#7Guerin's Pharmacy
104 S. Main
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​Guerin’s Pharmacy
The oldest continuously operating pharmacy in the state, Guerin’s was built during the Civil War as a refuge for Schwettmann’s Pharmacy in Charleston which had been damaged by cannon fire. After the war, Dr. Schwettmann sold to Dr. Henry C. Guerin, a former Confederate officer and graduate of the Medical College of South Carolina. Originally clapboard, the structure now has a brick façade.
Guerin’s Pharmacy
• Guerin’s Pharmacy is known to be the oldest continuously operating pharmacy in S.C. Its Summerville roots began in Charleston’s Schwettman’s Pharmacy, decades earlier.
• Schwettmann’s Pharmacy was forced to close in Charleston due to a Federal cannonball, but quickly resumed operations at Hutchinson Square. At the time (c. 1864), Summerville was the site of two large military hospitals and thousands of refugees from the siege of Charleston.
• Henry Guerin was an antebellum medical doctor, a graduate of the Medical College of S.C. (modern MUSC). During the war, he served on General Beauregard’s staff and in 1871, he bought the Summerville pharmacy operating on its present site.
• The original Guerin’s building was of wooden construction. (It is likely that the modern brick is a façade on the surface of the original wood, added about 1920.) Dr. Guerin’s residence was a substantial house immediately to the north of the pharmacy (now gone).
• The pharmacy was very active during the Golden Age of the Inns when so many infirm people were in Summerville with medical needs. For generations of Summervillians, the pharmacy has been famous for ice cream treats and hot dogs, along with prescriptions and medical advice.
Henry Guerin (1822-1896)
• Guerins were Huguenots planters along the upper Cooper River in the early 1700s.
• Henry Guerin received an M.D. degree from the Medical College of South Carolina in 1853 and served as a commissary officer on the staff of General Beauregard at Charleston during the Civil War.
• In 1871, he purchased the pharmacy from Christian F. Schwettmann, who had moved his Charleston pharmacy to Summerville during the war; he obtained an apothecary license in 1872.
• Guerin’s Pharmacy is the oldest, continuously operating pharmacy in SC. (The origins of the pharmacy are in 1780 in Charleston, on the corner of King and Broad.)
• On the SW corner of Hutchinson Square, the building originally had a wooden exterior; it was bricked about 1910. Guerin was a widower who resided next door; his sister, Florence (Flossie) lived in a small cottage directly adjacent, facing Hutchinson Square.
