The Dawkins House

Triggiani looks at the front of the Dawkins House which he is gradually raising as part of the renovation. In four months of work Triggiani has managed to raise it 19 inches.

New Jersey native Peter Triggiani plans to not only restore but live in the house that once served as the seat of South Carolina’s government during the final months of the Civil War.

Located on North Church Street between the main and central buildings of USC-Union, the Dawkins House dates back to the late 18th century and, according to Triggiani, is a mixture of Colonial and Federal periods of architecture. It was the history of the Dawkins House even more than its mixture of architectural styles that led Triggiani acquire the house from USC-Union and the Palmetto Trust of South Carolina in 2009 with the goal of restoring the house and making it his home.

“Ever since I was a small child I’ve been enthralled by history and antiques,” Triggiani said. “I was restoring a house in Brunswick, Ga. and I was looking for another house to restore. Victorian houses are pretty common, Federal period homes are much rarer and so this was something I was looking for.

“What drew me to this house was the sheer amount of history involved,” he said. “This house was literally the state capitol and it was here that you find the roots of the beginning of the Civil War and it was here that the war ended.”

In the mid-19th century, the house was the home of Judge Thomas N. Dawkins and, according to Triggiani, was the site of many visits by the major South Carolina politicians of the day. Those visits and the ensuing discussions of the issues of secession and the possibility of war between north and south were recorded by Dawkins’ wife Mary in her diary. When Gov. A.G. McGrath and the government of South Carolina had to flee Columbia to escape the fiery revenge being visited upon the city by the federal army under Gen. William T. Sherman, Judge Dawkins invited the governor to come to Union and stay in his home.

McGrath accepted the offer and for the final two months of the war the Dawkins House would serve as the governor’s office and residence with other departments of the state government operating nearby. This made Union one of only three cities to serve as the seat of South Carolina’s government.

The state government was still in Union when the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va. fell and Gen. Robert E. Lee surredered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appamatox Courthouse. Triggiani said that in her diary Mrs. Dawkins recalls being a party to a conversation involving McGrath. The discussion involved the possibility of continued Confederate resistance west of the Mississippi River. Mrs. Dawkins spoke up against any such bitter end resistance and McGrath agreed. With the government of South Carolina, the first state to secede, opting against continued resistance the war was over.

“This house is where it ended for the Confederacy,” Triggiani said.

(Mrs. Dawkins’ diary was compiled and edited by Sarah Porter Carroll as “South Carolina’s English Lady: Mrs. Thomas Nuckolls Dawkins (1820-1906) of Union County and Her Poulton Kin.”)

As part of his restoration of the Dawkins House, Triggiani has been removing bricks from its several fireplaces, including the fireplace where McGrath had many government documents burned, to keep them from falling into the hands of the federals. Triggiani said many of the fireplaces were much larger than they appeared when he first began restoration. They’d been built to provide both heat and for cooking and were designed to burn logs. As coal became the preferred method of heating homes, they were bricked up leaving only a small area for coal to be placed and lit. He is removing the bricks and restoring the fireplaces to their original size and appearance.

The process began four months ago and Triggiani believes he can complete it within three years. He does, however, hope to have enough of the work done so he can move in this spring.

In 2000, Triggiani began his first restoration of a southern home; the 6,000-square-foot Montgomery House in Reidsville, NC, a project that took him four years to complete. Beyond his interest in history and antiques, Triggiani said what he likes about restoring old homes is the process of taking things apart, seeing how they originally worked and then putting them back together.

After centuries as a private home, the Dawkins House was turned into five apartments in the 1980s. During the past four months, Triggiani has demolished the apartments; removed the wall that blocked the arch over the front door; removed ceilings added over the centuries to get to the original ceiling in the Colonial-era portion of the house; and torn out the plumbing and wiring. In removing the centuries of additions, Triggiani even found where there had once been a spiral staircase that went up into the attic. He doesn’t know why it was removed but he plans to rebuild it.

Before he can do that, however, Triggiani will have to continue lifting up the house. No one has lived in the Dawkins House in a decade and some of the floors and the front of the building have sunk. In the case of the front porch it has sunk approximately two feet while the house itself had sunk nearly a foot. Since he got started, Triggiani has managed to raise the front porch 19 inches and part of the house two inches. He said raising the house will take a lot longer because of the size and weight.

Most of the work Triggiani is doing, or will do, himself including plastering, carpentry and some electrical and plumbing work. Doing much of the work himself is helping to hold down labor costs. He said that restoration work is labor intensive and it’s for that reason that many have said in the past restoring would be cost prohibitive. Triggani said that’s if a regular contractor was employed. By doing most of it himself he makes the restoration of the house financially feasible.

In addition to being a carpenter, plasterer, electrician and plumber, restoring the Dawkins House has also allowed Triggiani to play treasure hunter, though a failed one.

Triggiani said that when Gov. McGrath fled Columbia he brought with him some silver which he entrusted to Dawkins for safekeeping when he learned he was to be arrested by the federal authorities. The Dawkins kept it hidden until it was safe to return it to McGrath. Even though the McGrath’s got the silver back, Triggani said the story inspired him to search the house and the grounds for any other treasures that might have been hidden away and forgotten.

All his effort turned up, however, was some spare change from the 20th century, not even enough to buy a soft drink.

His failure to find buried treasure didn’t discourage Triggani who said the real treasure is learning about the house that will one day be his home.

“This is sort of like an archaeological excavation,” Triggiani said with obvious delight. “Every week that goes by we learn something new at the house. Once I’ve taken everything apart and learned how it works, I’m going to put it back together like it was.”

Supplies by The Union Daily Times