Charles Town

Charles Town is a village in Sint-Anders, Hogeberg Island, Brunant and is located in the south of the island. It has a population of about 979 people. Charles Town has a substantial Irish-Brunanter population since the migration of Irish people during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. Today it still maintains a strong Irish-Brunanter population and identity. The majority speaks English, isolating Charles Town from neighboring Dutch communities.

History
Borderers Thomas and Jane Patrickson were the original English settlers of Charles Town, then called Brookford, referring to a shallow place (a ford) where a small stream (a brook) can be crossed. They settled there in 1780, a tumultuous time during which most of the Borderers were forced out of the area of Carrington Parish, causing some of them, like the Patricksons, to look for new ground. Brookford was founded on May 1 1784 by the Patricksons and about twenty-five other settlers. Thomas Patrickson had a virtual monopoly on the region's available furs, welcomed newcomers and helped them in any way he could.

Around the 1860s an influx of Irish immigrants arrived in Brookford. The town remained an Irish stronghold in the cultural, economic, and Catholic traditions of settlements across the country. The city developed a water supply from the Secret Lakes. Among the immigrants was Charles Argus, a pious priest. He became a popular confessor and was renowned as a healer. Argus was greatly loved by the Irish people to the point that after his death, in 1893, they renamed the town Charles Town in his honor. In 1988 he was recognized as a saint by Pope John Paul II.

During the early 1960s plans were initiated to demolish and redevelop sixty percent of the housing in Charles Town. In 1963 a town meeting was held to discuss the plans with the community. The dealings had created an atmosphere of distrust towards renewal and Charles Town residents opposed the plan by an overwhelming majority. By 1965 the plan had been reduced to tearing down only eleven percent of the town. Throughout the 1960s until the middle 1990s Charles Town was infamous for its Irish mob presence. The Charles Town Mob was involved in a gang war with the neighboring Summer Hill Gang, during the Irish Mob Wars of the 1960s. A tv series about the Charles Town Mob in its most active years, Small Town Crooks, was produced in and around the town itself between 2006 and 2008.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, however, Charles Town underwent a massive change. Drawn to its colonial, red-brick, row-house housing stock, many upper-middle class professionals moved to the town. Today Charles Town is a mix of upper-middle and middle-class residences, and a large working class Irish-Brunanter demographic and culture that is still predominant.

Geography
Charles Town is located north of Sint-Anders in the south of Hogeberg Island. The town's core is Fellowton Square, an old plaza in the southern part of Charles Town where townspeople gather and where the historic Town Hall is located. Charles Town contains several places of historical interest, nearly all of them are marked by Discovery Trail. Charles Town was also the location where poet Paul Lapel came to take his famous midnight strolls. A pub opened in 1870 and still in operation, The Watchman, claims to have been one of Lapel's favorite places.

Map

 * 1- Fellowton Av.
 * 2- Patrickson Av.

Notable residents

 * Woodrow C. Atgrove (1849-1896), architect
 * Henry Harlow (b. 1977), football player for Charlestown FC
 * Eugene Padric (b. 1942), historian and author of a.o. Small Town Crooks
 * Carla Solomon (1834–1900), opera singer
 * Samuel D.C. Withalson (1791-1872), artist, inventor and maritime trader