Sandwiched Between Charleston And Columbia Is South Carolina's Abandoned Historic Gem With Unique Structures

It's easy to forget that for every American colony that survived and eventually thrived, lots of pre-Revolutionary settlements simply vanished. Some of them left behind nothing at all, and others left behind the broken husks of buildings half-consumed by nature like Colonial Dorchester, a former trading town inland from coastal Charleston, South Carolina. 

Ideally situated along the Ashley River, Colonial Dorchester (as it's now called) was a go-between settlement on land that's now part of Charleston's city limits between Ashborough and Avenue of Oaks. The settlement carried on from 1697 roughly until the start of the American Revolution in 1775 when it was voluntarily abandoned. Nowadays, drivers down Route 642 can find the town's original spot through a little sign on the side of the road.

Travelers can head down the tree-shrouded street next to that sign and past a tiny ranger's station to visit a collection of structures that now stand as monuments to a town otherwise extinguished. Most prominently, there's the old, red brick bell tower of St. George's Anglican Church and remnants of the cemetery next to it. There's also an oyster-shell concrete fort, a wharf along the Ashley River visible at low tide, and much more that's been shrouded by time and soil. While it's a stretch to refer to these few remaining structures as a "ghost town" along the lines of Darwin, California near Death Valley, complete with numerous standing structures, archaeological excavations at Dorchester are ongoing. There's a lot more waiting to be uncovered.

Visitors to Colonial Dorchester will find a series of signs and trails pointing visitors from prominent site to site throughout the entire 325-acre park. Visitors can not only watch excavations, they can get involved and help excavate themselves, if the timing works out. A mere 10 out of 119 quarter-acre lots have been excavated throughout the park. Just one of those lots held 6,500 items including artifacts like pipe stems (the wooden parts have long disintegrated), bottles, window glass, ammo, buttons, and more.

While there's no guarantee that any visitor to Colonial Dorchester will get a chance to dig into anything as cool as that (literally), the park still has a surprising amount of things to do. There are historically educational events like the completely free To Settle a Town walkabout and an extremely sweet rocking chair tour of Colonial Dorchester, a walking tour designed to take elderly people from seat to seat across the park. The park even has t-shirts and other swag available online. 

Folks interested in visiting Colonial Dorchester can easily incorporate it into a trip to downtown Charleston about 40 minutes away, perhaps during a visit to its ultra-cool, imposing, and historical Old City Jail. The park is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. during Daylight Saving Time and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. the rest of the year. It costs $3, which is a meager price to pay to step through time.