Carolina storyteller,
because I got the stories. So let's get into today's story.
(01:52):
I want to talk about the College of Charleston today,
where it's built, where it exists, where the Berry Houses.
It sits at the corner King and Calhoun in downtown Charleston.
But before the Berry House was there, there was another
building there, a building that was erected in seventeen ninety two.
(02:14):
The cornerstone of that building was laid by President George Washington.
I'm talking, of course, about the Charleston Orphan House. The
Charleston Orphan House was built in seventeen ninety two to
house the orphans of Charleston. It was the first municipal
orphan house in America. The idea was was that the
(02:37):
city was taking over caring for orphan children, which were
basically the children of poor white families at this point
in time that had nowhere to go where they could
get food and shelter in the things that they needed
to survive. So this was originally done by the churches
and the churches would go after the fathers for money
(02:58):
for not paying for their kids, and they would try
to find single, unwed women or families that didn't have
children could take care of these kids. Always didn't work
out for the best, but it's what they could do
at the time. The church has handled it. But when
Charleston became a municipality, it took over that responsibility of
(03:20):
caring for the vulnerable citizens of Charleston, and they decided
that they needed one solid place to do this, so
they built the Charleston Orphan House in seventeen ninety two.
During the Revolutionary War. The first building had been used
(03:42):
as a barracks, so that is why they actually built
the second building in seventeen ninety two, I think, because
I think they had another building before that. But seventeen
ninety two Charleston Worfanhouse was built. Now it housed orphans
for almost one hundred and fifty years from all walks
of life. At one point in time, they would be there.
(04:05):
They would go to school, they would get bed, they
would learn a trade, and often after a few years
of school, not like twelve years like our kids do now,
these children would be sent off to be apprentices, interns, farmers,
or domestic servants. They would, you know, you basically get
a job. You know, Okay, you're old enough. Now we're
(04:27):
going to send you off to work. Child labor laws
weren't around back then, I guess, so that was that
was the thing. Now everything went as okay as it could.
You know, I'm sure that the conditions there were not perfect.
They're not what we would i'dhere to for our standards today,
(04:50):
But generally the Charleston Orphan House was not known for
having horrible conditions. It was just where these kids were.
At one point in time, there were over three one
hundred and fifty children at the Charleston Orphan House being
carred by thirty nine staff employees full time who were
trying to take care and monitor these children. And that's
(05:15):
almost a ten to one ratio of adults to kids.
That's a really it's a really big stretch when you
think about it. Can you imagine having ten kids running
around and they're your responsibility. Dereka workers don't say that
I've got more than that, because I'm sure you do.
But I digress. The conditions in the Orphan House were
(05:39):
actually relatively good compared to the rest of the world,
and the children did get to go on and need
successful lives, many of them. In fact, there are several
famous alumni from the Charleston Orphan House, but we're not
here to talk about them or about the Orphan House.
We're here to talk about the fire of nineteen eighteen.
(06:01):
Now this is interesting because the fire of nineteen eighteen
is not listed in any official documents, and the fire
of nineteen eighteen is only talked about in folklore. But
it is something that everybody swears happened. Supposedly, on one
(06:21):
night during the summer nineteen eighteen, a fire started in
part of the Organ House, and Charleston City, of course responded.
They did everything they could, but in the fire, several
children lost their lives. Now, of course they restored part
of the building, they did everything that they had to do,
(06:43):
but the records were kind of swept under the rug. Now,
remember this is Charleston's pride and enjoy the Charleston Orphan House.
So it is possible that there was a cover up
to this fire. But the reason everybody believes the fire
to be true is that in nineteen fifty two, the
Charleston Orphan House was closed. They decided to move it
(07:05):
to a different location where it became a different entity
than it was after they got complaints for the child
welfare and something on other board. I can't remember what
it's called, but anyway, it's an agency that looked over
child welfare and they said that's not good enough anymore,
(07:25):
so they tried to find a better location for it.
And being someone that grew up in an orphanage for
a brief period of time, I can understand that sometimes
you have to make improvements, especially when the world is improven,
you have to improve the condition of children. So it
makes sense that maybe the building and the space and
(07:45):
what they had weren't adequate to the standards of what
was going on in nineteen fifty two and a per
post World War two world. After the building was abandoned,
it was torn down and later on the site, the
College of Charleston built the Berry Building that is there today.
(08:07):
Here's where the story gets It's interesting. The Bury Building
is plagued, plagued with incidences of the fire alarm acting
up constantly. This is to this day that fire alarm
still acts up. Okay, people have reported seeing figures, possibly children,
(08:31):
running the halls, hearing laughter, you know, hearing footsteps in
the middle of the night. If you walk past the
building on King Street, sometimes you can see what looks
like children in the windows or children running around the building,
you know, just shadows of things. People have reported being
touched and hearing voices all within this building where supposedly
(08:58):
several children lost their lives a fire in nineteen eighteen.
So if you ever do go to the College of Charleston,
you know you decide that you're going to pursue your
degree there, which I'm just going to say, I might
try to finish up my English major there. The College
of Charleston might have some guests that forgot to enroll
(09:23):
a long time ago, and you could run into them.
Just be prepared. That's our story for today, folks. I
hope that you enjoyed it. I hope you had a
reasonable listen to the short little yarn that I spun.
The Charleston Orphan House is an interesting legend because, for one,
(09:44):
it is believed to be true by so many people,
but there are no recorded documents of it other than
that there was a fire incident in nineteen eighteen at
King in Calhoun Street. King in Calhoun Street would be
the Charleston Orphan House unless it was on the other
side of the road or something. But there's no other
reports from that incident, no reports of death and anything
(10:07):
like that. There was a fire there, but the story
is embedded in the history of Charleston and it's still
told in Walking Towards today and the evidence which is
repeated by the students there up until this day, of
the fire alarm going off and hearing your voices and
(10:28):
all that would suggest that something did happen there. But
it might not have been the fire. It could have
been disease or accidents or things like that that have
taken children over the years. One hundred and fifty years.
That's a lot of kids, especially when at one point
in time they were swelled up to three hundred and
fifty kids in that place. So yeah, maybe some things
(10:50):
did happen, and maybe those children are still running around there.
And if you just so happen to go and visit,
don't be surprised if the kid comes to play with you,
just saying, uh, just a little shout out right now
if you're in HM, looks like I had a technical
(11:22):
difficulty there, but just a little shout out here. September fifth,
I will be at the Terrace Theater with the Charleston
Absent Friends for their Rocky Horror Picture show shadow Cast.
I'm my mic keeps cutting off, so I'm just gonna
(11:48):
say that's it for the show. Folks, Stay spooky, my friends,
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