Denmark Vesey House

Commonly known as the Denmark Vesey House, the house located at 56 Bull Street in Charleston, South Carolina is almost certainly not the house once inhabited by black abolitionist Denmark Vesey. Vesey's rented home, owned first by attorney George Cross and later by white carpenter Benjamin Ireland, listed as 20 Bull Street under the city's former numbering system, is now evidently gone. A nearby home, most likely built in the 1830s or 1840s and currently numbered 56 Bull Street, was thought in the 1970s to have been the home of Denmark Vesey, and it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1976 by the Department of Interior.
But in 1980, state archivist Wylma Wates found evidence to suggest Vesey's rented house had been four or five houses east of the so-called "Vesey house." Architectural historian Edward Turberg confirmed that the house in question is not only in the wrong place but was "constructed after 1830 and before 1850." Since Vesey was hanged in 1822, he died roughly ten years before the house was built. Despite these findings, the house has continued to be listed as a National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

More information

Comments Statistics

| | Public