City's 'Temple of Justice' reopens as meeting space

One of Charleston's most dramatic events in the run-up to the Civil War unfolded inside U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Gordon Magrath's courtroom at 23 Chalmers St.

Upon learning that Abraham Lincoln had won the presidency, Magrath, perhaps the city's most prominent federal official, stood up and declared that he would step down, saying, "So far as I am concerned, the Temple of Justice, raised under the Constitution of the United States, is now closed."

Almost 148 years later, the second-floor room is open, re-created for a new life as a private meeting space.

To appreciate the change, one must understand just how much the war shaped the building between the time of Magrath's resignation and the recent restoration.

Magrath returned to his former chambers once South Carolina seceded and served there as a Confederate judge until 1865, when the war drew to a close and Confederate shells began hammering the city.

In fact, contractor Jim Wigley says, Civil War historian Jack Thomson visited the building during its work, and they discovered a beam shattered by a Union shell.

"We found a joist with one clear semicircle where it had been cut and the backside torn to smithereens, exactly like you would expect an exit wound to look," Wigley says, adding

that the damaged beam was kept. "Some 100 years from now, somebody will go up there and discover it again."

After the war, the building became part of the Confederate Home, which housed hundreds of widows and children in need. The once- grand courtroom was used as a classroom and later chopped up into apartments.

There are no more Confederate widows, but the home still leases apartments to 21 women. It also leases a dozen rooms without bathrooms or kitchens to local artists, and it provides five scholarships to the College of Charleston.

Marge Palmer, who serves on the Confederate Home Board of Control, says it's a big challenge to do all that and care for a historic complex cobbled together from several early 19th-century buildings. "There's no federal funding or anything like that," she says without much irony.

The idea of re-creating the courtroom began to take shape a decade ago, gathering momentum with Warren Moise's book "Rebellion in the Temple of Justice," an account of South Carolina's courts during the war. The idea also took shape as a way to bring in new revenue by creating a handsome new meeting space to rent out.

Palmer says no one knows why the 23 Chalmers building had such a grand room, which measures about 55 feet by 35 feet with 15-foot-tall ceilings. It was built several years before the U.S. District Court relocated there in 1845, possibly on speculation that the government would rent it for a courtroom one day.

Re-creating the room posed its own problems, partly because the original rafter system was damaged and would have caused big inconveniences to nearby residents were it to be rebuilt. Instead, structural engineer Russell Rosen devised a system of about 44 steel beams to carry the load and reopen the space.

There also were cosmetic issues. The building not only suffered from the war but also from the 1886 earthquake and 1938 tornado. A bit of cornice was left from a nearby antechamber, and architect Glenn Keyes used that as a template for designing a replacement cornice for the main courtroom. A missing marble mantel fortuitously was discovered in a nearby apartment.

A door from the courtroom leads to a balcony created a few decades ago with wrought iron from blacksmith Philip Simmons. In the 19th century, it likely led to stairs from Chalmers Street.

Wigley says another discovery was the makeshift nature of repairs over the years. "This is not a heavily endowed institution," he notes.

The work also included creating an elevator in an area that was built as a cistern, strengthening the adjacent piazzas and adding public restrooms and a small kitchen.

This 'Temple of Justice' may no longer be used by judges and juries, but its rebirth testifies as to how Lincoln's election, and all that followed, continues to shape this city.

Robert Behre may be reached at 937-5771; by fax at 937-5579; e-mail at rbehre@postandcourier.com; or by mail at 134 Columbus St., Charleston, SC 29403.