ASHLEY RIVER ROAD, _Leading to Famous Gardens_: St. Andrew’s Church is but one of many interesting and historic places on the Ashley River Road. Two miles from the Ashley River Bridge the road passes near the site of the original Charles Town in South Carolina and three miles farther is the Ashley Hall plantation of the Bull family, distinguished in provincial and colonial periods. It was on the Bull place that Attakullakulla, a chief of the Cherokee Indians, signed a treaty of peace in the 1760’s after his tribe had been severely humbled by the whites. Just across the highway were the lovely Magwood Gardens, now the property of a granddaughter of President Abraham Lincoln. Here the highway passes through a grove of majestic live oaks festooned with Spanish moss. Seven miles from the bridge one passes St. Andrew’s Church and a short distance farther through old Fort Bull, the moat about which has been filled. Next, on the right, is the entrance to Drayton Hall, then Magnolia Gardens, Runnymede, home of John Julius Pringle, Speaker of the House of the Assembly in 1787, and later the property of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of the famous Pinckney family; Middleton Place (gardens) where is buried Arthur Middleton, Signer of the _Declaration of Independence_; the seat of the old Wragg barony; the Ashley River is crossed at Bacon’s Bridge near which stands an ancient oak beneath the spreading boughs of which General Francis Marion is alleged to have entertained a British officer (it is a pretty legend, but its site is severally located). Half a mile beyond the bridge is the road leading down to the ruins of old Dorchester, established in 1696 by colonists from Dorchester, Massachusetts, led by the Reverend Joseph Lord. In this year ruins of fort and churches are mute reminders of a brave village in a primeval wilderness infested with savage Indians. From Bacon’s Bridge the distance to Summerville is five miles. It is a drive every visitor to this section should follow. In the season, the Middleton Place and Magnolia Gardens are open to visitors. [Illustration: _Foreground, Unitarian Church; Background, St. John’s Lutheran Church_] [Illustration: _Huguenot Church. Only One in America_]