By: Chase Baker

The Provost Dungeon underneath the Old Exchange building is arguably one of the most unique historic sites of our city which in Charleston is saying a fair bit. The dungeon seems to be directly out of a European castle. Its walls and floors are constituted by 18th century brick formed into double-barrel-vaults which support the dungeon. In the south, buildings that hold a large significance to the Revolutionary War are rare and the ones that do exist are generally not well preserved. Because of this, the Provost Dungeon is unique.
During its history, the dungeon saw a fair bit of notable prisoners chained in its confines. Many of them are Revolutionary figures. For example, Son of Liberty Christopher Gadsden was imprisoned in the dungeon. You see his influence today with the flag he designed during the revolution known as the Gadsden flag. The flag, commonly seen on the back of large trucks, is best described as being the yellow flag with a snake on the front above the words don’t tread on me.
For context, the British occupied Charleston for around two years during the Revolutionary War and during that time they turned the Provost Dungeon into the area they used for American prisoners of war. Because of this, many other revolutionary figures had to unfortunately call the dungeon their home. The conditions for prisoners were poor. They were for the most part chained to the walls or chained together. Their daily rations were awful. Because of these poor conditions, many of the prisoners died from either malnutrition or disease.
Likely one of the most interesting historical stories from the Provost Dungeon has to do with the hiding of at least 10,000 pounds of rebel black powder in its walls. Directly before the British successfully sized Charleston, the revolutionaries had a problem other than just losing the city. Revolutionaries had been storing up black powder for their cause but when the British were about to seize the city, many of the revolutionaries decided to evacuate to avoid capture by the British. The problem they ran into was that they couldn’t take all the black powder with them during their hasty evacuation. Now, they couldn’t just leave the black powder out and about for the British to get their hands on. It would help them out immensely. At the same time, the revolutionaries didn’t want to simply discard this valuable resource in the harbor of Charleston. So, the most senior officer at the time, a man by the name of Col. William Moultrie came up with a plan. They were going to hide this black powder in the dungeon. The revolutionaries went down to the dungeon and hid all the black powder in its walls. It was completely unnoticeable. Note, that many today believe that it was 10,000 pounds of black powder, however the writings of Col. Moultrie say that it was actually 15,000 pounds but only 10,000 pounds was usable.
The interesting thing is that when the British occupied Charleston, they looked everywhere for the black powder but never found it. The amusing thing is that during the British occupation of Charleston, British officers utilized the building on top of the dungeon, the Old Exchange as their headquarters. So, they were sitting on top of it the entire time but never new.