On Market Street you’ll find several key structures along the Village Green. First is the Merchant’s Bank Building (232 Market St.), which once housed the largest bank in South Carolina outside Charleston before the Civil War, and was the last known bank to honor Confederate money.
Next door is the tiny, circa 1820 Lyceum Museum (843/537-8425, Mon.–Fri. 9 a.m.–5 p.m., free), first a chancery court, then a library, then a telegraph office, and now containing artifacts of local history. You get the keys from the Visitors Bureau (221 Market St.). The building next to the Lyceum is the circa 1858 Town Hall, still used for municipal offices.
Directly across the street is the also-tiny 1820 Inglis-McIver Law Office. This building was actually moved here from Front Street in 1948. It once housed the office of John A. Inglis, chairman of the committee that drew up the original South Carolina Ordinance of Secession. Next door to this is the Market Hall, dating from 1837. Once a public market, it’s now used for civic functions.
A few yards away in the 200 block of Market is a small park with a wonderful Ed Dwight-designed statue of Dizzy Gillespie, complete with trademark upward-bent horn and puffed-out cheeks. If you’re really into your Dizzy history, go see the Wesley United Methodist Church (307 Greene St.), where he attended services as a child.