Charleston Loves Cemeteries
Explore Charleston's historic graveyards on your own with these detailed guides.
Charleston Loves Cemeteries
Explore Charleston's historic graveyards on your own with these detailed guides.
Get to know gabriel
Tours
Tours
Pamela Durkin Gabriel is a taphophile - someone who loves cemeteries - and Charleston SC has many old cemeteries that welcome exploring. Gabriel's latest book - In Good Company: A History of St. Lawrence Cemetery, Charleston SC, is not only a history of St. Lawrence Cemetery but also a history of Catholicism in Charleston.
Gabriel's lo
Pamela Durkin Gabriel is a taphophile - someone who loves cemeteries - and Charleston SC has many old cemeteries that welcome exploring. Gabriel's latest book - In Good Company: A History of St. Lawrence Cemetery, Charleston SC, is not only a history of St. Lawrence Cemetery but also a history of Catholicism in Charleston.
Gabriel's love of history and architecture prompted her move to Mount Pleasant South Carolina in 1992. She has a BA in Art History from the College of Charleston. A paper for a class in 20th century architecture led to her first book The Great Cooper River Bridge, which she co-authored with Jason Annan and published by USCPress in 2002.
Her interest in architecture produced the Charleston Single House: A Brief History of Charleston Architect. Once described as "the best architectural guide book for the layman".
Meeting fellow taphophile Ruth M Miller lead to Touring the Tombstones, a series of guide books exploring seven of Charleston's historic downtown cemeteries. The series includes St. Michael's, St. Phillip's, St. Mary's, St. John's, Unitarian, Circular Congressional, and Coming Street.
Gabriel continues to live in Mount Pleasant and is a member of Mount Pleasant Historical Commission.
Gabriel is currently working on a new book: If These Walls Could Talk, that provides an account of historic structures that have served many purposes over the decades in Charleston.
Tours
Tours
Tours
TOURS
For Touring the Tombstones tours visit www.lowcountryinc.com.
For St. Lawrence Cemetery tours, please email pdgabriel@yahoo.com .
BOOKS
Gabriel's books are available locally at:
BUXTON'S BOOKS
160 King Street
Preservation Society of Charleston
147 King Street
https://www.preservationsociety.org/
Or purchase a sign
TOURS
For Touring the Tombstones tours visit www.lowcountryinc.com.
For St. Lawrence Cemetery tours, please email pdgabriel@yahoo.com .
BOOKS
Gabriel's books are available locally at:
BUXTON'S BOOKS
160 King Street
Preservation Society of Charleston
147 King Street
https://www.preservationsociety.org/
Or purchase a signed copy direct from Gabriel by clicking the link below.
In Good Company
$30.00
($5.00 shipping)
If you love exploring cemeteries you will enjoy Pamela Gabriel’s book, “In Good Company: History of St. Lawrence Cemetery, Charleston, SC.” After purchasing a plot in St. Lawrence, Gabriel researched her future neighbors and included over 100 biographies of residents. The reader will also get a glimpse of what it was like to live in Charleston during the lifetime of these individuals. A map is included to locate the gravesites of the cited personages.
St. Lawrence was part of the rural cemetery concept as urban church burial grounds became over crowded. It was founded by the Charleston Catholic Diocese in 1854 in a simply grid pattern, unlike its adjacent neighbor, Magnolia Cemetery, with its park-like landscape.
The book also includes a history of Catholicism in Charleston, its churches, schools, and other Catholic institutions.
Touring the Tombstones
$7.00
($4.00 shipping)
Explore Charleston's historic graveyards on your own with these detailed guides by Pam Gabriel and Ruth Miller
Seven volumes, each sold separately.
St John's
St. Michel's
St. Philip's
St. Mary's
Circular Congregational
Coming Street Cemetery
Unitarian Church
The Great Cooper River Bridge
$24.98
($5.00 shipping)
A comprehensive history of one of Charleston's most significant landmarks
On a hot summer day in 1929, the citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, participated in one of the largest celebrations in the city's history―the opening of the Cooper River Bridge. After years of quarrels, financial obstructions, and political dogfights, the great bridge was completed, and for the first time, Charleston had a direct link to the north. From the doldrums of the Depression to the growth of the 1990s, the Cooper River Bridge played a vital role in Charleston's transformation from an impoverished, isolated city to a vibrant and prosperous metropolis.
Now obsolete and no longer adequately serving the needs of the Charleston area, the "old" Cooper River Bridge, and the "new" Silas N. Pearman Bridge―the Cooper River Bridge's larger sister structure, erected in 1966―will be replaced. Funding, design, and construction are presently underway to replace the old structure with a single, modern bridge. The two original bridges have become true emblems of Charleston, much like the Eiffel Tower of Paris or the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco. With their removal, Charleston will lose two of its most significant landmarks.
This vast change in the city's skyline is sure to evoke memories from Charlestonians and visitors who have developed a special relationship with the old bridge. In addition to these reminiscences, the Cooper River Bridge has its own story―one of ambitious men and their dreams of profit, and of a city's dreams of prosperity. Upon its completion, the Cooper River Bridge was a grand symbol of Charleston's vision for the future, and the bridge recalls many significant themes in the modern history of the city.
The Great Cooper River Bridge provides the complete history of this architectural icon, exploring how early twentieth-century Charleston helped shape the bridge, and how the bridge subsequently shaped the city. With more than eighty photographs, this illustrated volume documents a remarkable engineering feat and a distinctive structure before it becomes a memory.
The Unique Charleston Single House
$9.00
($4.00 shipping)
The Unique Charleston Single House: A Brief Guide to Charleston Architecture
Pamela Durkin Gabriel
2010
An online review states
"This little book is a very handy one as it reads more like a brochure; very to-the-point and written in short sections. The four chapters discuss Charleston’s history, the evolution of the Charleston single house design, architectural styles, and architectural details consecutively. It ends in a glossary that includes a corresponding photograph of a Charleston house for almost every term. Reasons are often provided when explaining the changes in architecture; I found this particularly helpful and applicable to my studies. I also appreciate the examples that were selected to further illustrate the text, as many of them are not repetitions from one of the other books I have read so far. As I said this little book is brochure-like, I think it will be a great reference tool for later. "