6 Water Street - Francis Saltus House
circa 1820s
Captain Francis W. Saltus, Sr., a Charleston ship owner and cotton factor built this two and one half story Federal style single house. The frame structure rests on a raised basement and features a closed return box cornice and a gable roof with an elaborate central pediment flanked by two dormer windows. Double piazzas supported by slender columns span the east façade, shallow arches highlight the first floor piazza, as does the central doorway which is capped with a semi-elliptical transom typical of the period.
Shortly after construction Captain Saltus put the property in trust for his daughter Susan Ann Lubbock, wife of Beaufort physician Dr. Henry Thomas Willis Lubbock. Their eldest child Francis Richard Lubbock served as Governor of Texas (1861-1865) and the town of Lubbock, Texas was named for him.
The property was sold in 1832 to Otis Mills, a wealthy entrepreneur and financier who developed the original Mills House, one of Charleston's premier antebellum hotels. In the early twentieth century 6 Water Street was converted into 10 apartments. It was rehabilitated back to use as a single family residence in the 1960s.
Water Street follows the course of Vanderhorst Creek, which was filled in during the first decade of the 19th century. In September 1775 Lord William Campbell, the last Royal Governor of South Carolina, used Vanderhorst Creek to escape from the city.
Marker is on Water Street, on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
