F 279 
 
 C4 M2 
 Copy 1 
 
 AN HISTORIC CHURCH. 
 
 The Westminster Abbey of South Carolina. 
 
 a Skdci) of 
 
 St. Philip's Church, 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C, 
 
 From the Establishment of the Church of England under 
 
 THE Royal Charter of 1665 to the Present Time 
 
 (July, 1897). 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD McCRADY, Senior Warden. 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 
 Lucas & Richardson Co., Printers and Engravers. 
 
 130 East Bjiy Street. 
 
 1897. 
 
F 279 
 .C4 M2 
 Copy 1 
 
 AN HISTORIC CHURCH, 
 
 The Westminster Abbey of South Carolina. 
 
 a Slictcb of 
 
 T. Philip's Churc 
 
 ■^) 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C, 
 
 From the Establishment of the Church of England under 
 
 THE Royal Charter of 1665 to the Present Time 
 
 (July, 1897). 
 
 EDWARD McCRADY, Senior Warden. 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 
 Lucas & Richardson Co., Printers and Engravers, 
 
 130 East Bay Street. 
 
 1897. 
 
Rector. 
 Rev. JOHN JOHNSON, D. D. 
 
 Edward McCrady. 
 
 Charles. F. Hanckel. 
 John M. Kinloch. 
 Thomas S. Sinkler. 
 
 Wardens. 
 
 William H. Prioleau, M. D. 
 
 Vestryuien. 
 
 Edward M. Moreland. 
 Barnwell Rhett Burnet. 
 Walter Pringle. 
 
 Isaac Mazyck. 
 
 Dele spates to the Diocesan Council. 
 
 Edward McCrady. 
 John M. Kinloch. 
 
 William H. Prioleau, M. D. 
 Isaac Mazyck. 
 
 Committee of Advice Parish Church Home. 
 
 H. W. DeSaussure, M. D. Louis deB. McCrady. 
 
 Theodore D. Jervey. J. North Smith. 
 
 R. Heber Screven. 
 
 Committee on Finance Parish Church Home. 
 
 Caspar A. Chisolm. 
 W. W. Shackelford. 
 
 Edward M. Moreland. 
 Thomas W. Bacot. 
 
 George T. Pringle. 
 
 Solicitor. 
 Thomas W. Bacot. 
 
 Secretary and Treasjirer. 
 Arthur Mazyck. 
 
AN HISTORIC CHURCH 
 
 THE WESTMINSTER ABBEY OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 A Sketch of St. Philip's Church, Charleston, S. C, 
 FROM THE Establishment of the Church of Eng- 
 land, UNDER the Royal Charter of 1665, to the 
 Present Time. 
 
 By EDWARD McCRADY, Senior Warden. 
 
 The early history of St. Phih'p's Church is but a part of 
 the colonial history of South Carolina ; and as it has been 
 said of Westminster Abbey that it was a part of the Con- 
 stitution of England, so St. Philip's was interwoven into the 
 very fabric of the Province. 
 
 The charter of King Charles II, (1665), under which the col- 
 ony was founded, granted unto the Lords Proprietors "the 
 patronage and advowsons of all the churches and chappels" 
 (i. e. the power to name and appoint ministers) "which as 
 the Christian religion shall increase within the Province, 
 territory, islets and limits aforesaid, shall happen hereafter 
 to be erected ; together with license and power to build and 
 found churches, chappels and oratories in convenient and 
 fit places within the said bounds and limits, and to cause 
 them to be dedicated and consecrated according to the 
 ecclesiastical laws of our Kingdom of England." 
 
 In pursuance of this provision of their charter, the 
 Proprietors in the famous Fundamental Constitutions, 
 which they endeavored to impose, inserted the following 
 clause : 
 
 "As the country comes to be sufficiently planted, and 
 distributed into fit divisions, it shall belong to the Par- 
 liament to take care for the building of churches and the 
 public maintenance of divines, to be employed in the exer- 
 
else of religion, according to the Church of England; which 
 being the only true and orthodox, and the national re- 
 ligion of all the King's dominions, is so also of Carolina; and 
 therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive public main- 
 tenance by grant of Parliament." 
 
 These Fundamental Constitutions, as they were termed, 
 were never assented to by the people of the Province, 
 and so were never constitutionally in force under the 
 charter. But the Church of England was accepted by 
 the colonists as established under the charter. And so we 
 find Governor Sayle, Puritan though he himself was said to 
 have been, writing to the Proprietors within three months 
 after the arrival of the colonv on the Ashley (25 June, 
 1670,) that a clergyman of the Church of England should 
 be sent to them^ — "one Mr, Sampson Bond, heretofore of 
 long standing in Exeter College in Oxford, and ordaigned 
 by the late Bishop of Exeter, the ole Do'r Joseph Hall." 
 And again in a letter of 9th September, in which Forence 
 O'Sullivan, Stephen Bull, Joseph West, Ralph Marshall, 
 Paul Smith, Samuel West and Joseph Dalton unite, he 
 urges the want of an able minister by whose means corrup- 
 ted youth might be reclaimed, and the people instructed. 
 "The Israelites' prosperity decayed when their prophets 
 were wanting, for where the ark of God is," he says, '"there 
 is peace and tranquility." {Calendar State Papers Colonial 
 {Sainsbury) London, i88g, 202-2^6.'] The Rev. Mr. Bond, 
 who was in Bermuda, did not come, though the Proprietors 
 offered him 500 acres of land and £i\o per annum if he 
 would do so. 
 
 It is not known certainly when the first minister came 
 into the Province. The Rev. Dr. Dalcho heads the list of 
 the clergy in South Carolina with the name of Morgan 
 Jones as being in the Province in 1660; and Bishop Perry 
 in his History of the American Episcopal Church {Vol. i, 
 372^ gives a letter which first appeared in the Gentleman' s 
 Magazine for March, iy^o,{Vol. 10, loj-f) purporting to 
 have been written by this clergyman March 10, 1685-6, 
 in which he states that he was sent from Virginia by Sir 
 
William Berkeley, the Governor, to meet the fleet under 
 West on its arrival. The letter is full of anachronisms and 
 impossibilities, and is manifestly a fabrication. It is safe 
 to say that no such clergyman was in the Province at that 
 time; indeed there was no Province of Carolina in 1660. 
 
 We have no account of the building of any church in Old 
 Town, on the Ashley, the site occupied by the colonists for 
 the first ten years after their arrival in Carolina. Cul- 
 pepper, the Surveyor General in 1772, marks a tract re- 
 served, as he supposed, for a minister. Bishop Perry in his 
 History oftJieAuicricaii Episcopal Church, Vol. 1,372, quotes 
 a letter of Commissary Johnson, written in 1710, in which 
 he states that the Rev. Atkin Williamson had been in the 
 Province 29 years, which would imply his arrival in 1681. 
 But in a deed of Originall Jackson and Meliscent, his wife, 
 giving a tract of land for another church, dated January 14, 
 1680-1, Mr. Williamson is mentioned as then officiating. 
 The inference is, therefore, that he had arrived at least 
 as early as some time in 16S0. Mr. Williamson in 1709 
 petitioned the General Assembly "to be considered for 
 his services in officiating as minister of Charles Town," 
 and the Act of 1710, appropriating £-}fi per annum to 
 his support, states "that he had grown so disabled with 
 age, sickness and other infirmities that he could no longer 
 attend to the duties of his ministerial functions, and was so 
 poor that he could not maintain himself." {Dalcho's Church 
 HisL,j2.) There was a clergyman in Carolina in 1689, for 
 it was one of the tyranical acts of Governor Colleton that 
 he fined and imprisoned him for preaching what the Gov- 
 ernor considered a seditious sermon. {Hist. Sketches of So. 
 Ca., Rivers, 410.) But who this minister was, Mr. William- 
 son or another, is not known. Mr. Williamson was cer- 
 tainly in the Province at that time. 
 
 Neither is it certainly known when the first church-build- 
 ing was erected within the limits of the present city. We 
 do know pretty conclusively that no such building had been 
 erected in 1682. For Thomas Ash, a clerk on board the 
 Ri(!hmond, the vessel that brought the first Huguenots in 
 
i68o, in a description of Carolina published upon his return 
 in 1682, says : "The town is regularly laid out into large and 
 capacious streets, which to buildings is a great ornament 
 and beauty. In it tJiey have rcsei'ved convenient places for a 
 chnrch, tozvn house and otJicr public struct uresy [CarroVs Col- 
 lection, Vol.2, 82.) We may safely assume that no church 
 had then been built, for the writer, who was so particular 
 in saying that a place had been reserved for a church, would 
 certainly have mentioned it, had one then been built. The 
 site reserved for the church is that at the southeast corner 
 of what are now Broad and Meeting Streets, and upon it 
 was erected the first St. Philip's Church, where now stands 
 St. Michael's. So this spot, set apart at the very inception 
 of the city, has remained .until this day consecrated to the 
 service of God and separated from all unhallowed, worldly 
 and common uses. The plot reserved was not, however, 
 nearl)' as large as that occupied by the present Church of 
 St. Michael's and its grave yard. It was not much deeper 
 upon Broad Street than the length of the present church. 
 This we know because by a deed dated June ii, 1697, a lot 
 of land adjoining the church was conveyed "to the 
 Right Honorable Proprietor Joseph Blake, Governor, and 
 his successors in trust for the use of St. Philip's Church for a 
 yard thereunto forever." [Dalcho's Churcli History, 2y.) 
 The dimensions of this lot thus added are not given. But 
 again in 1816 another lot was purchased and added to the 
 church yard which was forty feet in depth, extending from 
 the present Mansion House so as to include the iron gate 
 that opens on Broad Street, which leaves but thirty feet 
 between the gate and the church for the lot conveyed to 
 Governor Blake as an addition to the original church yard. 
 "The Octogenerian Lady," who wrote in 1855, tells us that 
 "the city square was originally the grave yard of the first 
 St. Philip's or English Church, which was built on the spot 
 where the only St. Michael's stands." But for this we have 
 no other authority. The Church was first known as "the 
 Church" or "the English Church." Its distinctive name "St. 
 Philip's" first appears in the deed to Governor Blake in 1697, 
 
above referred to. Ramsay states that the first church 
 was built about 1690, but gives no authority. Dr. Dalcho 
 thinks that it was built in 168 r or 1682. As we have said, we 
 may assume that it had not been built in 1682 ; but prob- 
 ably it was built before 1690. This is all that can be said on 
 the subject. Whenever built, it was of black cypress upon 
 a brick foundation, and was said to have been "large and 
 stately." It was surrounded by a neat white palisade fence. 
 It must, however, have been very hastily built and of un- 
 seasoned materials as the Act of 1720 for hastening the 
 completion of the new brick church which had been begun 
 in 1710 recites that it "must inevitably in a very little time 
 fall to the ground, the timbers being rotten and the whole 
 fabric entirely decayed." This may be added to Dr. Dalcho's 
 reasons for fixing the earlier date of its erection. 
 
 Though Mr. Williamson was still officiating in the col- 
 ony he does not appear to have been the minister of St. 
 Philip's in 1696, for Dalcho states that that year, the Church 
 being vacant, the Rev Samuel Marshall, A. M., was ap- 
 pointed to the cure. Mr. Marshall came out recommended 
 by the Lord Bishop of London and the Lords Proprietors 
 of the Province as a sober, worthy, able and learned divine, 
 a recommendation of which the Act of 1698, settling a main- 
 tenance on a minister of the Church of England in Charles 
 Town, declares by his devout and exemplary life and good 
 doctrine he had approved himself worthy. His rectorship 
 was, however, short ; he died of yellow fever in 1699, the 
 first appearance of that malignant disease in the Province. 
 
 Two events of great interest to the Church took place in 
 the year 1698, during Mr. Marshall's brief ministry, the first 
 of which was the passage of ''An Act to settle a maintenance 
 on a minister of the Chnrch of England in Chai'les Town.'' 
 From the recital in this Act wx learn that Mr. Marshall, 
 "out of the zeal he had for the propagation of the Christian 
 religion, and particularly that of the Church of England," 
 had "left a considerable benefice and honorable way of 
 living in England to come out to Carolina," and for that 
 
8 
 
 reason, and upon the recommendation of the Bishop of 
 London and the Lords Proprietors, the Act provided that he 
 should enjoy all the lands, houses, negroes, cattle and 
 moneys appointed for the use, benefit and behoof of the 
 minister of Charles Town, and specifically appropriated a 
 salary of £i^o per anniiin to him and his successors for ever 
 and directed that a negro man and woman and four cows 
 and calves should be purchased for his use and paid for out 
 of the public treasury. This Act was passed on the 8th 
 October, 1698. 
 
 On the loth December, in the same year, Mrs. Affra Com- 
 ing, widow of John Coming, deceased, and a lady of eminent 
 piety and liberality, made the munificent donation of 
 seventeen acres of land (then adjoining the town, now in 
 the very heart of the city) to Mr, Marshall, and his succes- 
 sors, ministers of Charles Town. This is the Glebe land now 
 held by the two Churches, St. Philip's and St. Michael's; 
 the same having been divided between them. {Dalcho's 
 Church Hist., j2-jj) 
 
 Before learning of the death of Mr. Marshall, the Pro- 
 prietors had secured the services of the Rev. Edward Mar- 
 ston, M. A., for the settlement on Cooper River, but upon 
 his arrival in 1700 he was put in charge of St. Philip's 
 Church in the place of Mr. Marshall, deceased, Unfor- 
 tunately, Mr. Marston was a person of very different dis- 
 position and character from Mr. Marshall. Though 
 recommended by an- Archbishop, as well as by the Bishop 
 of London, he had been a notorious Jacobite ere his coming 
 to this Province, and was for a time imprisoned m England 
 for railing against the government. {Hist. Ant. Epis. Ch., 
 Bishop Perry, Vol. i,jy6.) He brought with him the same 
 violent passions and contentious disposition. A Jacobite 
 in England in the reign of William, he turned with equal 
 rancor against the churchmen in Carolina under Queen 
 Anne. He espoused the cause of the dissenters against the 
 establishment of the Church in 1704, and preached most 
 violently against Sir Nathaniel Johnson, the Governor, and 
 his party — preparing notes, and keeping them ready for use 
 
in the pulpit if any of that party appeared in the church. 
 The Lay Commission of 1704 was provided especially to 
 get rid of this minister, who refused to forbear from med- 
 dling in politics. 
 
 During the controversy over the establishment of the 
 Church and the contentions with Mr. Marston, another 
 minister of a name very similar to his came into the Prov- 
 ince, and in some way obtained possession of the rectory of 
 St. Philip's and the charge of the church. This was Richard 
 Marsden. 
 
 No provision had been made by the government or 
 Church of England for the Episcopal supervision of the 
 clergy who came out to America, and it cannot be denied 
 that many of them were outcasts of the church at home, 
 some of them of the vilest character. Fortunately for the 
 Church in South Carolina, as it happened, blessed with the 
 aid of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in 
 which benefit this Province was the first of all the colonies 
 to participate, her clergymen, after the establishment of 
 the Church, were men of character, full worthy of their 
 high calling. But the scandals of many of the clergymen 
 in the colonies induced the Bishop of London, who claimed 
 a general jurisdiction of all the colonial churches, to send 
 out commissaries, i. e. presbyters charged with the general 
 administration of the Church and supervision of the clergy. 
 The Church having been now established with eight clergy- 
 men in this Province, the Bishop of London sent out the 
 Rev. Gideon Johnson, an L'ish clergyman who had been 
 recommended by the Archbishop of Dublin to the Bishop 
 of London as a suitable person to act as his commissary in 
 Carolina, requesting'that he should be made the minister of 
 Charles Town. After a very tedious passage Mr. Johnson 
 arrived off the bar, and the ship being unable to cross on ac- 
 count of the tide, impatient to get to land he ventured in a 
 small sloop with other passengers to proceed to the town. 
 Unfortunately, a sudden squall coming up, the sloop was 
 driven on a sand bank, supposed to have been Morris Island, 
 
10 
 
 and did not get to the city for some days. Mr. Johnson, 
 whose health was not good, suffered much, from the ex- 
 posure, and his temper, as it appears, still more so. To 
 add to his discomfort, he found Mr. Marsden ni the "par- 
 sonage house," claiming to be the incumbent of St. Philip's 
 Church. In his distress he poured out bitter complaints to 
 the "Great Bishop" who had sent him out, declaring that he 
 had never repented so much of anything, his sins only ex- 
 cepted, as coming to this place. He described the people 
 to whom he was sent as the vilest race of men on earth, 
 with neither honor, nor honesty, nor religion. Marsden, 
 who was with little doubt an impostor, as he could produce 
 no evidence of ordination, and could give no satisfactory 
 account of the loss of his papers, was finally ousted, and 
 Commissary Johnson duly installed as rector of St. Philip's. 
 Dalcho says that the assiduity and piety of Commissary 
 Johnson soon gained him the affection of the people, and 
 that the laborious duties of his parochial cure so im- 
 paired his health that he was given leave of absence for 
 eighteen months, during which time the Rev. Dr. Le Jau, 
 the rector of St. James Goose Creek, officiated once a month 
 at St. Philip's. 
 
 In 171 1 a free school was established by the General As. 
 sembly in connection with the Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel, and placed under the care of the Rev. Wil-. 
 Ham Guy, A. M., who at the same time was appointed as- 
 sistant to the rector of St. Philip's. Mr. Guy was the next 
 year removed to the cure of St. Helena, Beaufort, and was 
 succeeded by Thomas Morrittas master of the school, who 
 appears to have been but a deacon at the tim^, but who 
 having gone to England returned in priest's orders in 1717. 
 A strange thing now happened. Commissary Johnson had 
 been cast away on his coining to the Province upon a sand 
 bank. In the month of April, 1716, the Hon. Charles 
 Craven, Governor of the Province, embarked for England, 
 and Mr. Johnson with thirty other gentlemen went over 
 the bar to take leave of him. Again a sudden squall overset 
 their vessel, and Mr. Johnson, who was in the cabin, lame 
 
11 
 
 with the gout, was unfortunately drowned. It is remarkable 
 that the vessel is said to have drifted on the same bank on 
 which Mr. Johnson had nearly perished when he first came 
 to Carolina, and there his body was found. It was brought 
 to the town and buried with every mark of respect and sor- 
 row. His parishioners did not know of the character he 
 had given of them to the Bishop of London, else perhaps 
 they would not have held Mr. Johnson in such regard. 
 
 In England the two systems, the Parish and the Town 
 or Township, had existed from the most ancient times 
 side by side, usually but not always coincident in area, 
 yet separate in character and machiner}/. The town- 
 ship, which preceded the parish, was the unit of civil 
 and the parish the unit of ecclesiastical administration. 
 {Blackstonc Vol. i, 112-16. Stubbs Cons. Hist., i, 22y.) 
 The Puritans of New England, disaffected to the Church, 
 adopted the township system to the exclusion of the 
 parochial. The Churchmen, who settled at Barbadoes, 
 nearly about the same time, on the other hand established 
 parishes, and, from time to time adding civil to the eccles- 
 iastical duties of parochial officers, contented themselves 
 with that organization as the basis alike of civil as of ec- 
 clesiastical affairs. The parish thus became the unit alike 
 of Church and State, and the election precinct of members 
 of the Commons House of Assembly. The Church Act of 
 1706 adopted the names of the parishes in Barbadoes for 
 those in this Province, and in 1712 the care of the poor, 
 which, under Governor Archdale's act of 1695, had been 
 committed to overseers, was put under the charge of the 
 vestries and wardens of the Church in this Province — a 
 legitimate charge in their ecclesiastical capacity. 
 
 In the same year by "An Act for the better observation of 
 the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday' — which required all 
 persons to abstain from labor on that day ; or from selling 
 goods; or from travelling, excepting it be to go to a place 
 of religious worship and to return again, or to visit or relieve 
 the sick ; or from indulging in sports or pastimes — it was 
 made the duty of the constables, and church wardens of 
 
12 
 
 St. Pliilip's, once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon, 
 in time of divine service, to walk through the town and 
 to observe, suppress and apprehend all offenders against 
 this law. 
 
 In 1716 the Assembly went further and adopted the 
 Parish system of Barbadoes as a model of the government 
 of this colony. From this time until the Revolution, all 
 elections in Charles Town for members of the General 
 Assembly, &c., were held at St. Philip's, the Parish Church, 
 and were conducted by her wardens; and various municipal 
 duties were imposed upon her vestry. 
 
 The Fundamental Constitutions had provided that "all 
 towns should be governed by a Mayor, twelve Aldermen 
 and twenty-four of the Common Council," but like 
 most provisions of that most remarkable instrument this 
 was found impracticable. There was but one town in 
 the Province. And though Charles Town had become a 
 place of considerable wealth and importance, it had not 
 yet arrived at a condition to warrant so grand and ex- 
 tensive a government. There was indeed no municipal 
 'government before the Revolution. Until that time the 
 law-making power was the same for the town as for the rest 
 of the colony. The General Assembly legislated directly 
 and passed Acts relating to the streets and police regula- 
 tions and made directly all such municipal ordinances as are 
 usually delegated to a city government. One of the most 
 important and responsible of the duties and powers imposed 
 upon and entrusted to the vestries was that of assessing, 
 levying and collecting the tax for the support of the poor 
 of the parish. This was a peculiarly heavy and trouble- 
 some duty of the Vestry of St. Philip's, because of the 
 continual transient poor in the town. 
 
 In 1722 an attempt was made to change this system of 
 municipal government, and an Act was passed for the pur- 
 pose ; but an outcry was at once raised against the move- 
 ment. A petition was addressed to the Hon. James Moore, 
 Speaker, and the rest of the Commons House of Assembly 
 by the major part, it was said, of the inhabitants of Charles 
 
13 
 
 Town against it, and praying for its repeal "as they appre- 
 hended the consequence thereof will be the desertion of the 
 town by the inhabitants." Among the signatures to this 
 protest the number of Huguenot names is very noticeable 
 as the result of the protest was the retention of so much of 
 the municipal power in the vestry and wardens of the 
 Church of England. A memorial was sent to England by 
 the merchants of Charles Town desiring to be heard by 
 counsel against the Act, and though Francis Younge, who 
 was then the agent of the Colonial Government in Loudon, 
 opposed the memorial, the Lord's Justices in council, u]jon 
 a representation of the Board of Trade, approved an order 
 repealing the Act, and the government of the town was 
 left as it had been. 
 
 The Rev. Alexander Garden arrived in Charles Town in 
 1719, the year in which the Proprietary government was 
 overthrown, and was elected Rector of St. Philip's, and 
 as such he faithfully served the Church for thirty-four 
 years. {Dalciius Church History, g8.) In 17 10 an Act had 
 been passed, we have mentioned, "for the erecting of a new 
 brick church at Charles Town to be the Parish Church of 
 St. Philip's, Charles Town." Dr. Dalcho states that it is 
 not known at what period this new church was first opened 
 for divine service. He supposes that it was probably not 
 before 1727 when the old church, where St. Michael's now 
 stands, was taken down. But the exact date has since been 
 definitely ascertained. Dr. Ramsay, in a note to his 
 history, {Vol. 2, p. /j.) states that divine service was first 
 perforined in the second St. Philip's Church in 1723, and in 
 that of St. Michael's in 1761. Bishop Gadsden, in his ser- 
 mon upon the consecration of the present, the third, St. 
 Philip's Church building, also mentions that the second St. 
 Philip's Church, which was burned in 1835, was opened for 
 worship on Easter Day, 1723. In the report of the com- 
 mittee of the congregation and vestry upon the commemo- 
 ration of the one hundred and fiftieth year since the con- 
 gregation of St. Philip's Church had worshipped upon the 
 
14 
 
 present site of the Church, (1874,)^ it is said that it was 
 within the recollection of some then living that there was a 
 medallion upon the tower of the church bearing the date 
 "1723" — and such medallion appears upon the engraving of 
 the building, copies of which have been preserved. There 
 is a tradition, says the report, that, for some time after the 
 church was opened, the members of the congregation car- 
 ried chairs with them upon which they sat during the ser- 
 vice. This explains the confusion of the periods fixed for 
 the opening of the church, 1723 and 1724; the church having 
 been opened in 1723. before it was completed in 1724 when 
 the pews were, alloted. Dr. Dalcho, writing in 1820, thus 
 describes the building: 
 
 "^7. Philip's Church stands upon the east side of Church Street, a 
 few poles north of Queen Street. It is built of brick, and rough cast. 
 The Nave is 74 feet long ; the vestibule, or more properly, the belfry, 
 37, the portico 12 feet and 22^ feet wide. The Church is 62 feet wide. 
 The roof is arched, except over the galleries ; two rows of Tuscan pil- 
 lars support five arches on each side, and the galleries. The pillars are 
 ornamented on the inside with fluted Corinthian Pilasters, whose capi- 
 tals are as high as the cherubim, in relief, over the centre of each arch, 
 supporting their proper cornice. Over the centre arch on the south 
 side are some figures in heraldic form representing the infant colony 
 imploring protection of the King. The Churth was nearly finished 
 when the King purchased the Province of the Lord's Proprietors. 
 This circumstance probably suggested the idea. Beneath the figures 
 is this inscription ; Propiiis res aspice nostras. This has been 
 adopted as the motto of the seal of St. Philip's Church. Over the mid- 
 dle arch on the north side is this inscription : Deus niihi sol, with ar- 
 morial bearings, or the representation of some stately edifice. 
 
 "Each pillar is now ornamented with a piece of monumental sculp- 
 ture, some of them with bas-relief figures, finely executed by some of 
 the first artists in England. These add greatly to the beauty and 
 solemnity of the edifice. There is no chancel ; the Communion table 
 stands within the body of the Church. The east end is a panelled 
 wainscot ornamented with Corinthian pilasters, supporting the cornice 
 of a fan-light. Between the pilasters are the usual Tables of the Dec- 
 alogue, the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles Creed. The organ was im- 
 ported from England, and had been used at the coronation of George 
 
 *NoTE — This commemoration service was held on Sunday, !(th Au- 
 gust, 1874, the allotvicni of pews having been made in August, 1724; 
 but the first service was held in the Church on Easter Day, 1728. 
 
15 
 
 II. The galleries were added subsequently to the building of the 
 Church. There are 88 pews on the ground floor and 60 in the galleries. 
 Several of the pews were built by individuals at different times with 
 the consent of the vestry. The Communion Plate was a donation to 
 the Church. Two Tankards, one Chalice and Patine, and one large 
 Alms Plate were given by the government and have each the Royal 
 Arms of England engraved on each piece. One Tankard, one Chalice 
 and Patine, and one large Alms Plate have engraved on them : The 
 Gift of Col. Will. Rhett, to the Church of St. Philip, Charles Town, 
 South Carolina. One large Paten, with I. F. R., engraved on it. The 
 pulpit and reading desk stand at the east end of the Church, at the N. 
 E. corner of the middle aisle. The front of the Church is adorned 
 with a portico, composed of four Tuscan columns, supporting a double 
 pediment. The two side doors, which open into the belfry, are orna- 
 mented with round columns of the same order, which support angular 
 pediments that project 13 feet; these give to the whole building the 
 form of a cross and add greatly to its beauty. This, however, is some- 
 what obscured by the intervention of the wall of the grave yard. Pil- 
 asters of the same order with the columns are continued round the 
 body of the Church, and a parapet wall extends around the roof. 
 Between each of the pilasters is one lofty sashed window. Over the 
 double pediment was originally a gallery with balusters which has 
 since been removed as a security against fire. From this the steeple 
 rises octagonal ; in the first course are circular sashed windows on the 
 cardinal sides ; and windows with Venetian blinds in each face of the 
 second course, ornamented with Ionic pilasters, whose entablature sup- 
 ports a gallery. Within this course are two bells. An octagonal 
 tower rises from within the gallery, having sashed windows on every 
 other face, and dial plates of the clock on the cardinal sides. Above is 
 a dome upon which stands a quadrangular lantern. A vane, in the 
 form of a cock, terminates the whole. Its height probably is about 80 
 feet. 
 
 "St. Philip's Church has always been greatly admired. Its heavy struc- 
 ture, lofty arches and massive pillars, adorned with elegant sepulchral 
 monuments, cast over the mind a solemnity of feeling highly favorable 
 to religious impressions. The celebrated Edmund Burke, speaking of 
 this Church, says, it 'is spacious and executed in a very handsome taste, 
 exceeding everything of that kind which we have in America;' and the 
 biographer of Whitefield calls it 'a grand Church resembling one of 
 the new churches in London.' "* 
 
 The present Meeting Street was originally called Church 
 
 ■^'Inscriptions from tablets on the pillars and walls of the Church at 
 the time of its destruction by fire, in 1835, will be found in Dalcho's 
 Church History, pp. 13'2-126, and in the first Year Book of the Cily, 
 1880, (Mayor Courtenay). 
 
16 
 
 Street, but, upon the removal of the congregation of St. 
 Philip's to the present site of the church, the street on 
 which it was erected took the name of Church Street, and 
 the old Church Street became Meeting Street from the 
 white "Meeting House" or Congregational Church, now 
 known as the Circular Church. 
 
 The register of births, marriages and deaths still exists 
 from the year 1720, but we have no minutes of the pro- 
 ceedings of the Vestry before 1732. On the 22nd August, 
 1748, the Vestry ordered "that Mrs. Woolford be again ap- 
 ply'd to about the journal of the Vestry before the year 
 1732, which, from the demise of Mr. Heyman, the former 
 clerk of the Vestry, hath been missing and acquaint her 
 that unless she will make oath that she hath not that book 
 in her possession or knows not in whose possession it is 
 that she will be prosecuted — that, upon Mrs. Woolford 
 exculpating herself in such manner, an advertisement be 
 put in the Gazette ofTering a reward of five pounds to 
 any person that shall produce the same." Mrs. Woolford 
 must have exculpated herself, for we find advertisements 
 for the lost minute book in the Gazette of the 6th and 12th 
 of September following. The book was not recovered, 
 and this most valuable historical record is thus lost to us. 
 
 By the Church Act of 1706 the vestrymen and wardens 
 were required to take the usual oaths required by Parlia- 
 ment "and likewise to subscribe the test." The minutes 
 for the year 1733 and 1734 contain merely the entry that 
 the vestrymen and wardens took the several oaths and 
 qualified. But at every Easter election afterwards the 
 '"test" is written out and subscribed by each vestryman and 
 warden elected. The "test" for 1735, for instance, is in 
 these words: 
 
 "We, the Vestry and Churchwardens of the Parish of St. Philip's, 
 Charles-town, who have liereto subscribed our names, do declare that 
 we believe that there is no trans-substantiation whatever in the Sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper, or in the elements of bread and wine, after 
 consecration thereof by any person whatsoever. Signed the Seven- 
 
17 
 
 teenth day of April, in the year of (3ur Lord One Thousand Seven 
 Hundred and Thirty-five." 
 
 In the first vestry, of which we have the record, we find 
 the names of three Huguenots — Col. Samuel Prioleau, son 
 of Elias Prioleau the "Pastor" and the most distinguished 
 and prominent of all the Huguenots who came to thi.s Prov- 
 ince — Mr. Gabriel Manigault, the son of the emigrant and 
 of Judith Manigault, a most interesting sketch of whose re- 
 markable career is found in the 4th number of the Trans- 
 actions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina — and 
 Mr. John Abram Motte, the founder of the distinguished 
 family of that name. These gentlemen, with the other 
 vestrymen, took the oath of "supremacy," subscribed 
 the "test" just quoted, and qualified. We give a few 
 entries from the journals, showing that these offices 
 were no sinecures and indicating the municipal and other 
 duties imposed upon the Vestry and Wardens of the 
 Church, from which it will appear that there is little reason 
 for wonder that persons had to be forced to serve under 
 penalties for refusing. 
 
 An account is opened ""TJic Parish of St. Philip's Church 
 Charles Towne, Wtlliani Rhett and Henry Housea, ChiircJi 
 Wardens.'' It charges them with cash received from Gov- 
 ernor Nicholson ; from the former church wardens; from 
 "Mr. Joseph Wragg, out of the Sacrament money;" from 
 "a legacy for the poor;" &c. It credits them with "cash 
 gave for the support of John Newton, turned into the 
 streets, ^6." "Ditto Thomas Garrat, sick with the flux, 
 ;^2.io." "Ditto Mary Mathews, in a poor and miserable 
 condition, ;^I5," and so on day by day. We find them col- 
 lecting fines "for a man swearing without a book;" paying 
 money "for six days working the streets," and "for filling 
 up the pond." In 1742 we find these entries — "10 Nov'm' " 
 "By Ditto received, from Benjamin Smith a fine recovered 
 by Justice Gibbs from Peter Brez, for knocking down Mr. 
 Pinckney's negro, £2." "Ditto Mr. Tributed for retailing 
 rum on Sunday, los." "Ditto sundry fines received from 
 several persons for walking about streets on Sunday during 
 
18 
 
 divine service, 19s. 6d." The same, April 11, 1743, £i- 5-s 
 3d. August 3, 1745, "for a white man beating a negro," 
 £2. "August 7, 1747, by ditto of Mr. Gibbs for persons 
 beating negroes £6. February 24, 1749, received Coll 
 Austin for a white man striking a negro, £2. Ditto James 
 Larden, striking a negro £2,'' &c., &c. 
 
 In 1733 Mr. John Laurens, another Huguenot, father of 
 Henry Laurens, of Revolutionary fame, is elected Church 
 Warden, and on the 9th of April acquaints the Vestry that 
 Dr. John Turner was willing to take care of the poor of the 
 parish and look after them for i^ioo current money which 
 the Vestry agreed to give. On the 5th July 1734 the Ves- 
 try signed the tax list for ^1,000 towards the relief and 
 maintenance of the poor — in 1738 the tax list is signed for 
 ^1,534 8s. 3d, &c., &c. 
 
 Li 1734 the Vestry presented a memorial to the Assem- 
 bly representing the poor accommodation for the lodging 
 and care of the sick and the extravagant charges for the 
 same, the trouble of the officers, and the suffering of the 
 sick in consequence and ask for the appropriation of so 
 much of the square piece of ground belonging to the public 
 in Charles Town as might be necessary whereon to erect 
 proper buildings for the use of the work house and hos- 
 pital, and for authority to erect buildings at their own 
 proper charge. August 3, 1738, the Wardens advertised 
 that the number of poor and sick suffering from smallpox 
 daily increases, and the cost as well as the difficulty in pro- 
 viding lodging and nurses is so great that they have hired 
 a house and provided proper attention for the reception of 
 all such as are the objects of charity. The hospital was 
 erected (See Statutes Vol. Vn-90,) and appears to have 
 been in operation as we find on March 7, 1748, an advertise- 
 ment in the Gazette that Frederick Holzendorff, chi- 
 rurgeon, of St. Pliilif s Hospital, in Charles Town, has re- 
 moved his residence. 
 
 The death of Mr. Commissary Johnson in 1716 left the 
 Bishop of London without a representative in this part of 
 
19 
 
 his charge. The number of clergymen increasing, the Rev. 
 Alexander Garden was appointed by Dr. Gibson, Bishop of 
 London, in 1726, his commissary for the Provinces of North 
 and South Carolina and the Bahama Islands. We have no 
 record of the conduct of the Rev. Gideon Johnson in the 
 discharge of his duties as Commissary ; but Commissary 
 Garden, we find, held annual visitations regularly in this 
 Province. These visitations were in the form of meetings 
 of the clergy convened for the purpose, at which each 
 clergyman was required to exhibit to the Commissary his 
 Letters of Orders and License to perform the ministerial 
 office in the Province, and a report of his parochial services. 
 A sermon was preached at each of these visitations by some 
 one of the clergy appointed for the purpose. The visita- 
 tions were held in St. Philip's Church. 
 
 From 1742 we find recorded in the journals of the Vestry 
 each year the elections on Monday in Easter week, pur- 
 suant to Act of Assembly, not only of the Vestry and 
 Wardens of the Church, but of such municipal officers as five 
 Commissioners of the Highway, five Commissioners of the 
 Market, si.x Packers, five Wood Measurers and five F'ire 
 Masters. Thus were the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of 
 the town settled at the porch of the church. 
 
 After the establishment of the Free School by the As- 
 sembly, December 12, 1712, the school of the Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel was united with the Pro- 
 vincial institution, and the school thus formed was con- 
 tinued in connection with St. Philip's Church until the 
 Revolution. In the year 1728 the Rev. Mr. Morritt was 
 removed from the charge of the school upon his appoint- 
 ment to the cure of Prince George's, Winyaw, and the Rev. 
 John Lambert, A. M.. was appointed by the Society their 
 school master in Charles Town and afternoon preacher at 
 St. Philip's Church. He died, however, the following year, 
 and was buried in the church yard, where the stone which 
 m.arks his grave still stands."^'' In 1736 the parochial 
 duties of St. Philip's had so increased that the Rector found 
 
 *See the inscription given in Dalcho's Churcli History, p. 114. 
 
20 
 
 it impracticable to perform them alone. The Assembly, 
 therefore, May 29. 1736, appropriated £so sterling per 
 annum, to be increased by such further sum as the people 
 might be willing to subscribe, for the support of an assis- 
 tant, and upon this provision the Vestry, June 8, 1736, so- 
 licited the Bishop of London to recommend and appoint 
 some suitable person to assist the Rector in his pastoral 
 duties. The Rev. William Orr, A. M., was accordingly 
 licensed to perform divine service in this Province, and 
 upon his arrival was elected assistant to the Rector. 
 
 An attempt was made in 1739 to obtain "a ring of six 
 bells" and a clock for the Church, and the sum of ;^ 1,192 
 currency, equal to £\<\() sterling, was raised by subscription 
 for the purpose, but the sum was insufficient. Five years 
 later the Vestry ordered a good, plain, substantial church 
 clock, completely fitted for the steeple, to go for eight 
 days, and also a good bell of about 600 weight. They were 
 sent, but upon their arrival proved unsatisfactory. The 
 stroke of the clock was weak, and the bell, the Vestry said, 
 sounded as from a dunghill, and so low that it could not be 
 heard at two or three hundred yards. They were returned. 
 
 Two events of interest in connection with St. Philip's 
 Church took place in the year 1740, These were the trial 
 of the Rev. George VVhitefield by Commissary Garden's 
 ecclesiastical court, and the great fire of that year. 
 
 Mr. Whiteficld, who had come out to America to aid 
 Oglethrope in the settlement of Georgia, had previously 
 been to Charlestown. In August, 1738, while about to em- 
 bark for Europe, he had paid a visit to Commissary Garden, 
 and, at his request, preached in St. Philip's the next Sun- 
 day, morning and evening, and was most cordially thanked 
 by him. He returned in 1740, after having had a inost 
 wonderful career in England, where his auditpries had often 
 consisted of 20,000 persons; but where he had given oc- 
 casion to the Bishop of London for publishing a charge to 
 his clergy to avoid alike the extreme of enthusiasm and 
 lukewarmness. He had come this time by the way of Phil- 
 
21 
 
 adelphia, and travelling through Pennsylvania, the Jeseys, 
 New York and back again to Maryland, Virginia, North 
 Carolina and this Province, he had preached all along to 
 immense congregations. With Mr. James Habersham's as- 
 sistance he had founded an orphan asylum in Georgia, 
 which he called I^ethesda ; and the first collection he 
 made for it was in the Congregational Church in Charles- 
 town — the Circular Church. He had been cordially re- 
 ceived in this city (the place, his biographer says, "of 
 his greatest success and the greatest opposition") by Com- 
 missary Garden on his first visit ; but the enthusiasm, against 
 which the Bishop of London had to warn him, led him here 
 to disregard canonical obligations, which Commisary Garden, 
 charged with the oversight of the clergy in this part of the 
 Bishop of London's jurisdiction, deemed it his duty to enforce. 
 Being often called upon to preach to large crowds, many 
 of whom neither possessed nor knew how to use the Book 
 of Common Prayer in public worship, Whitefield departed 
 from the rule of his Church, making extempore prayers and 
 conducting services without regard to the Prayer Book. 
 This Commissary Garden prohibited, and, Whitefield per- 
 sisting, he was cited to appear before an ecclesiastical 
 court, held in St. Philip's Church on the 15th July, 1740, 
 to answer for his conduct. He did not himself appear in 
 response to the summons, but Mr. Andrew Rutledge, his 
 counsel, appeared for him and protested against the au- 
 thority of the Court. The Court overruled the plea to its 
 jurisdiction, and Whitefield appealed to the Lord's Com- 
 missioners in England, appointed by the King, for hearing 
 appeals in spiritual causes from his Majesty's plantation in 
 America. The appeal was allowed, but Whitefield did not 
 prosecute it ; and after the expiration of the time limited, 
 he having procured no prohibition against the Court's pro- 
 ceeding, it went on with the case, and, Whitefield failing to 
 answer after successive adjournments to allow him an op- 
 portunity so to do, judgment of suspension was pronounced 
 against him. {Dalcho s Church Hist., 128-1^6.) Unfortunate 
 indeed was it for the Church of England that it could at that 
 
22 
 
 time find no means of availing itself of the great work of 
 the Wesleys and of Whitefield ; unhappy indeed that it 
 allowed a great and needed revival to end in schism instead 
 of reformation.* 
 
 The year 1740 was likewise memorable in the annals of 
 South Carolina, for a destructive fire, which broke out in 
 Charlestown on Tuesday 1 8th November. It began in a Sad- 
 ler's shop on the south side of Broad Street, between Church 
 Street and East Bay, about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. The 
 houses being generally of wood, and the wind from the 
 northwest, the fire raged with uncontrollable fury, and in 
 four hours consumed every house south of Broad Street 
 besides some on the north side. All the wharves, store- 
 houses, and produce were destroyed. The loss was esti- 
 mated at nearly one million and a half dollars, and the 
 number of houses destroyed at three hundred. Universal 
 sympathy was exerted for the distresses of the people. A 
 solemn fast was held on Friday, the 28th, and collections 
 were made at the Churches for the benefit of the sufferers. 
 Subscriptions were likewise opened in town and country, 
 and the amount collected, as well as ;^i,5oo appropri- 
 ated by the General Assembly and i^20,ooo voted by Par- 
 liament, was paid into the hands of the Church War- 
 dens of St. Philip's Church to be distributed according 
 to their discretion among the sufferers. The minute book 
 shows the Vestry and Wardens meeting day after day, re- 
 ceiving contributions and distributing to the poor, and as 
 late as April, 1741, awarding William Osborne ^100 cur- 
 rency towards buying a pilot boat, his having been burnt in 
 the time of the fire. 
 
 In 1741 the Rev. Mr. Orr, assistant Minister of St. Philip's, 
 was appointed to the mission of St. Paul's Parish ; and the 
 Rev. William McGilchrist, who had been sent out by the 
 
 *NoTE — The following is represented as the state of the different re- 
 ligious bodies in Carolina in 1740 : 
 
 Episcopalians ~] i ^i} 
 
 Presbyterians, French and other Protestants. ... I To the J 4^ ( to 10. 
 
 Baptists (whole as 1 1 
 
 Quakers J [ 1 
 
23 
 
 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, was appointed 
 in his place at St. Philip's. 
 
 We find a curious advertisement, by Mr. Garden, in the 
 South Carolina Gazette of March ii, 1743. It states that 
 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, having long 
 at heart the propagation of the Gospel among the negroes 
 and Indian races in his Majest\''s colonies in America, had 
 resolved on the following method of pursuing that end, viz : 
 by purchasing some country-born negroes, causing them to 
 be instructed to read the Bible, and in the chief precepts of 
 the Christian religion, and thenceforth employing them as 
 school masters for the same instructions of-all negroes and 
 Indian children as might be born in the colonies. The ad- 
 vertisement goes on to state that in pursuance of this plan 
 the Society had purchased, about fifteen months before, 
 two such negroes for this service, and assigned one of them 
 for Charlestown, who would be sufificiently qualified in a 
 few months, and to whom all the negro and Indian children 
 of the parish might be sent for education without any 
 charge to the masters and owners; and Mr. Garden con- 
 cludes with an appeal for a voluntary contribution of ^^400 
 currency to build a school house for the purpose, which he 
 consents should be put up in a corner of the Glebe land 
 near the parsonage. 
 
 This appeal was answered, and in the Gazette of April 
 2nd, 1744, Dr. Garden publishes an account of receipts and y 
 
 expenditures in which it appears that he had received con- 
 tributions to the amount of £22^. Among the contributors 
 were Hon. Charles Pinckney, Joseph VVragg, Robert Pringle, 
 Jacob Motte, Col. Othniel Beale, Benjamin Smith and 
 Sarah Trott. 
 
 The two negro boys so purchased received the baptismal 
 names of Harry and Andrew. The school was established, 
 and the experiment tried in the hope that the negroes 
 would receive instructions from teachers of their own race 
 with more facility and willingness than from white teachers. 
 The school was continued for twenty-two years, first under 
 the supervision of Commissary Garden, as Rector of St. 
 
24 
 
 Philip's, then of his successor, the Rev. Mr. Chirke, and then 
 of the Rev. Robert Smith, afterwards the first Bishop of 
 South Carolina. 
 
 The Rev. Commissary wrote to the Society in 1743 
 that the negro school was likely to succeed and con- 
 sisted of thirty children. In 1744 upwards of 60 children 
 were instructed in it daily, 18 of whom read in the Testa- 
 ment, 20 in the Psalter, and the rest in the spelling books. 
 In 1746 there were 55 children under tuition, and 15 adults 
 were instructec^ in the evening. In 1755 there were 70 chil- 
 dren in the school, and books were given for their use. In 
 1757 Mr. Clarke informed the Society that the negro school 
 in Charleston was flourishing and full of children. The 
 Rev. Mr. Smith, during his Rectorship, examined the pro- 
 ficiency of the children twice a week, and the school was 
 deemed in a flourishing condition. But Andrew, one of 
 the teachers, died ; and the other, Harry, "turned out profli- 
 gate" — and, as the Society had not invested to any greater 
 extent in slaves for educational purposes, they had no other 
 black or colored person to take charge of the school and so 
 it was discontinued. 
 
 The Gazette of April 30, 1744, contains this interesting 
 paragraph : 
 
 "On Thursday (i. e. 26th April) we had a violent storm of lightning, 
 thunder and rain here. The lightning has done considerable damage 
 to St. Philip's Church, the steeple and organ, and killed Mr. Furniss, 
 who was at work in said church hanging one of the bells. Mr. Isaiah 
 Burnet (Furniss' partner) was knocked down senseless about half an 
 hour, but recovered soon after. One Wilson was also wounded in the 
 knee The top of the steeple is much shattered, but where the light- 
 ning entered on the north side of the church the holes are not above 
 an inch in diameter." 
 
 The Gazette of June iith, 1744, announces another storm, 
 and that the lightning again shattered St. Philip's Church 
 steeple, and struck the organ in the same spot as when Mr. 
 Furniss was killed. It adds that the storm had likewise in- 
 jured the Dissenters' Meeting House, and that several 
 houses were struck in different parts of the town, yet it did no 
 
25 
 
 damage. The injury to the steeple and organ could not 
 have been very great, however, as we can find in the jour- 
 nals no allusion to the incident, 
 
 The health of the Rev. Mr. McGilchrist failing, he gave 
 notice to the Vestry of his intention to return to England. 
 Whereupon the Vestry applied at once to the Lord Bishop 
 of London to send them out another clergyman to fill his 
 place, and in their letter they make the statement that "the 
 Parish is large, and that the usual auditory in it is six or 
 seven hundred people." Mr. McGilchrist was succeeded on 
 January 25, 1746, by the Rev. Robert Betham, A. M., but 
 he lived a little more than a year after his arrival, dying on 
 the 31st May, 1747, and was succeeded July, 6, 1747, by the 
 Rev. Samuel Quincy; and he having resigned, the Rev. 
 Alexander Keith, Rector of Prince George, Winyaw, suc- 
 ceeded him. 
 
 The congregation of St. Philip's outgrew the original 
 Church, and had removed as we have seen to the site of the 
 present edifice in 1723. In less than thirty years it had 
 again outgrown its second edifice. So in 175 1 an Act 
 directed "that all that part of Charlestown, situate and 
 lying to the southward of the middle of Broad Street 
 * * * * , be known by the name of the Parish of St. 
 Michael's," and that a church be erected "on or near the 
 place where the old Church of St. Philip's, Charlestown, 
 formerly stood" at a cost to the public of not more than 
 iJ^ 1 7,000 proclamation money. The cornerstone was laid 
 February 17. 1752, by his Excellency Governor G!en, which 
 ceremony was followed by a grand dinner. The dinner 
 over, his Majesty's health was drunk, followed by a discharge 
 of the cannon at Granville Hastion ; then the health of the 
 Royal F"amily, and the other Royal toasts. The Gazette 
 adds: The day was concluded with peculiar pleasure and 
 satisfaction. The building of the church did not however 
 progress much faster than had that of St. Philip's. The 
 first Vestry of St. Michael's was not organized until 1759 
 and the first service was not performed until February, 1761. 
 
26 
 
 The church which still stands is well known for the beaut}' 
 of its steeple, and is famed for its chime of bells, alike re- 
 markable for their sweetness of tone and romantic history. 
 The cost of the church was £53,535 8s. gd. currency of the 
 time, about $32,775.87. Of this, ^2 1 ,877 were subscribed for 
 pews, and ^^31,656 15s. gd. were granted by the Assembly. 
 
 In the division of the parishes the care of the poor in 
 both were left to St. Philip's, and the Church Wardens and 
 Vestry of St. Philip's were authorized to assess and collect 
 the taxes for the support of the poor as well upon the in- 
 habitants of the Parish of St. Michael's as upon the inhab- 
 itants of the Parish of .St. Philip's. The representation 
 in the General Assembly was equally divided between 
 the two Parishes; each was to send a Senator, and three 
 Members to the Common House of Assembly. The 
 Rev. Alexander Garden, then Rector of St. Philip's, 
 was allowed ;£^40 proclamation money in lieu of the per- 
 quisites he would lose by the division of the Parish. It 
 was provided by the Act that it should be lawful for the in- 
 habitants of either of the two Parishes to bury their dead in 
 the Church yard of the other Parish. The division was at first 
 territorial, and thus it happened that in many families the 
 different branches residing in the different parts of the city 
 were divided. There was a special provision in the Act 
 that no person should own a pew in each Church, unless he 
 owned a house in each Parish. {Statutes, Vol. 1^11, yg.) 
 Besides their distinctive names (" St. Philip'sJ' and " St. 
 Micliacr s") the Churches obtained the appellations of "the 
 Old Church," and "the New Church," and St. Michael's 
 continued to be familiarly called "The New Church" until 
 some time after the burning of " the Old Church" (St. 
 Philip's) in 1835. The writer of this, who is among the 
 last of those baptized in " the Old Church," was accus- 
 tomed to hear St. Michael's called in his family until the 
 late war " tJie Nezv Church!'' 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Garden had been Rector of St. Philip's 
 thirty-four years when his increasing infirmities compelled 
 him to seek relief from laborious duties ; and he gave notice 
 
27 
 
 to the Vestry that he intended to resi^^n the Rectorship on 
 or before the 25th March, 1754 — Mr. Keith, the assistant 
 minister, had also given notice of his intention to resign — 
 the Vestry thereupon wrote to the Bishop of London, re- 
 questing him to send out two clergymen in their room. In 
 their letter to the Bishop the V^estry gave the following 
 honorable testimony to Mr. Garden's character. 
 
 "We should be greatly wanting in duty should we omit to say that 
 Mr. Garden, during his residence of thirty years and more among us, 
 has behaved with becoming piety, zeal and candor in his sacred minis- 
 try and function, which he hath exercised with unwearied labour and 
 diligence, to the glory of God and the edification of souls ; and we can 
 with truth aver he hath been a good Shepherd of Christ's flock." 
 
 On Sunday, March 31st, 1754, Mr. Garden preached his 
 farewell sermon to a crowded audience at St. Philip's 
 Church from Romans x, 1. Dr. Dalcho gives the conclud- 
 ing passages of this most touching and eloquent address. 
 
 How different is this character which Commissary Garden 
 gives of the people' from that written by his predecessor, 
 Commissary Johnson, to the Bishop of London: 
 
 You know (my Brethren) I abhor flattery; it is sinful at all times, 
 and would be unpardonable from this sacred place; I am under no 
 temptation to it; and therefore shall speak forth only the words of 
 trtcth and soberness concerning the Inhabitants of Charles Town when 
 I bear this testimony to them, viz: that however as in all other com- 
 munities there are many bad Individuals amongst them, too many 
 despisers of Religion and Virtue, yet, generally speaking, the most 
 substantial and /snowing part are a sober, charitable and religiously 
 disposed people. Nor out of this character do I exclude Dissenters of 
 any denomination with whom I have always lived in all peace and 
 friendship, and who have always treated me with civility and decent 
 regard. Would God that there was no Schism, no Dissention amongst 
 us; but that all were of one Mind and one Mouth; all united in the 
 same Communion of the Church of England : But if this may not be, 
 to their own Master, they who dissent, must stand or fall; let us live in 
 Peace, friendship and charity towards them. My hope and earnest 
 desire of my heart axiA prayer to God for them also is, that they may 
 be saved. And moreover I take this opportunity thus publicly to 
 declare that there is neither Man, Woman nor Child in the whole 
 Province of Carolina with whom I am not in perfect Charity and to 
 whom I do not heartily and sincerely wish all happiness, both temporal 
 and eternal." 
 
28 
 
 We can quote in addition only this last passage: 
 
 "Once more, (my beloved Brethren,) /art^iccl/ / May the very God 
 of Peace sanctify you wholly; and preserve your whole spirits and 
 souls and bodies blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 "May all the blessings of Heaven descend upon all the inhabitants of 
 this Province in general ; those of Charles Town in particular ; but 
 more especially orv you, the beloved people of my late charge— may the 
 ever blessed and glorious Trinity bless you in the city, and in the Field ; 
 in the fruit of your Body, the fruit of your Cattle, and the fruit of your 
 Ground . Bless you in your Basket ; and in your Store, and in all that 
 you set your Hand unto. Bless you with all the temporal blessings of 
 Health, of Peace and Prosperity ; but above all, and as the Source of all, 
 bless you with truly faithful and obedient Hearts and finally conduct 
 you safe to the Blessed Region of Glory and Immortality." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Garden was beloved, says Dr. Dalcho, by 
 the clergy as a father, and greatly esteemed by the con- 
 gregation for whose spiritual welfare he had labored so 
 many years. The Vestry, Wardens and Parishioners joined 
 ill an address, expressing their reverence and love, and pre- 
 sented to him a piece^of plate with an engraving upon it of 
 the west front of the Church and an appropriate inscrip- 
 tion. {^Sec the Address in Dalchd s C/uirch Hist., with names 
 thereto, p. 1 71-174.) 
 
 In consequence of the application of the Vestry to the 
 Bishop of London, the Rev. Richard Clarke, A. M., and the 
 Rev. John Andrews, L. L. B., arrived from England in 1753, 
 and were duly chosen Rector and Assistant Minister. Mr. 
 Andrews remained but a short time. He resigned Novem- 
 ber 9, 1756, and returned to England. Mr. Clarke who 
 was a very learned and able theologian, remained until 1759 
 when he too returned to England. Mr. Andrews had been 
 succeeded as Assistant Minister by the Rev. Robert Smith, 
 A. M., Fellow of Caius and Gonville College, Cambridge, 
 who now, upon the departure of Mr. Clarke, was chosen 
 Rector, in which position he was to remain for forty-two 
 years. He had for his first Assistant Minister the Rev. 
 Winwood Sergeant, who occupied the position but a very 
 short time, and was succeeded by the Rev. Robert Cooper, 
 (late Rector of Prince William's Parish) December 10, 1759, 
 
29 
 
 who in two j^ears was chosen the first Rector of St. 
 Micliael's. The Rev. Joseph Dacre Wilton arrived from 
 England at the end of 1 761, and was elected assistant Jan- 
 uary 9, 1762. He died in 1767, and was buried in the 
 church yard. Mr. Wilton was succeeded by the Rev. 
 James Crallan, October 14, 1767, who resigned April 25, 
 1768. 
 
 The health of Mr. Smith having suffered from the climate, 
 he was advised by his physicians to make a voyage to Eng- 
 land — the Rev. Mr. Cooper and the Rev. Mr. Hart, of 
 St. Michael's, consenting to supply the Church during his 
 absence. Mr. Smith remained in England near two years, 
 and while there engaged the Rev. Robert Purcell, A. M., as 
 Assistant Minister of St. Philip's. This clergyman had 
 been curate to the Rector of Shipton-Mallet for eight 
 years, and was highly recommended for his talents and piety. 
 He arrived in Charlestown June 18, 1769, and on the 12th 
 July was elected assistant to the Rector of St. Philip's, a 
 position which he filled until 1775, when he returned to 
 England to make some arrangements for the Church at 
 Shipton-Mallet, where he had left a substitute ; but the war 
 breaking out he remained in England and received a pen- 
 sion of £100 per aiimun as a Loyalist. 
 
 While in the other colonies most of the clergymen of the 
 English Church, and most of the Churchmen, were Tories, 
 the very reverse was the case in South Carolina. The leaders 
 of the Revolution in this Province were almost all from 
 old St. Philip's, and with them the Rev. Robert Smith, the 
 Rector, was in hearty accord. Of the party which Christo- 
 pher Gadsden assembled under the Liberty Tree, in 1766, 
 ten of the twenty-six were his fellow worshippers in the 
 old Church, to wit — Wm. Johnson, Joseph Verree, Nathaniel 
 Lebby, John Hall, Tunis Tebout, William Trusler, Robert 
 Howard, Alexander Alexander, Edward and Daniel Cannon. 
 That we are correct in saying that the leaders of the Revo- 
 lution were most from St. Philip's will be recognized when 
 we recall well known names of those who led the people 
 
30 
 
 and worshipped in this Church, to ivit — Christopher Gads- 
 den, Henry Laurens and his son John, Rawlins Lowndes, 
 Col. Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 
 Thomas Pinckney, the Rutledges (Edward and Hugh — 
 John Rutledge had removed to St. Michael's), Henry Mid- 
 dleton and his son Arthur, William Johnson and Daniel 
 Cannon. Of the sixty principal citizens of South Carolina, 
 upon the fall of Charleston arrested and sent by the British 
 in exile to St. Augustine, in violation of their paroles, 
 more than a third were from St. Philip's, viz — Christo- 
 pher Gadsden, Thomas Ferguson, Peter Timothy, John 
 Edwards, Edward Rutledge, Hugh Rutledge, Isaac Holmes, 
 William Hasell Gibbes, Alexander Moultrie, John Earnest 
 Poyas, Doctor Peter Fayssoux, Edward McCrady, John 
 Neufville, William Johnson, Thomas Grimball, Anthony 
 Toomer, Robert Cochran, Thomas Hall, Arthur Middle- 
 ton, Samuel Prioleau, Jr., Edward Weyman, Henry Crouch, 
 and John Splatt Crips. And so it was that, when in the 
 outset of the Revolution the Provincial Congress set 
 apart the 17th February, 1778, as a day of fasting, hu- 
 miliation and prayer, the Commons House of Assembly, 
 with the silver Mace (the same which still lies upon the 
 Speaker's desk during a session of our present House of 
 Representatives) borne before them, went in procession to 
 St. Philip's Church, where a pious and excellent sermon was 
 preached before them by the Rector, the Rev. Robert 
 Smith, for which he received the thanks of the body. Mr. 
 Smith continued to officiate during the Revolution until 
 Charlestown fell into the hands of the British, when he was 
 banished to Philadelphia and his property confiscated. The 
 Rev, Charles Frederick Moreau took charge of the Church 
 during the British occupancy of the city. 
 
 The Rev. Robert Smith, upon his return from exile after 
 the Revolution, in May, 1783, was joyfully welcomed by 
 the inhabitants of Charlestown generally. St. Philip's in 
 particular gladly hailed the arrival of their honored and be- 
 loved minister. The deranged state of the finances of the 
 Church at this period, as well as of his own estate which 
 
31 
 
 had been sequestered by the British, made it necessary 
 for him to add to the great and multipHed labors 
 of his pastoral function the arduous and anxious 
 responsibility of tuition. He organized an academ}^ 
 for which he spared neither trouble nor expense in ob- 
 taining the best qualified classical teachers, and which 
 afterward, upon the passage of an Act establishing the 
 Charleston ("oUege in 1785, became incorporated with 
 that institution, of which he was appointed the prin- 
 cipal. It was also, says Dalcho, through his unwearied ex- 
 ertions that the Vestries of St. Philip's and St. Michael's 
 were led to associate in a convention for the purpose of 
 sending delegates to a General Convention of the Episco- 
 pal Church in the United States. This was the beginning 
 of the Diocesan Convention, or Council as it is now called, 
 in South Carolina. He attended the General Convention 
 held in 1786 at Wilmington, Delaware. In 1789 Mr. 
 Smith received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from 
 the University of Pennsylvania. In 1795 he was elected 
 the first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
 South Carolina, and was consecrated at Christ Church, 
 Philadelphia, on the 13th September of that year. Bishop 
 Smith established the precedent of remaining pastor, not- 
 withstanding his elevation to the episcopate, which was 
 followed by his three successors in office. In 1786 the Rev. 
 Thomas Frost arrived from England, whence he had come 
 at the invitation of Dr. Smith as his assistant, and remained 
 in that station until the death of Bishop Smith in 1801 
 when he became Rector, but unhappily survived only until 
 1804. 
 
 The Revolution had left the Church in an anomalous 
 condition. Under the law of England the "parson" or 
 Rector was a corporation sole, in whom the property of the 
 Church was vested. But the Church had been disestablished 
 by the Constitution of 1778; and the title to the property 
 formerly vested in the parson was a matter of legal ques- 
 tion. [It does not appear that any division of the Glebe 
 
32 
 
 lands given by Mrs. Affra Coming had been made between 
 St. Philip's and St. Michael's Churches upon the creation of 
 St. Michael's Parish, but the interest of St. Michael's in them 
 was recognized.] To meet this condition of affairs, in 1785 
 an Act was passed incorporating the Vestries and Church 
 Wardens of the two Parishes into one corporate body, with 
 power to hold and dispose of the lands and other property 
 then vested in the said Churches or any other they might 
 acquire. {Statutes S, J^o/. 168.) This arrangement did not, 
 however, work well, and so in 1791 the Vestries and Wardens 
 of the two Churches obtained from the Legislature another 
 Act making the two Churches separate and distinct bodies 
 politic and corporate. {Ibid. 16S.) Before the passage of 
 this Act an agreement had been entered into by the two 
 Churches for a division of the Glebe lands. This agree- 
 ment was confirmed by the Act separating the Churches. 
 It was not, however, until the year 1797 that a formal deed 
 of partition was executed by the two bodies. In this di- 
 vision St. Philip's Church obtained the greater quantity of 
 land, most of which, however, was at the time vacant and 
 unimproved ; while St. Michael's obtained most of the im- 
 proved property with a more regular income. 
 
 By the State Constitution of 1790 Charleston, including 
 the two Parishes of St. Philip's and St. Michael's, was made 
 one election precinct, with fifteen members of the House 
 of Representatives — and two Senators, one for each of the 
 Parishes. This was the origin of the allowance of two Sen- 
 ators to the City of Charleston, which continued until the 
 Constitution of 1895. The Senators and Representatives 
 were styled from the Parishes of St. Philifs and St. Michael's, 
 not from Charleston. 
 
 When Mr. Frost became Rector in 1801, the Rev. Peter 
 Manigault Parker, the first native born South Carolinian to 
 enter the ministry of the Church, became Assistant Minister, 
 but lived only about a year after. Upon the death of Mr. 
 Frost the Rev. George Pogson, Rector of St. James Goose 
 Creek, officiated during that summer; and then the Rev. 
 Edward Jenkins, Rector of St. Michael's, was called, and ac- 
 
cepted the charge of St. Phih'p's December 2, 1804, and the 
 Rev. William Percy was elected a temporary or third Min- 
 ister of St. Philip's and St. Michael's conjointly. In the 
 Spring of 1807 Dr. Jenkins w^ent to England, leaving the 
 Rev. James Dewar Simons to officiate during his absence. 
 Dr. Jenkins resigned the next year, and Mr. Simons was 
 elected Rector August 7, 1809. T^^^Q Rev. Christopher 
 Edwards Gadsden, Minister of St. John's Berkeley, was 
 elected assistant December 21, 1809, when Dr. Percy ceased 
 to officiate at St. Philip's. The Rev. Mr. Simons died May 
 27, 1 8 14, and Mr. Gadsden became Rector. The Rev. 
 Thomas D. Frost, son of the Rector, became Assistant 
 Minister March 12, 1815, and died May 16, 1819. The Rev. 
 Alston Gibbs officiated the remainder of the year. 
 
 St. Philip's Church had escaped the great fires which had 
 devastated the city in 1740, 1778, 1796, and in 18 10. In 
 that of 1796 the French Protestant Church, but a short dis- 
 tance from it, was burned, and the steeple of St. Philip's 
 was on fire but was saved by the gallant conduct of a 
 negro man who climbed to the burning shingles and tore 
 them off, for which service he obtained his freedom. It 
 had only escaped these great conflagrations to be destroyed 
 at last in one of much smaller extent, on Sunday morn- 
 ing, February 14, 1835. ^^ take the following account of 
 its destruction from The Courier, of February 16, 1835 : 
 
 * * * "The most striking feature of this calamity is the destruc 
 tion of St. Philip's Church, commonly known as the Old Church. The 
 venerable structure, which has for more than a century (having been 
 built in 1723) towered among us in all the solemnity and noble pro- 
 portions of antique architecture, constituting a hallowed link between 
 the past and the present, with its monumental memorials of the beloved 
 and honored dead, and its splendid new organ (which cost $4,500), is 
 now a smoking ruin. Although widely separated from the burning 
 houses by the burial ground, the upper part of the steeple, the only 
 portion of it externally composed of wood, took fire from the sparks 
 which fell upon it in great quantities. It is much to be regretted that 
 preventive measures had not been taken in season to save the noble and 
 consecrated edifice. The flames slowly descending wreathed the 
 steeple, constituting a magnificent spectacle and forming literally a 
 pillar of fire, and finally enwrapped the whole body of the church in its 
 
34 
 
 enlarged volume. The burning of the body of the church was the 
 closing scene of the catastrophe. In 1796 it was preserved by a negro 
 man who ascended it and was rewarded with his freedom for his peril- 
 ous exertions, and again in 1810 it narrowly escaped the destructive 
 fire of that year, which commenced in the house adjoining the Church 
 yard on the north. 
 
 "We have been informed that the only monument of the interior of 
 the church which was not totally destroyed is one that with an acci- 
 dental appropriateness bears the figure of grief." 
 
 The Rev. John Johnson, D. D., the present Rector of St. 
 Philip's Church, in his sermon preached on Sunday, August 
 9, 1874, in commemoration of the one hundred and fiftieth 
 year of the occupation of the present site of the church for 
 divine service, speaking of the Rectorship of the "dear 
 old Dr. Gadsden,'' says: 
 
 "It is his ministry also which really bridges over a great chasm in 
 the history of the Parish. I mean the destruction of the Old Church 
 by fire, and the worshipping by the congregation in a temporary frame 
 building erected in the middle of the western church yard. Dr. Gads- 
 den had been your Rector for twenty-one years, when on that fatal 
 Sunday morning in February, of the year 1835, the flakes of the fire 
 from the north of us caught the dry wood work of our steeple, and the 
 flames descending wrapt the Church of so many consecrated affections, 
 until despite all efforts ' our holy and once beautiful house where our 
 •fathers praised God, was burned up with fire, and all our pleasant 
 things laid waste.' 
 
 " It is not too much to say that never before or since in the history of 
 this city has the loss of a public building been attended with more 
 poignant sorrow and mourning than that of old St. Philip's Church. 
 To show how general the feeling in our community, our congregation 
 had places of worship offered them by many of their fellow Christians 
 of all denominations. And one occurrence during the fire was made 
 the subject of some lines by, it is thought, Mr. Charles Fraser, once an 
 honored citizen but not of our flock. 
 
 " I can remember only the spectacle of the burning at a distance, and 
 the sounds of grief that were close by me as I watched the flames, but 
 knew not how to estimate in my childhood such a loss. 
 
 " Men talked of speedily replacing it, but it could never be done; in 
 its most sacred associations and its time hallowed adornments we 
 knew there could be but one 'Old St. Philip's.' Such losses laugh to 
 scorn insurance money. Such ruins when they fall shake the very 
 ground of our lives, and strew with ashes our bruised and desolated 
 hearts. How while the ruins were still smoking on that Sunday morn- 
 ing the affected flock were gathered by their Shepherd as well as they 
 
35 
 
 could be, in the old Sunday School building to the east of us, and how 
 to a weeping congregation, he preached Christ's own message of com- 
 fort and consolation," &'C. 
 
 It was really with remarkable energy and liberality that 
 the present church was built. For those times were, like 
 the present, in a most depressed condition. In answer to 
 objections to public aid in the rebuilding of the church, 
 because it was said the congregation was a rich corporation, 
 the Vestry state, in the Southern Patriot, of the 19th Feb- 
 ruary, 1835, that in the last few years some of the building 
 leases of the Glebe lands having expired the Vestry were 
 obliged to pay for the improvements upon them, when, 
 from the depreciation of property, the land and buildings 
 could scarcely be sold (in some cases) for the sums which 
 they had to pay for the buildings alone. This, it will be re- 
 membered, was just before the great financial panic of 1837. 
 Notwithstanding this. Dr. Johnson points out that on the 
 I2th of November of that year the corner-stone of the new 
 building was laid with appropriate ceremonies ; the first 
 service under its roof was held on a fast day, the 3rd May, 
 1838; and the church was consecrated by Bishop Bowen 
 on the 9th day of November, 1838. 
 
 The author is indebted to the Rev. Dr. Johnson for 
 the following interesting account of the rebuilding of the 
 church : 
 
 " Soon after the destruction of the second church by fire, 
 on the 14th February, 1835. the present edifice was planned 
 and its corner-stone was laid 12th November, 1835. The 
 architect was Mr. J. Hyde. Built of brick on the same 
 foundations, except with extension of twenty-two or 
 twenty-three feet to the eastward, or chancel end, the 
 ground plan of the new church was nearly the same as that 
 of the old one. The differences were as follows: The floor 
 was raised u.bave ground about three feet ; steps of stone 
 being used to ascend to the three porches at the west end 
 of the building, and to the two door-ways central on the 
 
36 
 
 side walls; a chancel, recessed about fifteen feet, and 
 lighted with a wide and lofty window, proved an important 
 addition to the interior; the two side-aisles were put im- 
 mediately next to the side walls; one hundred and two 
 pews on the floor provided five hundred and fifty sittings, 
 while sixty-six in the galleries, reached by stairs in the ves- 
 tibule, provided two hundred and fifty more, making ac- 
 commodations, without crowding, for upwards of eight hun- 
 dred persons. But, with seats arranged along the aisles 
 and in the vestibule, as has been done for special occasions, 
 the capacity of the church may be assumed as about twelve 
 hundred sittings. So, in regard to its external appearance, 
 the nciv differs not greatly from the old building. The 
 three characteristic porches, north, south and west, were re- 
 peated, each with four columns supporting entablature and 
 pediment. As before, a stately square tower, rising above 
 these porches into a steeple of octagonal section, dominates 
 the building. Rut, continued upwards, as the former was 
 not, into a spire two hundred feet high, after the design of 
 Edward B. White, architect, the steeple is surmounted by 
 a plain gilded cross. 
 
 " So great was the love of the congregation for their old 
 church-building, that they entertained for a while no other 
 thought than to reproduce, as far as possible, the edifice 
 they had lost. But within a year, other counsels pre- 
 vailed ; and the new plans, as has been seen, departed in 
 some important particulars from the old. Both structures 
 retained the interior features of the Georgian period of 
 London church architecture, viz., galleries for congregation 
 and choir, the latter over the entrance to the middle aisle, 
 and a high pulpit adapted to the galleries. 
 
 "The same orders of architecture also were retained within 
 and without, but with modifications that were improve- 
 ments. Thus, the massive, square piers that supported 
 the old church, that gave it some grandeur, and, faced with 
 fluted pilasters bearing fine sculptured memorial tablets, 
 some grace also, were not repeated because they darkened 
 the interior, and interfered seriously with vision and hear- 
 
37 
 
 ing. The Doric order of the later (Roman) period gave 
 rule, measure, and proportion to the exterior of the new 
 church, so that the columns, pilasters and entablatures 
 without the building represent very correctly, in all but 
 the ornaments^^ of capital and frieze, the order they illus- 
 trate. The interior of the sacred edifice is finished in the 
 Corinthian order of architecture, and is the only specimen 
 in the city of that order, with all the rich ornaments of the 
 later, or Roman, period. f These are executed, for the 
 most part, in stucco, but the capitals of the columns are of 
 carved wood. The roof and galleries are supported by 
 eight fluted columns, four on each side, rising from pedes- 
 tals of the same level as the rail of the pews to the height 
 of twenty feet above the floor. There, these columns, fin- 
 ished with their appropriate capitals, meet the line of the 
 entablature, not extended in the usual way from column to 
 column, but circumscribed above each column, so as to 
 produce, with the overhanging cornice, the effect of a 
 higher and larger capital, which, of course, it is not. This 
 departure from conventional design is something almost in 
 the way of a ''jeu cV espi'itT But it has its reason in the 
 precedent of one of the finest London churches, designed 
 by James Gibbs. architect, 1/21, and the express wish of 
 the Charleston congregation to secure, thereby, the light 
 and airy effect of the English prototype. 
 
 "At a meeting of the congregation of St. Philip's, 27th 
 June, 1836, it was Resolved, "That the heavy pillars of the 
 interior of the church be dispensed with, and that in lieu 
 thereof, Corinthian columns (as far as practicable) after the 
 style of St. Martin's in the Fields, London, be adopted." 
 And again, Resolved, "That the pillars of the plans pre- 
 sented be lowered, so as to reduce the arches." These 
 arches were the motive of the whole scheme. Springing 
 longitudinally from the square of cornice above each col- 
 
 *These appear in the columns, and on the frieze, of the Market Hall, 
 Charleston. 
 
 |The earliest (Grecian) Corinthian column is seen in the colonnade of 
 the Charleston Hotel. 
 
38 
 
 umn, at an altitude of about twenty-five feet, and rising at 
 their crown to a level of thirty-six feet above the floor, 
 these fine arches on each side support the roof, and contri- 
 bute no little to the beauty of the interior, lifting the eye 
 above the columns and galleries to the topmost height of 
 the main arched ceiling of the church, forty-two or three feet 
 above the floor. The crown of each arch is ornamented 
 with a cherub's head and wings in stucco, while, in the space 
 of the spandrels, between the shoulders of the arches, 
 the same material is used for the display of the acanthus 
 ornamentation. The unbroken entablature is seen in the 
 chancel where it passes from one pilaster to another, but is 
 again broken by the head of the high, stained-glass window. 
 Above the cornice of the chancel, the coved ceiling is 
 ribbed and paneled with rosettes in stucco. On either side 
 of the chancel, the walls are enriched by tablets, inscribed 
 with "the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Command- 
 ments." The Holy Table, saved from the old church while 
 it was burning down, still continues to be used in the ser- 
 vices, an emblem of union and communion between the 
 generations of St. Philip's, past, present and future. A ves- 
 try-room has been built in recent years in the northeastern 
 angle of the church. 
 
 Dimensions of the Exterior. 
 
 Extreme length of building, not including the western porch. .120 feet 
 Extreme width of building, not including the south and north 
 
 porches 62 " 
 
 Projection of porches 12 " 
 
 Height of walls on sides 35 " 
 
 Height of ridge of roof 45 " 
 
 Height of steeple 200 ' ' 
 
 Dimensions of the Interior. 
 
 Extreme length of church 114 feet 
 
 Depth of chancel 9 " 
 
 Width of chancel 24 " 
 
 Extreme width of church : 56 " 
 
 Height of galleries (upper rail) 14 " 
 
 Extreme height of ceiling 42 " 
 
 Width of vestibule 20 " 
 
39 
 
 "The cost of the new church, as reported to the congre- 
 gation, 15th July, 1839, ^^^s $84,206.01. The subsequent 
 expense of erecting a steeple must have raised the total 
 cost to nearly $100,000."* 
 
 At the time of the burning of the Old Church the ardent, 
 gifted and lamented Daniel Cobia was Assistant .Minister. 
 His ministry was brief; of but three years; it was almost 
 entirely spent in the temporary building called the Taber- 
 nacle. His eloquent voice was not heard in the present 
 edifice — he died in 1837, and was succeeded by the Rev. 
 Abraham Kaufman, whose ministry was equally brief, 
 whom all had begun to admire, and sorrowed thus to lose. 
 Tablets to their memories lie at the foot of the chancel in 
 the present church. The Rev. John Barnwell Campbell 
 succeeded Mr. Kaufman as Assistant Minister in 1740, 
 serving for twelve years in that station. 
 
 Upon the death of Mr. Calhoun the City Council of 
 Charleston unanimously passed a resolution that, in their 
 opinion, the City of Charleston, the chief metropolis of the 
 State, might with propriety ask for herself the distinction 
 of being selected as the final resting place of that illustrious 
 man, and that the Mayor, in behalf of the Council and the 
 citizens of Charleston, should communicate with the family 
 of the deceased and earnestly entreat that the remains of 
 him they loved so well should be permitted to repose 
 among them. This request was acceded to ; the body was 
 brought to this city and received with the grandest, the 
 most imposing and solemn ceremonies. St, Philip's Church 
 yard was at once designated as the temporary resting place. 
 There were two reasons for this selection. First, the close 
 historic connection of the church with the commonwealth 
 of which Calhoun was the greatest product; and, secondly, 
 there was a peculiar fitness in the circumstance that Bishop 
 Gadsden, the Rector of St. Philip's, had been a class-mate 
 
 *On the inside walls of the present church are monumental tablets to 
 Bishop Christopher E. Gadsden, the Rev. William Dehon, William 
 Mason Smith, and Mrs. Mary Ann Elizabeth Cogdell— and in the vesti- 
 bule is one to Maj. Gen. William Moultrie, erected by the Society of 
 the Cincinnati. 
 
40 
 
 of the great man at Yale College. And so we read in the 
 account of that grand funeral pageant : 
 
 •'The next day, the 26th April, i. e. the day after the reception of tlie 
 body and its lying in state in the City Hall, was appointed for the re- 
 moval of the remains to the tomb. At early dawn the bells resumed 
 their toll ; business remained suspended, and all the evidences of public 
 mourning were continued. 
 
 "At 10 o'clock a civic procession, under the direction of the Marshal, 
 having been formed, the body was then removed from the catafalque 
 in the City Hall and borne on a bier by the guards of honor to vSt. 
 Philip's Church; on reaching the Church, which was draped in the 
 deepest mourning, the cortege proceeded up the central aisle to a stand 
 covered with black velvet, upon which the bier was deposited. After 
 an anthem sung by a full choir, the Right Reverend Dr. Gadsden, 
 Bishop of the Diocese, with great feeling and solemnity, read 'the burial 
 service, to which succeeded an eloquent fimeral discourse by the Rev. 
 Mr. Miles.* The holy rites ended, the body was again borne by the 
 guard of honor to the western cemetery of the Church to the tomb 
 erected for its temporary abode, a solid structure of masonry raised 
 above the surface and lined with cedar wood. Near by, pendant from 
 the tall spar that supported it, drooped the flag of the Union, its folds 
 mournfully sweeping the verge of the tomb as swayed by the passing 
 wind, enwrapped in the pall that first covered it on reaching the shores 
 of Carolina. The iron coffin, with its sacred trust, was lowered to its 
 resting place, and the massive slab, simply inscribed with the name 
 'Calhoun,' adjusted to its position." 
 
 It was ultimately decided that there was no fitter place 
 in the State for the repose of Mr. Calhoun's remains than 
 where they had been laid ; and that there they should re- 
 main. It being feared during the late war that, if the 
 city should fall into the enemy's hands, despite might 
 be done to the remains of him who was regarded as the 
 great apostle of Southern rights, and whose doctrines, it 
 was said, had brought on the war, his tomb was quietly and 
 secretly opened, and the cof^n containing them removed to 
 another place in the eastern church yard where they re- 
 mained until the war was over, when they were as quietly 
 restored to the original tomb. 
 
 In December, 1883. Mr. Charles Inglesby, a member of 
 St. Philip's Church, then a Representative in the State 
 Legislature from Charleston, introduced a Joint Resolution 
 
 *Rev. James W. Miles. 
 
41 
 
 appropriating funds for the construction and -erection of a 
 Sarcophagus upon the grave. The Resolution recited that: 
 
 "AVhereas, upon the announcement in March, 1S50, of the lamented 
 death of the late Senator John C. Calhoun, the State of South Carolina 
 claimed the privilege of taking into its custody his remains, and did 
 cause them to be removed, with the highest public honors, to the City 
 of Charleston for burial ; 
 
 "And whereas, for want ot time it was only then possible to erect a 
 temporary structure in which Senator Calhoun's remains could be de- 
 posited ; 
 
 "And whereas, by reason of the many public disabilities since ac- 
 cruing, which have prevented the intended action of the General As- 
 sembly in the construction of an appropriate sarcophagus of enduring 
 material, suitably inscribed, in which the remains of South Carolina's 
 distinguished son may be forever preserved ; 
 
 And whereas, the time is now opportune for discharging this high 
 public duty." 
 
 With this recital the Joint Resolution was passed unan- 
 imously, appropriating the sum of three thousand dollars 
 for the "erecting in St. Philip's Church yard, in the City of 
 Charleston, of a sarcophagus for the remains of John C. 
 Calhoun, which are there buried." {i8lh Stat, of S. C.,66[.) 
 With the sum so appropriated the sarcophagus was erected.* 
 Dr. Johnson kindly furnishes this description of the tomb: 
 
 THE SARCOPHAGUS OF CALHOUN. 
 
 "Situated in the centre of the western cemetery of St. 
 Philip's Church, and in direct extension of the line of its 
 length from east to west, this sarcophagus h^lds the mortal 
 remains of South Carolina's great statesman. It is built of 
 polished granite, rising from a base of 10 by 6 feet to a total 
 
 * "The massive slab, simply inscribed with the name 'Calhoun' " — 
 which (so grand in its simplicity) marked the temporary tomb and 
 had to be moved to make way for the State's Sarcophagus — is fixed in 
 vertical position against the south wall of St. Philip's Sunday School 
 Building, in the northeast corner of the eastern cemetery, and bears 
 the following additional inscription: 
 
 " T/iis marble for thirty four years covered the tomb of CALHO UN 
 in the Western Churchyard. It has been pjaced here by the Vestty, 
 near the spot where his remains were iiiterred durittg the siege of 
 Charleston, from whic/i spot they were afterwards removed to the 
 oris^inal tomb, and subsequently deposited under the Sarcophagus 
 erected on the same site in 1SS4 by the State." 
 
42 
 
 height of lo feet. The iron cofifin rests between the spaces 
 prepared for it in the base just mentioned, and in a 
 heavy block, 4 by 8 feet, superimposed upon it. Four hiphly 
 polished columns, one at each angle of the superstructure, 
 support a solid mass of entablature and pediment, covering 
 and finishing the structure in rectangular dimensions, some- 
 what less than those of the base first described. The in- 
 scriptions are as follows: 
 
 [North Side.] 
 Erected by the State op vSouth Carolina. 
 
 [South Side.] 
 
 JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 
 
 Born March 18, 1782. 
 
 Died March 31, 1850. 
 
 [East Side.] 
 
 Representative in the Legislature. 
 
 Member of Congress. 
 
 United States Senator. 
 
 [West Side.] 
 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 Vice-President. 
 
 Secretary of vState. 
 
 A beautiful and vigorous Magnolia tree, planted near the 
 sarcophagus, on the western side, rises some thirty feet 
 above it ; and. perenniall}' green, typifies the undying repu- 
 tation of the man, as well as the unchanging affection of 
 the people who were most dear to him." 
 
 Upon the death of Bishop Gadsden, in 1852, the Rev. 
 John Barnwell Campbell became Rector; and the Rev. Chris- 
 topher V. Gadsden, the deceased Bishop's nephew, became 
 Assistant Minister, remaining as such for six years, when 
 lie became Rector of St. Luke's. Mr. Campbell resigned in 
 1858, and in 1859 the Rev. William R. Dehon became Rec- 
 tor, and the Rev. W. B. W. Howe Assistant Minister. Mr. 
 
43 
 
 Dehon died in 1862, and Mr. Howe succeeded him as Rector 
 in 1863. 
 
 When the steeple of St. Philip's Church was completed, 
 early in the decade of the fifties, a clock, with a chime of 
 bells attached so as to ring tunes by the clock work, was 
 presented to the church by Mr. Colin Campbell, of Beau- 
 fort, S. C, an uncle of the then incumbent Rector, the Rev. 
 John Barnwell Campbell. The bells were taken down in 
 the beginning of the war and given to the Confederate Gov- 
 ernment to be cast into cannon. 
 
 During the late war the steeples of St. Philip's and St. 
 Michael's, the most conspicuous objects in the city from a 
 distance, served ay targets for the great guns with which 
 the city was bombarded. St. Philip's suffered particu- 
 larly. Ten or more shells entered its walls. The chancel was 
 destroyed, the roof pierced in several places, and the organ 
 demolished, 
 
 The congregation had continued to worship in the church, 
 after the bombardment had begun, until the 19th Novem- 
 ber, 1863, that day being a Thanksgiving Day, when, during 
 the delivery of the sermon by the Rector, a shell fell and 
 burst near the church. It was during this time that the 
 Rector, the Rev. W. B. VV. Howe, so endeared himself to 
 the congregation and community at large. The Rev. Dr. 
 Johnson, the present Rector of the church — himself the 
 Engineer Ofificer of Fort Sumter, by whose skill, patient 
 labor and bravery the crumbliitg walls of the fort were 
 rendered tenable — thus speaks of Mr. Howe's conduct 
 at this time : 
 
 " Upon the background of the political troubles, the exciting times, 
 the agitated feelings of that period, Mr. Howe ministered with a calm 
 unswerving fidelity, a gentle tact, a good judgment, a firm hold on the 
 people's affections. While some flocks scattered, and some shepherds 
 left the threatened and beleaguered city to minister to the refugees in 
 the interior of the State, the Rector of St. Philip's hesitated not to 
 stay here from the beginning to the ending of the war in active 
 discharge of the duties of his station. Though the congregation con- 
 tinued to be large, he found time to visit assiduously the sick and 
 wounded in the hospitals. Though the sound of battle grew nearer 
 
44 
 
 from Port Royal to James Island in 1861 and 1862, and the smoke of 
 battle hung around our harbor in the spring and summer of 186'5, the 
 regular services of the church were maintained in this building. And 
 it was not until the autumn of 1863, that, while the Rector was 
 preaching one Sunday in his pulpit, a shell fired upon the city from the 
 enemy's batteries on Morris Island, was heard to fall and explode in 
 the western church yard. The congregation sat until the sermon was 
 concluded in the regular time and manner. But from that date the 
 religious services at St. Philip's were discontinued, the doors were 
 shut, the damages of the bombardment proceeded, and the building 
 came in for its share of them." 
 
 Bursting shells drove also the congregations of St. 
 Michael's and Grace away from their churches, and they, 
 with the congregation of St. Philip's, united for worship, on 
 Advent Sunday, 1863, in the spacious Church of St. Paul's. 
 Here the Rev. Mr. Howe, in connection with the Rev. Mr. 
 Keith and the Rev. Mr. Elliott, Minister and Assistant 
 Minister of St. Michael's, ministered the consolations of the 
 Gospel to a large flock until the first Sunday in Lent, March 
 5, 1865. 
 
 Mr. Howe, then alone remaining in charge of the mixed 
 congregation, upon the fall of the city was required by the 
 Federal military authorities to pray for the President of the 
 United States. This his allegiance to the Confederate 
 Government forbid as long as the war continued ; and, like 
 one of his predecessors in the Rectorship of St. Philip's and 
 also in the Bishopric of the Diocese, he was banished from 
 the city. Bishop Smith was banished from the city for refus- 
 ing to use the prayer for the King of England ; Bishop 
 Hozvc was banished for refusing to use the prayer for the 
 President of the United States. 
 
 Upon the return of the members of the congregation, at 
 the end of the war, steps were at once taken to repair the 
 church, so far at least as to allow services to be resumed. 
 The Vestry, which had been elected at Easter, 1864, held 
 over, and at once took steps to this end. Mr. James T. 
 VVelsman, a member of the congregation, most generously 
 advanced the money necessary ; and divine service was re- 
 sumed in the church, after an interval of two years and nearly 
 
45 
 
 four months, on Sunday, the 4th March, 1866, with a large 
 congregation then and there assembled. Upon this occasion 
 Rev. Mr. Howe, the Rector, preached a most eloquent ser- 
 mon from the text: " I am the Lord, I change not; there- 
 fore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed," Malachi iii, 6, in 
 which he thus touchingly and manfully referred to the 
 events which had occurred since the congregation had sepa- 
 rated, after the service on that memorable Thanksgiving 
 Day, in 1863, when the enemy's shells were falling around 
 them : 
 
 " Beloved brethren, we who are here present before God have all of 
 us met of late some of the great problems of life, not in the schools of 
 the philosophers, or in the verses of the poet, or in the pages of the 
 historian, or in the experiences of others, but in our own persons, and 
 that, too, eye to eye, and face to face. Is it not a cause for congratula- 
 tion, then, that not our faith, nor our love, nor our knowledge, which 
 may fail in the 'hour and power of darkness' is to be our stay and sup- 
 port, but our Heavenly Father, who is greater than all, and who will 
 not permit 'tribulation or distress, or persecution or famine, or naked- 
 ness or peril, or sword,' to pluck us out of our great Redeemer's hands? 
 Yes, it is the unchangeable faithfulness of our God toward His people — 
 unchangeable in all the vicissitudes of life, and faithful where all else 
 is false — which can alone in seasons of great trial enable us to come off 
 conquerors; and it is to this faithfulness, therefore, that I would now 
 especially point you. I wish, before I conclude, to contemplate my 
 text in relation to our immediate present and to the past four years. 
 My own absence from you for a twelve month, and the re-assembling of 
 the congregation for the first time after the lapse of more than two 
 years within these hallowed and dear walls, so sadly eloquent of days 
 that are past, must be my excuse, if any is needed, for handling at this 
 time and place our grievous wounds, and which, if I uncover for a mo- 
 ment, God knows it is not to 'put a tongue in them that should move the 
 stones of Rome to mutiny,' but to heal them, if they may be healed. 
 At all events, I will pour upon them the only wine and oil that in my 
 heart I believe can heal them. 
 
 " Shall I then seek to persuade you of a brilliant future, and in it 
 ask you to forget the past ? Shall I ask you to transfer your affections 
 from the Union of our Fathers to one which asserts a French Republi- 
 canism ? Brethren, I will be guilty of no such quackery as this. I pray 
 that a prosperous future may be in store for us, if God wills, and will 
 labor together with you to bring it to pass ; but even the prospects of 
 such a future cannot heal those who in the late war contended for prin- 
 ciples more than for results. How then, as Christian men, shall we 
 view present results ? Shall we view them as condemning the cause 
 
46 
 
 for which we prayed and suffered and died, and as proclaiming it to be 
 an unrighteous cause ? For one I am this day as satisfied of its just- 
 ness, consonance with previous American principles, as when I last 
 spoke to you from this pulpit, and you listened in your present places 
 while shells from distant cannon burst around us. It is due to the 
 living, who entered upon that contest sincerely, and who still feel that 
 its merits are unaffected by results, to say thus much ; and it is due also 
 to our gallant dead, who did not count their lives dear unto themselves, 
 to say it. History indeed will do them justice as she weighs in impar- 
 tial balance the cause for which they fell ; but it ill becomes us to put 
 a seal upon our lips and delegate to the future their vindication ; but 
 now, this day, and all the days of our lives, to say of them what Peri- 
 cles said from the bema, outside the walls of Athens, over those Athe- 
 nians who fell in the first year of the Peloponnesian war : ' Therefore, 
 in behalf of such a city as Athens is, these men, whose bones we have 
 laid in yonder mound, died fighting bravely, rightly judging that she 
 ought not to be robbed of all that made her glorious. Let us who survive, 
 like them, be willing to suffer for her sake.' Not a whit behind these 
 countrymen of Pericles were our fathers and husbands and brothers 
 and sons who now sleep upon many a battlefield in these once fair, but 
 now desolated Southern States, and who, like the children of Athens 
 more than two thousand years ago, fell fighting bravely in behalf of 
 the traditions of their fathers, of Southern civilization, and of the 
 rights of self-government. That they fell in behalf of the weaker side 
 cannot tarnish their fair fame. Rather do we who survive feel that in 
 their graves lie buried beyond a resurrection the fruits of ancestral 
 toil, and all that once made us proud of the name of American," &c., &c. 
 
 The church-building had been repaired only sufficiently 
 to allow the services to be resumed, and in 1877 it became 
 necessary to have a complete and thorough reparation and 
 restoration of the edifice. This was undertaken and ac- 
 complished at large expense. But by economy and careful 
 management so successfully were the affairs of the church 
 conducted, that not only had all the expense of restoration 
 been met and discharged, but the congregation had, at a 
 cost of $11,000.00, purchased a building adjoining the 
 eastern church yard, on the south, which had been an 
 hotel, and converted it into a Church Home for indigent 
 ladies of the congregation — -when another terrible calamity 
 befell. The Vestry of the Church had had a meeting on 
 the afternoon of the 31st August, 1886, at which time the 
 reports of the committees showed that all debts incurred 
 by the restoration from its injuries in the war, and upon all 
 
47 
 
 other accounts, excepting one still remaining from the orig- 
 inal building of the church, which was amply secured, had 
 been fully paid and discharged, when in a few hours the 
 church was again in ruins from the appalling earthquake of 
 that night. The walls were cracked, the west porch des- 
 troyed, the north and south porches shattered, the roof was 
 broken through by the fall of iron columns and bricks from 
 the steeple, the galleries dislocated, the chancel walls were 
 cracked. The steeple was very much injured, the iron col- 
 umn and brick arches in the lantern were thrown down. 
 The cost of repairing the building from this second disaster 
 was little less than $20,000. 
 
 The following named clergymen have gone forth from St. 
 Philip's Church, most of whom, were baptized at her font : 
 The Reverends Peter Manigault Parker, James Dewar 
 Simons, Christopher Edwards Gadsden (Bishop), Alston 
 Gibbs, Paul Trapier Gervais, Edward Rutledge, Thomas D. 
 Frost, Edward Neufville, Maurice Harvey Lance, Francis 
 H. Rutledge (Bishop), Philip Gadsden, Alexander Marshall, 
 Edward Phillips, Daniel Cobia, Charles Cotesworth Pinck- 
 ney, Jr., James Maxwell Pringle, Christopher P. Gadsden, 
 Roberts Poinsett Johnson. P. F. Stevens, James W. Miles, 
 Edward R. Miles, Lucien C. Lance, Henry L. Phillips, 
 Thomas F. Gadsden, J. Mercier Green, John Johnson, F, 
 Marion Hall, William H. Moreland, Edward McCrady,^^ and 
 J. W. Cantey Johnson. 
 
 The following is a list of the Clergy of the Church for 
 two hundred and seventeen years. During all of this time 
 it will be observed that there have been but sixteen Rec- 
 tors, and what is more remarkable that the joint terms of 
 four of these cover a period of one hundred and thirty-five 
 years, to wit : Commissary Garden, 35 years ; Bishop Smith, 
 42 years ; Bishop Gadsden, 32 years ; and the present Rec- 
 tor, Dr. Johnson, 26 years. There have been during that 
 time twenty-four Assistant Ministers. 
 
 *The son of Prof. John McCrady. 
 
48 
 
 Rectors. 
 
 Atkin Williamson i68o- 
 
 Samuel Marshall 1696- 
 
 Edward Marston 1699- 
 
 Richard Marsden 1 705- 
 
 Gideon Johnson (Commissary) 1707- 
 
 Alexander Garden (Commissary) 1719- 
 
 Richard Clarke 1755- 
 
 Robert Smith (First Bishop of So. Ca.) I759- 
 
 Thomas Frost 1801- 
 
 Edward Jenkins 1804- 
 
 James Dewar Simons 1809- 
 
 Christopher E. Gadsden (Bishop) 1814- 
 
 John Barnwell Campbell , 1852- 
 
 William Dehon 1 859- 
 
 William B. W. Howe (Bishop) 1863- 
 
 John Johnson (the present incumbent) 1872 
 
 Assistant Ministers. 
 
 Thomas Morritt ^1^1- 
 
 John Lambert 1728- 
 
 William Orr 1737- 
 
 William McGilchrist 1741- 
 
 Robert Betham 1746- 
 
 Samuel Quincy I747- 
 
 Alexander Keith i749- 
 
 John Andrews 1/55- 
 
 Robert Smith (First Bishop of So. Ca.) 1756- 
 
 Joseph D. Wilton 1761- 
 
 James Crallan ^T^T- 
 
 Robert Purcell 1 769- 
 
 Thomas Frost 1786- 
 
 Peter M. Parker '. 1801- 
 
 Milward Pogson 1 802- 
 
 James Dewar Simons - 
 
 Christopher E. Gadsden (Bishop) 1809- 
 
 Thomas D. Frost 1 8 1 5- 
 
49 
 
 Allston Gibbs 1819-. . . . 
 
 Daniel Cobia 1834-1837 
 
 Abraham Kaufman 1837-1839 
 
 John Barnwell Campbell 1840-1852 
 
 Christopher P. Gadsden 1852-1858 
 
 William B. W. Howe (Bishop) 1859-1863 
 
 John Johnson (the present incumbent). 1871-1872 
 
 There is probably no cemetery in this country which 
 contains the remains of so many men who have been 
 illustrious in its history, in Church and State, as does 
 the Church Yard of St. Philip's. In this respect among 
 others St. Philip's is the Abbey of South Carolina. Be- 
 fore the old church was completed Robert Daniel, who 
 had been Deputy Governor of North Carolina, and a 
 Landgrave and Governor of South Carolina, was buried 
 near its rising walls, in 1718; and near him, about the 
 same time, was interred George Logan, Speaker of the 
 Commons. Still before the old church was opened Colonel 
 William Rhett, the hero of the defense against the invasion 
 of the Spaniards and French in 1706 and of the expedition 
 •against the pirates in 1718, the donor of the Silver Com- 
 m.union Service to the church,* was interred in the western 
 yard, just in front of the church, in 1722. Thomas Hep- 
 worth, Chief Justice, was buried there in 1728. A slab of 
 slate still marks the grave of the Rev. John Lambert, Master 
 of the Free School and Afternoon Lecturer of the Parish, 
 who died in 1729. In 1735 "the good Governor Robert 
 Johnson," as he was affectionately called — Governor both 
 under the Proprietary and Royal Governments — was interred 
 near the chancel of the church. The profound jurist and 
 
 *Noble benefactions have from the earliest times been made to the 
 church. Among the donors have been Mrs. Affra Coming— Colonel 
 William Rhett— Mrs. Kirland— Mrs. Sarah Hort- Colin Campbell- 
 James T. Welsman—Charles T. Lowndes— John Wroughton Mitchell, 
 and his son Clarence G. Mitchell and grand-son Clarence B. Mitchell- 
 Mrs. Juliet F. Wallace— Mrs. Harriet L. Gervais— Miss Susan B. 
 Hayne— and Mrs. Anna D. Kaufman. 
 
50 
 
 learned theologian, the father of the law and of the Courts 
 in South Carolina, though, alas ! the corrupt judge, Chief 
 Justice Trott, worshipped in the church, and was buried 
 in the church yard in 1740. Then followed three other 
 Chief Justices — James Graeme, in 1752 ; Charles Pinckney, 
 in 1758; and Peter Leigh, in 1759: and Andrew Rutledge, 
 Speaker of the Commons, in 1755. The Rev. Alexander 
 Garden, Commissary of the Bishop of London, was interred 
 on the south side of the church in a tomb which the Ves- 
 try had built as a mark of their gratitude for his long and 
 faithful services. To Hector Berenger DeBeaufain, Collec- 
 tor of Her Majesty's Customs, was erected a handsome 
 memorial tablet in the old church by his fellow-citizens of 
 the Province. Upon the walls of the old church stood 
 also a slab to the memory of the Honorable Othniel 
 Beale, a member of the King's Council, and for twenty- 
 seven years Colonel of the Charlestown Regiment. Roger 
 Pinckney, the last Royal Provost Marshal of the province, 
 is buried in the eastern cemetery. The tomb of Benjamin 
 Smith, Speaker from 1754 to 1764, still stands next to that 
 of Colonel Rhett, his ancestor, in the western cemetery, 
 directly in front of the church. Of physicians there wor- 
 shipped in this church the two Doctors John Moultrie, 
 father and son^ — Dr. John Rutledge, father of the distin- 
 guished trio of sons — and Dr. Lionel Chalmers: the two 
 last are buried in the church yard. 
 
 Of the statesmen, heroes and exilesof the Revolution many 
 lie around the edifice. Among these are Christopher Gads- 
 den, the foremost of all, and William Johnson, his uncompro- 
 mising follower and " right hand man ;" Rawlins Lowndes, 
 Governor in 1778, who requested that the epitaph upon his 
 tomb should be : "The opponent of the adoption of the 
 Constitution of the United States;" Edward Rutledge, 
 signer of the Declaration of Independence and Governor; 
 Colonel Isaac Motte, second in command at the battle of 
 Fort Moultrie, 28th June, 1776; Thomas Pinckney, Major 
 in the Continental Army during the Revolution, Major- 
 General in the War of 1812, Minister to England and Spain, 
 
51 
 
 and Governor of the State; Major Benjamin Hui^er, who 
 fell before the Hues of Charlestown, on the iith May, 1779, 
 during Provost's invasion ; Major Thomas Grimball, who 
 commanded the Battalion of Artillery during the siege of 
 Charlestown, in 1780; Daniel Huger, Charles Pinckney and 
 John Lewis Gervais, the three members of the Council who 
 accompanied Governor Rutledge when it was determined 
 that he should leave the town before its surrender to the 
 British, in order to preserve the Government of the State. 
 
 The Rev. Robert Smith, Rector of the Church and first 
 Bishop of South Carolina, who was banished by the British 
 authorities and his property confiscated, lies to the east of 
 the church near the chancel. 
 
 Upon the walls of the old church there was a tablet to 
 the memory of Jacob and Rebecca Motte. Jacob Motte 
 was a distini^uished citizen, long the Treasurer of the Pro- 
 vince ; his widow, Rebecca, was the heroine of Fort Motte, ^ 
 the lady who fired her own roof as the most decisive 
 method of re iucing the hostile British garrison which held 
 and surrounded it with their works. 
 
 There was also a monument to the memory of Charles 
 Dewar Simons, Professor of Natural Science and Chemistry 
 in the South Carolina College, who was drowned near 
 Columbia in 1812. 
 
 Of a later period are found the graves of Thomas W. 
 Bacot the first Postmaster of Charleston under the present 
 Constitution of the United States, who was appointed by 
 Washington and held the office for forty-three years con- 
 tinuously ; and of his son of the same name, Assistant Post- 
 master for thirt}'-six years under his father and the Hon. 
 Alfred Huger: and also of Judge Elihu Hall Bay ; Judge 
 Theodore Gaillard ; the "gifted" and brilliant William 
 Crafts; the venerable Daniel Huger; Dr. Henry R. Frost, 
 and Dr. Thomas G. Prioleau, chairmen of the Vestry ; the 
 distinguished son and grandsons of Bishop Smith, William 
 Mason Smith, and J. J. Pringle Smith and William Mason 
 Smith, Jr., the two former each for years Chairman of the 
 Vestry; Mr. J. J. Pringle Smith, a distinguished representa- 
 
52 
 
 tive of the Parish in the Diocesan Convention and of the 
 Diocese in the General Convention of the Church, and a 
 member of the Secession Convention; Henry D. Lesesne, 
 Chairman of the Vestry, and a Chancellor of the State; 
 and the late Charles Richardson Miles, Attorney-General 
 of the State, and a delegate to the Diocesan Convention. 
 John Blake White, the artist, and his son. Colonel Alonzo 
 J. White, are buried in the eastern cemetery. Edward B. 
 White, the architect, the builder of the present steeple, 
 another son of the artist, a member of the church, is buried 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The congregation has also furnished a number of distin- 
 guished Naval Officers. Col. Thomas Shubrick of the 
 Revolution, himself the captain of a vessel — his four sons. 
 Rear Admiral William Branford Shubrick, Captain John 
 Taylor Shubrick who was lost at sea while bearing to the 
 United States the treaty with Algiers in 1815, Captain 
 Edward Rutledge Shubrick and Commodore Irwine Shu- 
 brick were all of this church. 
 
 A monumental stone, erected by the officers, seamen and 
 marines of the United States Frigate Columbia, in memory 
 of their beloved Commander Edward R. Shubrick, stands 
 over his grave in the eastern church yard. 
 
 Commodore Duncan N. Ingraham of "Kosta" fame was 
 for years chairman of the Vestry. 
 
 Within a hundred yards of each other, in the western 
 cemetery of the church, it so happens that there lie, almost 
 in line, the remains of four of the leaders of the great nulli- 
 fication struggle — on the one side the two nullifiers John 
 C. Calhoun and Robert J. Turnbull — and on the other the 
 two Johnsons, nnio)i men, sons of William, before men- 
 tioned, to wit, William Johnson, who was Speaker of the 
 State House of Representatives at twenty-six years of age, 
 a Judge on the State Bench at twenty-eight, and a Justice 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States at thirty-two ; 
 and his brother, Dr. Joseph Johnson, Mayor of the city, etc. 
 The following deceased Members of Congress have come 
 from the congregation: William Laughton Smith, General 
 
53 
 
 John Rutledge, Joel R. Poinsett, William Lowndes, Henry 
 L. Pinckney, Isaac E. Holmes and William Aiken. William 
 Porcher Miles, still living, also a member of the congrega- 
 tion, was the last Member of Congress from the Charleston 
 District before the war, and was also a member of the Con- 
 federate Congress. It is remarkable that three Members of 
 Congress from Charleston were chosen in succession from 
 St. Philip's congregation, to wit : Holmes, Aiken and 
 Miles. The Hon. William Henry Trescot (still living), As- 
 sistant Secretary of State under President Buchanan's Ad- 
 ministration, Agent of the United States before the Halifax 
 Commission, Minister to China and to Peru, is also of this 
 church. 
 
 Besides the clergymen we have already named as buried 
 in the yard, there lie around the church: Bishop Smith, 
 Bishop Gadsden, Bishop Howe, the Reverends Thomas 
 Frost, Milward Pogson, James Dewar Simons, Thomas D. 
 Frost, Cranmore Wallace, Paul T. Gervais, Christopher P. 
 Gadsden, William Dehon, F. Marion Hall and James W. 
 Miles. 
 
 In the western church yard, besides Edward McCrady, 
 (one of the exiles and the first of his name in this country,) 
 above mentioned, there lie his son John, a brilliant young 
 lawyer, whose premature death was mourned by the com- 
 munity; his son, the late venerable Edward McCrady, 
 lawyer and theologian, for years District Attorney of the 
 United States, and a member of the Secession Convention, 
 and who for over fifty years represented St. Philip's in the 
 Diocesan Convention, and for forty years was a member of 
 the Standing Committee of the Diocese, and for more than 
 thirty a Deputy of the Diocese in the General Convention of 
 the Episcopal Church ; and his sons — Professor John Mc- 
 Crady, Major of Engineers in the Confederate Army, Pro- 
 fessorof Mathematics in the Charleston College, of Zoology 
 in Harvard, Cambridge, Mass., and of Biology in the Uni- 
 versity of the South — and Thomas McCrady, an officer of 
 the Confederate Army, and beloved by the community. 
 In this yard there is the grave of Colonel John DeBerniere, 
 
54 
 
 of the British Army, the ancestor of several famihes in 
 North and South CaroHiia. 
 
 In the eastern cemetery there is a slab with the simple 
 inscription : " Mrs. Cornelia Fremont." This slab marks 
 the grave of the mother of General John C. Fremont, the 
 "Path Finder" across the Rocky Mountains, the first candi- 
 date of the Republican party for the Presidency of the 
 United States, and Federal General in the late war. 
 
 Of others distinguished in the annals of the Province and 
 State who worshipped in the Church, but were buried else- 
 where, there were Sir Nathaniel Johnson, the Governor, 
 under whose administration the invasion of the Province 
 by the French and Spaniards took place in 1706, and the 
 fierce contest was raged overthe Church Acts of 1704-1706; 
 the Rev. Gideon Johnson, Commissary, who was drowned 
 in the harbor in 1716; Chief Justices Benjamin Whitaker 
 and James Michie ; Arthur Middleton, President of the 
 Convention which overthrew the Proprietary Government ; 
 Henry Middleton, who was President of the Continental 
 Congress in 1774; his son, Arthur Middleton, signer of the 
 Declaration of Independence; his son, Henry Middleton, 
 Governor of the State and Minister to Russia; Henry Lau- 
 rens, President of the Continental Congress from 1776 to 
 1778 ; and his son. Col. John Laurens, an Aide to Washing- 
 ton and Envoy to France ; General WilHam Moultrie, the 
 hero of the 28th June, 1776, who twice saved the city from 
 capture by the British ; Gabriel Manigault, for many years 
 a Vestryman, who supported the Congress of the United 
 States during the Revolution with a loan of $220,000 ; his 
 son, Peter Manigault, Speaker of the Commons during the 
 first Non-importation Movement; his grandsons, Edward 
 Manigault, a Major in the United States Army during the 
 Mexican war and Colonel in the Confederate service, and 
 Arthur M. Manigault, also an officer in the Mexican war 
 and Brigadier General in the Confederate service 
 during the late war ; Isaac Mazyck, the great mer- 
 chant — and his son of the same name, an Assistant 
 Judge; the wise and noble William Wragg, who exiled 
 
55 
 
 from his country because of his loyalty to his King, 
 perished at sea, to whose memory there is a tablet 
 in Westminster Abbey; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, 
 General in the Continental Army, member of the Con- 
 vention which framed the Constitution of the United 
 States, and Minister to France, long a Vestryman of the 
 Church ; Charles Pinckney, cousin of the last named, one of 
 the exiles to St. Augustine, member of the Convention 
 which framed the Constitution of the United States, United 
 States Senator, Minister to Spain and Governor of the 
 State ; Ralph Izard, a diplomat of the Revolution, member 
 of the Continental Congress, and Senator of the United 
 States; and his son, George, Major General in the War of 
 1812; Joel R. Poinsett, Secretary of War and Minister to 
 Mexico; General James Gadsden, an officer of distinction 
 in the War of i8t2, and Minister to Mexico; William 
 Lowndes, of whom, it was said, the highest and best hopes 
 of the country looked to him for their fulfillment, and whose 
 character has been described by an eminent writer "as the 
 ablest, purest and most unselfish statesman of his day," who 
 died at sea; Francis H. Rutledge, the first Bishop of Florida ; 
 Charles T. Lowndes, the eminent citizen and generous 
 benefactor of the Church ; N. Russell Middleton, President 
 of the Charleston College ; Isaac Hayne, for many years At- 
 torney General of the State ; William Alston Pringle, Re- 
 corder of the city ; and Hon. Henry Buist, the distinguished 
 lawyer. 
 
 The necrology of St. Philip's is thus rich in its material. 
 Of the dignitaries of the Church in the line of the Episco- 
 pate there lie around her hallowed walls two Commissaries 
 of the Bishop of London, three Bishops of the American 
 Church, and seven ministers who have served at her altar. 
 Of chief magistrates, two Colonial and three State 
 Governors are buried within her precincts, besides number- 
 ing among her worshippers two other Colonial and four other 
 State Governors who are buried elsewhere. Six Colonial 
 Chief Justices worshipped in her sanctuary, four of whom 
 are buried in her cemeterv. Two Presidents of the Conti- 
 
56 
 
 nental Congress and two signers of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence were reared in this Church, one of the signers 
 resting near her walls. Ambassadors and ministers have gone 
 from her to foreign lands, and Members of Congress have 
 been again and again chosen from her members. Soldiers 
 of all the wars in which South Carolina, Province and State, 
 has been engaged lie within her gates. And there also are to 
 be found the graves of men of science. It is believed that 
 she has never been without a representation in the Senate or 
 House of the State Legislature. 
 
 All of the young men of the Church went at once into 
 the service of the Confederate States during the late war, 
 and in the vestibule there is placed this memorial of those 
 of them who gave their lives for their country: 
 
 IN MEMORY OP 
 
 THOSE SOLDIERS OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES 
 Connected with St. Philip's Church, ^ 
 
 Who Died for Their Country. 
 
 HENRY AUGUSTUS MIDDLETON, Jr„ 
 
 Co. A, Hampton Legion; mortally wounded Manassas, Va., 
 
 21 July, 186L 
 
 Died 27 July, 186L Aged 31 years. 
 
 J. E. Mcpherson Washington, 
 
 1st Lieut., A. D. C. to Brig. -Gen. Garnett. 
 Died Montery, Va., 25 Aug., 1861. Aged 24 years. 
 
 EDMUND SHUBRICK HAYNE, 
 Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; mortally wounded Cold Harbour, Va., 27 June, 1862. 
 Died 30 June, 1862. Aged 18 years. 
 
 ALFRED GAILLARD PINCKNEY, 
 
 Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; killed Cold Harbour, Va., 27 June, 1862. 
 
 Aged 19 years. 
 
 ROBERT WOODWARD RHETT, 
 1st Lieut. Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; mortally wounded Cold Harbour, Va., 
 
 27 June, 1862. 
 Died 30 June, 1862. Aged 23 years. 
 
 WILLIAM PRITCHARD, 
 
 Co. A, 25 S. C. Vols. 
 
 Died James Island, S. C, 16 Aug., 1862. Aged 30 years. 
 
57 
 
 NATHANIEL HEYWARD, Jr., 
 
 Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; killed Manassas, Va., 39 Aug., 1862. 
 
 Aged 19 years, 
 
 HARRY P. ROUX. 
 
 Co. A, Hampton Legion; killed Manassas, Va., 30 Aug., 1862. 
 
 Aged 19 years. 
 
 HENRY WRIGHT KINLOCH, 
 
 1st Lieut. Co. D, 6 S. C. Cav. 
 
 Died Aiken, S. C, 24 Oct., 1863. Aged 30 years. 
 
 JOSEPH HEYWARD, 
 
 Capt. A. A. G. Provisional Army C. S. 
 
 Died 7 Novr., 1863. Aged 32 years. 
 
 WASHINGTON ALSTON, 
 
 Sergt. Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; killed Fredricksburg, Va., 13 Dec., 1863. 
 
 Aged 18 years. 
 
 GEORGE COFFIN PINCKNEY, 
 
 Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; killed Fredricksburg, Va., 13 Dec, 1863. 
 
 Aged 25 years. 
 
 WILLIAM GAILLARD INGRAHAM, 
 
 Lieut. Co. B, Act'g. Adj't., 23 S. C. Vols. 
 
 Died 8 March. 1863. Aged 33 years. 
 
 JOSEPH SANFORD FERGUSON, 
 
 Marion Art'y. 
 
 Died 15 July, 1863. Aged 19 years. 
 
 WALTER EWING GIBSON, 
 
 Co. A, 35 S. C. Vols.; killed Fort Sumter, 31 Oct., 1863. 
 
 Aged 18 years. 
 
 JOHN WEBB, 
 
 Capt. Co. K, 3 S. C. Vols.; killed Spottsylvania, Va., 13 May, 1864. 
 
 Aged 26 years. 
 
 JAMES MERRITT SCHMIDT, 
 
 Co. C, 11 S. C. Vols.; killed Drewry's Blui¥, Va., 16 May, 1864. 
 
 Aged 31 years. 
 
 FRANCIS KINLOCH MIDDLETON, 
 
 Co. K, 4 S. C. Cav.; mortally wounded Hawes Shop, Va., 28 May, 1864, 
 
 Died 30 May, 1864. Aged 39 years. 
 
 CHARLES EDWARD PRIOLEAU, 
 
 Co. K, 4 S. C. Cav.; killed Hawes Shop, Va., 38 May, 1864. 
 
 Aged 24 years. 
 
58 
 
 WILLIAM HUEY FAIRLEY, 
 
 Co. K, 4 S. C. Cav.; killed Trevillian's Sta., Va., 11 June, 1864. 
 
 Aged «7 years. 
 
 WILLIAM MASON SMITH, 
 1st Lieut., Adj't. 27 S. C. Vols. ; mortally wounded Cold Harbour, Va., 
 
 3 June, 1864. 
 Died Richmond, Va., 16 Aug., 1864. Aged 31 years. 
 
 MATTHEW VASSAR BANCROFT, 
 
 Major 23 S. C. Vols.; killed Petersburg, Va., 22 June, 1864. 
 
 Aged 25 years. 
 
 ISAAC BALL GIBBS, 
 
 Co. B, 25 S. C. Vols.; killed Reams Sta., Va.,21 Aug., 1864. 
 
 Aged 23 years. 
 
 JACOB JOHN GUERARD, 
 1st Lieut, Co. C, 11 S. C. Vols.; died in prison Fort Delaware, 14 Sept., 
 
 1864. 
 Aged 33 year^.. 
 
 EDWARD B. HEYWARD, 
 
 Marion Art'y.; died Church Flats, S. C, 6 Dec, 1864. 
 
 Aged 24 years. 
 
 PETER MANIGAULT, 
 
 Co. H, 3 S. C. Cav.; killed Ball's Ferry, Oconee River, Ga., 
 
 23 Nov., 1864. 
 
 Aged 59 years. 
 
 ALFRED MANIGAULT, 
 
 Co. K, 4 S. C. Cav.; died Winnsboro, S. C, 20 Feb'y, 1865. 
 
 Aged 24 years. 
 
 HENRY RUSSELL LESESNE, 
 
 Capt. Co. H, 1 S. C. Regular Art'y.; killed Averysboro, N. C, 
 
 16 March, 1865. 
 
 Aged 22 years. 
 
 BURGH SMITH BURNET, 
 Capt. Co. F, 1 S. C. Regular Inf'y.; mortally wounded Averysboro, N. C. 
 
 16 March, 1865. 
 Died 28 March, 1865. Aged 28 years. 
 
 FRANCIS KINLOCH LESESNE, 
 Marion Art'y.; died 24 June, 1865. Aged 20 years. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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