Cleland-Wells House

This three-story stuccoed single house was constructed circa 1760 by Charleston physician Dr. William Cleland as a residence for his son William. After William’s death the property was purchased in 1778 by Scottish émigré Robert Wells, the largest bookseller and printer in the Southern colonies. Wells and his son John used the first floor and perhaps the cellar of this building to publish a Tory newspaper, the South Carolina and American General Gazette. The Wells were banished from South Carolina for their Tory sympathies under the “Act for Disposing of Certain Estates and Banishing Certain Persons.” Their house was confiscated by the sheriff and sold at auction to a local gunsmith by authority of the 1782 Act of Confiscation.

View from public sidewalk only