Charleston Tea Party Walking Tour

11/04/2023

I am honored to have my family gather around me tomorrow to celebrate my firstborn Olivia‘s birthday and mine. Our miracle daughter, Delia has come home from her work in Charlotte as a counselor for a private counseling clinic.

We have had a great morning breakfast of Cider Waffles, and a reading of Jesus Calling and Bible verses. We have been discussing and praying for the victims of the Israel Hamas War. We pray for victims on both sides, and that innocent lives would be protected.

We will be 22 at table tomorrow to share a cover dish dinner. Why do we not say potluck? Because we are Southerners. Kitchens were in separate buildings from the main house. China was made to be serving dishes with lids, made and shipped by the British from Canton, China, thus we call them covered dish dinners. My father told me that when he was in college at the College of Charleston that he had a few privileged opportunities to dine elegantly at the Villa Margarita, where every thing was served family style in covered dishes.

My table is set with gold chargers and my mother’s gold rimmed Royal Worcester Evesham pattern china. I started it for her on my first visit to England as a youth in 1978. In the early 80s, princess Diana chose it as her wedding china. It has eternal colors and is a tribute to my mother who birthed me November 6, 1956. Daddy voted for Strom Thurmond on that day on the Dixiecrat ticket.

In England, they don’t call their dishes china. That’s an American thing. England boycotted the sale of China’s porcelain, because they didn’t want the competition. The only Chinese exportware that you see in England is in English Country Houses where owners had wealth connected with shipping with China. Special orders were made for the family often with the family crest included. I recently learned that China made replicas, knock offs, of English silver tea services and other pieces, made with English silver, presumably the very silver England used to pay for TEA shipped from China. The silver made in China historically is exact replicas, even down to the British hallmarks of the silver smith!

We are blessed to live in the city of Charleston. The holy city is deep within our bones as Biden said upon his arrival in Israel of his love for the Jewish people. Charleston is on the same latitude, and the line with California and with Israel. California is an exaggerated Israel of America, and that it is long and narrow along, the Pacific Ocean, just as Israel is long and narrow along the Mediterranean. Everything grows in the soil of California as well as in Israel. Like California and the state of Israel, the holy city of Charleston is extremely blessed. Those of us who are born and raised here are the envy of the world. We share our blessings with open hands of hospitality. Sometimes it backfires on us.

I had called my daughter Victoria, who was coming home from playing pickle ball as the lights went out on the MOOtrie Playground Pickleball courts, to tell her that I was unlocking the front door for her, knowing she’d be home any minute. I told her I’d seen someone uninvited swimming in the next-door neighbors’ brand new pool. I told her to be careful coming home and to lock the front door as she came in and to turn out the lights, that I was going to take a bath. Then I heard her outside the bathroom door as I was in the bathtub before bed. I said, “Come on in, Darling.”

The door opened, and the head only poked in and looked at me. My first thought was a jack-o’-lantern, a trick, as the face was big and round with a halo of black curls going around the 30 year old African-American woman’s head! As I realize this jack-o’-lantern was alive, an intruder, I gave the involuntary very loud response of a scream. She quietly closed the door. I got out and put a towel around me and ran to the staircase and shouted at the top of my lungs, “In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, get out of this house, if you do not live here.“ I didn’t want Victoria to think I was talking to her if she had come home or if this was a friend of hers. It was no friend of Victoria’s. I put on a bathrobe, and then went downstairs cautiously. She was gone.

Eventually the police cars came, and each policeman wanted me to give them an individual report. We were on the front porch as I was pointing to the neighbors pool where I had seen a dark figure climb out of the pool. What had attracted me to look was the sound of someone yelling. I had gone to the front porch wondering if someone was protesting my flag for the state of Israel. My hearing turned me towards the pool where I saw one dark figure climbing out. It was the cold, cold water that was making her Yelp.

Victoria interrupted and pointed down to the side of the house below the porch. She asked, “Mom, who’s car is this?“ It was the same feeling I had when Cathy Barnwell at Valentines party at 57 1/2 Legare St for Olivia‘s kindergarten class pointed down off the back steps and asked, “Whose pet is this?” I was afraid to look but down, because I knew we had no pet. It was a rat! As I looked down at this car, it slightly moved as if it was thinking of bolting out the driveway. Victoria bravely put a cast-iron chair at the end of the driveway as she said, “What if they have a gun?” She did it anyway. The police then looked startled to realize the intruder was still on the property. They went down to question the person very cautiously, with beautiful manners and respect. They then asked me, “Can you identify this person?” I said, “Yes, definitely.” That face is indelibly imprinted in my mind forever. They asked, “What was she wearing?” I said that all I saw was her head. They each wanted to know what she was wearing. Finally, I said, why?

They said, “She’s naked!“

That’s why it was only a dark figure I saw climbing out of the pool. She went skinny-dipping! But she left her clothes behind. The Valiant Victoria, ever resourceful, went to the neighbors and got her clothes. She gave them to the police, who gave them to this very heavy set naked Intruder, who then put the clothes on in the car. She said she had the car on with the heat to warm up; she just wanted to go to sleep. She let out a stream of bad words as they took her to the front of the house for me to identify her from the window. The bad words were when they told her she was going to sleep in jail this night. She told them these were construction sites in this neighborhood, that she didn’t think anybody lived here. She was out for a free ride like Mr. Toad in Wind in the Willows.

The officers asked me if I wanted to press charges, that they knew this had been an awful terrifying experience for me, and that I must be very upset. They said I would have to go to court! I looked at them stupefied.

“Yes! Of course, I will press charges. If law-abiding decent people don’t press charges, then LAWLESSNESS will increase!”

“Yes they said, but you will have to go to court and see her and testify against her.”
I replied, “That’s what it usually means when you press charges. You have to see it through. That’s what decent citizens do.”

They looked at each other and smiled and then looked back at me like I was one of them. The black policeman among them shared his faith with me as I shared mine with him telling him what I actually yelled from the staircase.

I’m reminded of Dr. Duncan Pringle, whose pocketbook was stolen from her in the Gaillard parking lot decades ago. She told the young black man that she probably had delivered him if he was born in Charleston as she delivered most of the blacks in the Charleston community. She wanted to know his name not for a police report, but to see if she recognized the name as one she had delivered. She had goodwill even as he was robbing her. She did not take this violation into her worldview. It did not make her paranoid, bitter, resentful, or hopeless. When Pringle Franklin’s mother, Mrs. Anne Pipkin, was knocked down at Colonial Lake and robbed, frail thing that she is, she arose victorious and triumphed over her thief who was caught and apprehended.

We are to guard our hearts with all diligence, for out of our hearts flow the issues of life. We will not let lawlessness increase, nor when it happens, will we let it invade our hearts with its darkness. Our city motto is, “We GUARD our customs, buildings, and laws.” From King Charles the First we have our South Carolina State motto, which is on many license plates, “While I breathe, I HOPE.“

We are victors in this fight. We will fight the good fight of faith, in Jesus name! For “greater is HE who is in us, than he who is in the world.” As we lift Jesus higher, as we left Him up for the world to see, HE will draw all men unto HIMSELF. We hide in His shadow of His wings. This stance is the mission of the Holy City. We let HIS LIGHT shine here, and The Light pierces the darkness, and the darkness cannot hide.



10/19/2023

A little history to add spice to your daily contemplation of where we are:
George Saxby on this day October 19, 1765 had his home on Tradd, a row house between Meeting and Church, ransacked by a mob looking for the dreaded Stamps and for him as well. George Saxby had been appointed Stamp Receiver. He went into hiding for five weeks at Fort Johnson with the stamps. His clothing was taken from his home by the mob, as it was recognizably his, was stuffed with straw, and he was hanged in effigy at the corner of Church and Broad. Then the cart on which the gallows was built was carted by an oxen slowly all over town, so that everyone had time to step out to see that the Stamp Act was not going to be tolerated. LIBERTY was carved into the base of the gallows, as if Lady LIBERTY was trying the Stamp Act, finding it guilty of treason against the people. Local lay judges like Judge Robert Pringle, near the corner of Tradd and Meeting, (now the home of Rebecca and Danny, she being a descendent of his), did not enforce the Stamp Act, because it went against their study of British law in the Magna Carta of 1215: No taxation without representation! This 13th century document only God could have aligned with our 13 colonies, Preston told me.

It was also on this date October 19, 1781 that the British surrendered at Yorktown Virginia. Despite the surrender, it was AFTER this date that John Laurens was shot down by the British hiding in tall grasses near Charleston. John Laurens had been given the honor by George Washington to write out the terms of surrender for the British: he used the same terms they imposed upon us in Charleston for 2 1/2 years. They said it was too harsh. His father was the only American imprisoned in the Tower of London, Henry Laurens. I'm sure they knew exactly who they were shooting down despite the war being over. Charleston was such a prize to the British and had not been lost by the British in battle. They were reluctant to give up this very valuable Georgian looking English port city where they felt so at home with similar architecture to London.

One  more bit of history that coincides with this year 2023 is that in 1983, Laura Wichmann at age 26 started the Charleston Tea Party Walking Tour. I am now celebrating on December 3, 2023 the FORTIETH anniversary of my Tour Business, now the Charleston Tea Party Private Tour. My mother taught me not to reveal my age or to imply it with such a big number. But my friends of old remember when I began, my stepping out in faith. Four years later by God’s grace and my father’s good name and faith in me, Daddy, Fred Wichmann, co-signed the loan for me to purchase the kitchen house of 57 1/2 Legare.

I said, “Daddy, I will make every mortgage payment.”  He replied, “I know you will.“
I asked, “You have that much faith in me and my Tour business?“ His response was, “I know you will, because I won’t.”Who else in our  generation has bought a house South of Broad before they ever bought a car? This is our Faithful God! He gives us a mustard seed of an idea, and the faith, perseverance, and PASSION to pursue it, to which He adds abundant provision. From that point on, my father said for the rest of his life, “I am SO proud of you.” When I feel overwhelmed and discouraged, I hear my father‘s voice, saying these words from the depths of his being. They reverberate within me.

After Preston died, I heard in the dream my mother say, “Laura, you are incredible.” I didn’t believe it from anyone else until I heard it from my very frank mother.  I am thankful for seven years of dreams of Preston, who comes to me in with an occasional kiss of encouragement, letting me know in ways that only Heaven can that he is pulling coordinates with such flexibility and light hearted joy from Heaven to Earth for my good, for our three children and one grandchild, and for the good of the Kingdom of God and the Holy City of Charleston!

Dec 3, 1773 was the Charleston Tea Party, seven days before the Boston Tea Party.  We held ours at the docks on the Cooper River near the Old Exchange Building, by bright morning light, with unveiled faces, unashamed to be recognized for who we are. We were appalled 7 days later at the brazen, flagrant, devious rebellion up North, Bostonian men dressing up like Indians, painting their faces, and wasting so much valuable tea in the Boston Harbor. They were asking for it and produced the response that Charleston didn’t get, the port of Boston being closed, blockaded by the British. Great Britain could not afford to close the port of Charleston as well, our being their most valuable city.  Charleston sent more aid to Boston than any other colony to show our support, and then even had a follow up  Charleston Tea Party to show that we were in agreement. These are the finer points of history that take too long to say on one tour. But these are the sorts of conversations Old Charleston friends and I love to share with each other, those of us who experience daily the living history of Charleston.

If there’s anyone who would like to be an extra set of hands to help me prepare for a large Charleston Tea Party celebration December 3 and the weeks leading up to it, please contact me. Many thanks to you for reading! Laura Wichmann Hipp

03/03/2018

While the Northeast is battling fallen trees and pounding wind and rain, Charleston is astir with the sights and scents of Spring. Escape! Do whatever you can! Come quick! Bright yellow bursts of Lady Banks Rose, Carolina Jasmine, and points of snapdragons are in my garden along with the smiling faces dancing in the wind of the pansies, poppies, and johnny jump ups that bounced back from the rare winter ice and snow along with mounds of cilantro and lettuces for salads. [ 1,193 more word ]

While the Northeast is battling fallen trees and pounding wind and rain, Charleston is astir with the sights and scents of Spring. Escape! Do whatever you can! Come quick! Bright yellow bursts of…

07/03/2017

Charlestonians imprisoned by the British July 4, 1780, danced! They were held at Haddrell's Point, across the Cooper River. Charleston had been bombarded relentlessly by the British until she fell that same year. She would be occupied by the British for two and a half years. Charlestonians always stressed that extra half, for to them the British occupation was going on into a third year; it was a battle for hope. [ 640 more words ]

https://charlestontour.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/celebrate-liberty-dance-the-charleston/

Charlestonians imprisoned by the British July 4, 1780, danced!  They were held at Haddrell’s Point, across the Cooper River. Charleston had been bombarded relentlessly by the British until sh…

03/03/2017

Spring is bursting out all over! Preston said when we bought our house 19 years ago, Mark my words, you're gonna LOVE it! And I do. He gave me sunshine and a bit of dirt in the front and back garden that have a slice of heaven in it with more flowers in bloom than ever!

I planted my flower hay racks on the front porch and hanging baskets myself even though they look professionally done. I'm telling you, a slice of heaven fell down this winter. We had one frost and the rest has been spring like weather. The hanging baskets have become full growth round balls of flowers already! The flowers have the hay racks invisible.

Suspenders of a tux were the closest I ever came to seeing my Charleston prince of a husband in overalls. But after Hurricane Matthew Oct 8, when we were the salt water river bed of the Ashley River, I heeded the words, "Don't Delay!" I had a truck load of top soil and compost mix delivered and dumped in the front yard. It was a formidable, INTIMIDATING mountain of humility! But I saw my husband for the first time in overalls gazing at me intently, as if to say, "You'll find me in the garden. Don't panic. I'm here to help you. I've got you covered, OVER ALL!"" He had one leg up on stool and his hand on his chin leaning toward me. This vision continually reminds me Preston has given me a leg up in this world, and he says, Lift up your head, and be ye lifted up! Keep your chin up, ole girl. I give him the credit for the beauty popping out in my garden this spring.

Come quick! We've got a slice of heaven on earth here in the Holy City of Charleston!

Call me AT 843-708-2228

01/09/2017

Garden Club of Charleston Spring House and Garden Tour
https://charlestontour.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/garden-club-of-charleston-spring-house-and-garden-tour

April 7th and 8th, 2017 is a two day offering that is a rare opportunity to tour this many private homes and gardens.  Each house will have fresh flowers arranged by members of the Garden Club of C…

12/29/2016

We have been blessed with a mild winter so far and delightful weather for walking.

The camellias are in bloom in my favorite gardens, one of which is "Best private garden in America" on Good Morning America. They have a watering can as their reward saying the same. This garden was on the front cover of Garden and Gun magazine recently, (and our small tours are the only ones that are granted permission to walk inside this garden). This Georgian house was built when Thomas Jefferson was president and Louis and Clark were on their way back from the West Coast. It is a delight to see the seasons change in this gift to the earth, a labor of love by my friends, Gene and Betsy Johnson.

My table is laid with an arrangement in a silver pedestal bowl of camellias and holly,with bursts of color from my garden's fresh citrus: grapefruit, satsuma oranges, calamondin oranges, and kumquats, capturing the winter light with the backdrop of the white linen tablecloth.

I have done more walking in this mild weather while I can, but the walk I am the gladdest I made was from my house to the MUSC E.R. on Christmas Eve. I was not ill or anyone in my family. I walked there to sing Christmas carols before the Christmas Eve candlelight service at St. Philips. That is where I found Christmas, where there were no Christmas trees or stockings or signs of the season.

I also sang to three men of the Gullah culture drinking outside in a different kind of Christmas spirit with salty language behind a weathered wooden house. No one was with me to tell me not to. People were coming out of other churches nearby pretending not to see the obvious. I thought this is just the kind of place where the Spirit of Christmas is knocking with a Voice as Big as the Sea. I sang with arms in entreaty,

"Oh come , all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, oh come ye, oh come ye to Bethlehem. Come and adore Him, born the King of angels. Oh come let us adore Him. Oh come let us adore Him. Oh come let us adore Him! Christ, the Lord!"

04/08/2016

Three decades ago when I was one of the cute young things, I started the Charleston Tea Party Walking Tour. Though I have been doing the van driven private tour for the more affluent this last decade, I hate to admit it but my figure is suffering! No! Not me! I am relaunching the Walking Tour but with a refreshing twist: Off the Beaten Path.

Walking tours have escalated and are on the same streets. I love those streets, especially Church St where my church, St. Philips is, and the Dock Street Theater and the French Huguenot Church. But if you have done a tour, chances are you have been to Church St. What else does Charleston have to offer? So much more!

The West end of Tradd on the Ashley River is where we begin. I did my first yesterday and found it so refreshing to go past the fabulous restoration of Colonial Lake to two gardens designed by noted Charlestonian, Dr. Eugene Gaillard Johnson, my favorite landscape architect and friend. We studied the architecture of Mayor Courtney's house, who saw Charleston through The Earthquake and don't forget the hurricane the year before. We saw the garden of my friends, Sam and Pringle, who are livin the life in Paris for two years. Their varied garden in my favorite spot looks through spring green boxwood and rising roses to the sparkling waters of "The Pond", Colonial Lake, where sunlight dances on toe shoes.

We go to Jennings and Ross's wedding April 9th, our 28th anniversary. Her parents are our neighbors who live in the classic Charleston Single House that Dubose Heyward lived in as a boy. He grew up to write the novel, Porgy, from which came Porgy and Bess, soon to be seen at Spoleto Festival, the first American Opera, composed at Folly Island in collaboration with George Gershwin. They have put in several gardens to get it ready for their daughter Jenning's wedding, all to the delight of their neighbors and their dogs! They have it just right now! We love to sit on their piazza with fellow neighbors and catch up with a glass of wine or cup of tea!

I get most excited about my own garden of edibles. Susan Maguire and I planted from seed lettuces, and sugar peas, watermelon radishes, all the rage now, whose white blossoms are perfect garnish for my tea sandwiches. To see these taller than I am pea plants climbing my vertical garden is a wonder to behold when I remember we planted then from a pea! Seed planting reaps supper tonight for Susan and the Hipp family at 194 Tradd. Oh, to think what potential God placed in each of us, like mighty oaks that from tiny acorns grow!

If you like to walk fast to burn calories, to get exercise, to learn history of Historic Charleston along the way off the beaten path, and to go into private gardens of my friends and neighbors, call me for a walking tour at 843-708-2228. They start at 9am and end with Elevensies Tea. Two hour parking on both sides of the street. Laura

01/15/2016

Frequently I am asked, "Where is your favorite restaurant?" With so many nationally renowned ones, new ones, and ones that have stood the test of time, it is hard to narrow it down. But when it comes down to it, I have to admit my favorite place to dine is in my friends' homes and my own. The art of entertaining is the art of hospitality. [ 162 more words. ]

https://charlestontour.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/a-dinner-tour-dine-like-a-charlestonian

Frequently I am asked, "Where is your favorite restaurant?" With so many nationally renowned ones, new ones, and ones that have stood the test of time, it is hard to narrow it down.  But when it co...

12/17/2015

I met delightful people from England on the tour today. We had Christmas Pudding with tea, the steamed plum puddings in vintage molds from the world of Charles Dickens. We com[pared receipts. They boil theirs for hours. I just walked home with my husband from two Christmas parties, with the temperature in the upper 60's tonight, in the 70's during the day this week. [ 659 more words. ]

https://charlestontour.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/do-you-hear-what-i-hear-with-a-voice-as-big-as-the-sea-christmas-in-charleston-2015/

I met delightful people from England on the tour today.  We had Christmas Pudding with tea, the steamed plum puddings in vintage molds from the world of Charles Dickens. We com[pared receipts.  The...

11/07/2015

Another year older, another year deeper in debt. Yesterday was my birthday. Another year deeper in debt to my mother and father, Marianne and Fred Wichmann, and The One who gave me life and an added year to my purpose here on earth, The One who numbers my days. "When I consider how my light is spent, and all my days in this dark world..."John Milton. [ 387 more words. ]

https://charlestontour.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/the-acorn-motif-an-american-symbol

Another year older, another year deeper in debt.  Yesterday was my birthday.  Another year deeper in debt to my mother and father, Marianne and Fred Wichmann, and The One who gave me life and an ad...

10/02/2015

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