56 Society Street

circa 1840
This substantial three-story Greek Revival Period Charleston single house is constructed of stucco-covered brick and features a two-tiered piazza with Tuscan columns and turned balusters, piazza screen and entrance door complete with pilasters, multi-pane rectangular transom, and entry hood surmounted on acanthus leaf brackets, and flat roof with parapet and corbelled brick cornice. By the late 19th century the kitchen building was connected to the main house with a hyphen.

Dr. Joseph Johnson (1776-1862), medical scientist, astronomer, author, and historian, built this house for his wife Katherine Bonneau Johnson. He served as president of the Medical Society of South Carolina 1808 to 1809, president of the Charleston branch of the Second Bank of the United States from 1818 to 1825, and intendant (mayor) of Charleston 1825 to 1826. Dr. Johnson performed extensive research on the causes of yellow fever, and wrote the book Traditions and Reminiscences, Chiefly of the American Revolution in the South (1851). Dr. Johnson was the son of William Johnson, a prominent Revolutionary War leader in South Carolina.

American painter Edward Hopper used this house as the subject for Charleston Doorway during his brief visit to Charleston in 1929.

British author Gordon Langley Hall (1937-2000) purchased the property in 1962 and restored it as part of the Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project. Hall, a hermaphrodite who, as Dawn Pepita Hall, married here in 1969 resulting in the first licensed interracial marriage in Charleston.

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