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[pee] Interestingly enough, elsewhere in the same book, he [P.C. Coker] tells of the improvements in the harbor....particularly of a major dredging project that concluded in 1860. It was massive, and designed to develop a channel in the harbor to handle the newest and largest deep draft ocean going freighters.

Oh Yeah? I'll bet you a plate of spaghetti that the major dredging of Charleston harbor Coker talks about in his book was a FEDERAL project not a State one.

"I'll bet you a plate of spaghetti that the major dredging of Charleston harbor Coker talks about in his book was a FEDERAL project not a State one."

Pull out your pot and get ready to cook.

From P. C. Coker's "Charleston's Maritime Heritage", page 185...parenthesis is mine.

"With a contract from the city (Charleston) to dredge the channel, Charleston machinists James and Thomas Eason had the experimental dredgeboat General Moultrie built in New York...General Moultrie began operating in Charleston in February 1857...General Moultrie cleared 190,000 cubic yards of silt from the channel at a price of 66 cents per cubic yard. Her success made her the forerunner of modern dredges used by the Army Cours of Engineers... Maffitt's Channel was cleared and ships of full draft were using the port on a regular basis by 1860."