Charleston City Market remains active due to a historic deed clause

In March 1788, six neighbors donated this land to the city on the condition that a public market be built here. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney owned the largest share of the property, which was then a creek and marsh running from Meeting Street down to the Cooper River. By 1792, some of the marsh had been filled and a brick market stood near Meeting Street.

The city turned that first building over to house refugees from Santo Domingo in late 1793. Because the land was no longer being used for its specified purpose, the property went back to the original donors under the terms of the deed. The neighbors donated the land a second time in 1804, and construction started again. The Centre Market opened on August 1, 1807, with separate sheds for fresh meat and vegetables, followed by sheds for fish and small meats. The deed still carries a reverter clause, meaning the land will go back to the heirs of the donors if the city ever stops using it as a market.

Local stories sometimes call this place the slave market, but enslaved people were not sold here. Slave auctions in Charleston took place at the wharves, at and around the Old Exchange, in stores on Broad, Chalmers, State, and East Bay streets, and later at Ryan's Mart. Instead, enslaved and free Black Charlestonians came to these sheds daily to buy and sell meat, produce, and food brought in from the countryside.

Today, the sheds are still organized by trade, with meat at the Meeting Street end, produce in the middle, and fish at the back. Inside, vendors sell sweetgrass baskets, continuing a craft that runs generations deep in the same families.