Charleston Historian visits and tells us about her adventures!

Ruth Miller showing books that she wrote 

Ruth Miller started her adventures as a tour guide throughout Charleston and she had gotten really interested in Charleston by researching the history and the archaeological context as well. She eventually, went from a tour guide to a group speaker at banquets and she is also now a writer and storyteller for Forty years. She has a passion for history, graves, cemeteries, and archaeology. A few of her books are Touring the Tombstones, Charleston's Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon: A Witness to History, and The Angel Oak Story.

She explained to us how Charleston became the most influential and miraculous city by ways of history, trade, plantations, slaves, and the process of getting gravestones to Charleston because "The city of Charleston had no stone carvers because there was no stone to carve from". Charleston was founded in 1670 by King Charles II of England and the city played a major role in slave trade and rice because Charleston was a harbor.

Handkerchief with letter

She explained some major key points of how people remembered their deceased loved ones. Some would make bracelets or necklaces out of hair, others would make a memorial on a bracelet or etched it onto a ring, and some just wanted a picture. Some wondered why we wear black when someone dies or when we are in the stage of mourning. Queen Victoria of England wore black as a sign of mourning when her husband, Prince Albert died. The time afterward, she wore black for the rest of her days to show that she was still mourning and thinking of him. Now, the people of that century took it to custom and it has been a tradition ever sense because Queen Victoria romanticized death.


My favorite quotes from her are "Its like someone had taken a gigantic scythe and flattened the trees." "Charleston has more 18th Century graveyards than any other city" "If you are walking in Charleston, chances are, you are walking on someone's grave".