South Carolina's Convention on secession moves to Charleston to avoid smallpox outbreak

The South Carolina Convention met for the first time in Columbia, South Carolina on the morning of December 17, 1860.  By that evening, managers decided to leave Columbia due to an outbreak of smallpox in the city and reassemble in Charleston.  The Convention reconvened at 4 o'clock the next afternoon briefly in the South Carolina Institute and then moved to St. Andrew's Hall to resume the business of secession. (By John Osborne)