Living History Sites

Completed in 1771, the Old Exchange Building is a Charleston landmark and the site of some of the most important events in South Carolina history. Over the last two and a half centuries, the building has been a commercial exchange, custom house, post office, city hall, military headquarters, and museum.

A former British headquarters, explore the reconstructed Kershaw/Cornwallis House, British redoubts, and programs about colonial life.

Nestled outside the traditional bounds of the South Carolina colony is the Presbyterian church where Andrew Pickens committed his time as an elder following the Revolution. In the adjacent cemetery lie the graves of several American soldiers who had fought by Pickens' side during the war.

McLeroth and his 64th Regiment were escorting 200 recruits from Charleston to Camden when Marion, with about 700 men, surprised them at Halfway Swamp.

Eighteenth-century Moncks Corner was a crossroads settlement of stores and taverns at the intersection of the Cherokee Path (the Indian traders’ path) and the road from Charleston to Santee. A powder magazine was established in 1760 and the village was occupied as a store depot by the British during the Revolutionary War.

Francis Salvador, the first Jewish person to die in the Revolutionary War, was a London-born pioneer who moved to South Carolina in 1773. A vocal supporter of independence, he became the first Jewish person to hold political office in the state. Known as the "Southern Paul Revere," Salvador warned of attacks during the war but tragically died in an ambush in 1776 at just 29 years old, leaving behind a legacy of courage and commitment to freedom.

Santee State Park offers biking and hiking trails and pontoon boat tours of the flooded cypress forest on Lake Marion, named after Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox”.

On August 16, 1780, the unexpected Patriot success at Kings Mountain infused those favoring rebellion with new confidence.

A surprise Patriot attack on Loyalist recruits is a blow to the British

The Cowpens Battlefield commemorates Daniel Morgan’s victory over Banastre Tarleton on January 17, 1781.

In 1780, after the British occupied Charleston during the American Revolutionary War, the Brewton house was used as the British headquarters for Henry Clinton.

On May 29, 1780, British commander Banastre Tarleton engaged and overwhelmed a Patriot force under the command of Abraham Buford in a dreadful defeat for the Patriots.