Northeast Corner of Assembly and Laurel Streets
Site of William Beverly Nash Residence
Built by 1872
Sold to Second Presbyterian in 1892
Moved circa 1904 to 1105 Laurel Street
Demolished between 1951-1956
-
William Beverly Nash residence, photographed by Reckling, 1870s. Image courtesy South Carolina State Museum
-
William Beverly Nash, undated. Image courtesy South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia
William Beverly Nash was a leading public figure in Columbia during Reconstruction. Born in Virginia in 1822, he was born enslaved and brought to South Carolina by the Preston family when he was thirteen. He worked in a Columbia hotel before the war and learned to read and write. After emancipation, Nash helped to organize the Union League in Columbia, an important channel of Black political mobilization. He represented Richland County in the South Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868 and in the state senate from 1868 to 1877. He played a leading role in many voluntary associations and business ventures, some of which created bridges to the white community. His house at this site was close to the brickyard at the corner of Laurel and Assembly streets that he owned with two Black friends. At the time of his death in 1888, he owned five town lots and 26 acres of farmland on Wheeler Hill.
In 1892, Nash's widow, Dorcas Nash, sold her one-acre property to Second Presbyterian Church for $7,000. The church built a wooden church on the eastern side that was used until at least 1898. About 1904, in preparation for the construction of a new masonry structure at the corner of Assembly and Laurel streets, the church moved the Nash residence further east, where it served as the church's manse. The building was demolished in the early 1950s.