Hint: It probably doesn’t have much to do with our skyline
In his book, The Garden of Eden and The Flood, John Kenner claimed that Charleston was the site of Eden. Journalist Yates Snowden was likely nodding to Kenner and being tongue in cheek when he called Charleston the “Holy City.”
In this season of religious holidays, it’s fitting to wonder how Charleston became known as the “Holy City.” Many believe it’s our history of religious tolerance dating from the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina of the 1660s. But the phrase didn’t come into vogue until 1910 or so, when it was associated with journalist and historian Yates Snowden (1858-1933).
So in love with his hometown but living in Columbia while teaching at the University of South Carolina, Snowden was mocked by friends for his religious fervor about Charleston. His 1933 obituary noted he humorously called himself “a missionary from the Holy City.” As to how Snowden coined that phrase, newspaper columnist Frank Gilbreth, who popularized the term in the ’50s and ’60s, later explained that “any city that is full of sacred cows, worshiped by its inhabitants, and envied by the rest of the world would inevitably become known—I should think—as the ‘Holy City.’”
(Left) John Kenner & (right) journalist Yates Snowden.
New research reveals that Snowden may have picked up the concept from someone whose name, the newspaper claimed, was “almost a household word in Charleston.” The Reverend John Keener developed a reputation in the 1880s for his religious theories, and Snowden worked for the paper when it reviewed Keener’s 1901 book, The Garden of Eden and The Flood.
The “Holy City” moniker has endured for Charleston, which is known for its church steeples and religious tolerance.
In it, Keener presented his explanation for the abundance of prehistoric fossils found locally. Keener believed those bones were proof of beasts drowned in Noah’s flood and the 1886 earthquake, exposing more relics, was God revealing secrets long sealed. Keener also said the fossils proved that Noah had launched his ark from the Lowcountry. Treading further on holy ground, he claimed that Adam and Eve had lived here, too—Eden, where God created man (out of pluff mud?), was not between the Tigris and Euphrates but between the Cooper and the Ashley!
It’s likely that Snowden was winking at Keener’s claim that God’s holy creation began here when he called this a “Holy City.” While proof may be elusive, it’s worthy of noting that it’s not just the religious who take a leap of faith; historians often do, too.
