c?Srt«.., - ^_ 
 
 EdT-rard McCrady 
 
 A Sketch of St. Phllir)* s 
 Church, Chrrleston, ^.C. 
 
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 AN HISTORIC CHURCH.Va!"" ^ ""^^ 
 
 The Westminster Abbey of South Carolina. 
 
 A Sketch 
 
 OF 
 
 St, Philip's Church, 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C„ 
 
 FROM THE Establishment of the Church of England 
 
 under the royal charter of 1655 to 
 
 July, 1897. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD McCRADY, Senior Warden. 
 
 CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 
 The Walker, Evans & Cogswell Co. , Printers, 
 
 Nos. 3 and 5 Broad Street and 117 East Eay. 
 
 1901. 
 
.C3SZ 
 
Reetor. 
 Rev. JOHN JOHNSON, D. D. 
 
 ^Yardens. 
 Edward McCrady. William H. Prioleau, M. D. 
 
 Yeatrymen. 
 
 Charles F. Hanckel. . Edward M. Moreland. 
 
 John M. Kinloch. Barnwell Rhett Burnet. 
 
 Thomas S. Sinkler. Walter Pringle. 
 
 Isaac Mazyck. 
 
 Delegates to the Diocesan Council. 
 
 Edward McCrady. William H Prioleau, M. D. 
 
 John M. Kinloch. 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. Edward M. Moreland. 
 
 W. W, Shackelford. Thomas W. Bacot. 
 
 George T. Pringle. 
 
 Solicitor. 
 Thomas W. Bacot. 
 
 Secretary and Treasurer. 
 Arthur Mazyck. 
 
AN HISTORIC CHURCH. 
 
 The WESTMINSTER Abbey of South Carolina. 
 
 A Sketch of St. Philip's Chukch, Charleston, S. C, from 
 THE Establishment of the Church of England, under 
 THE E.OYAL Charter of 1665, to July, 1897. 
 
 By EDWARD McCRADY, Senior Warden. 
 
 The early history of St. Philip'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 Constitution 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 
 colony 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 Proprie- 
 tors in the famous Fundamental Constitutions, which they 
 endeavored to impose, inserted the following clause : 
 
 "As the country comes to be sufficiently planted, and dis- 
 tributed into fit divisions, it shall belong to the Parliament to 
 take care for the building of churches and the public main- 
 
tenance of divines, to be employed in the exercise of religion, 
 according to the Church of England ; which being the only 
 true and orthodox, and the national religion of all the King's 
 dominions, is so also of Carolina; and therefore it alone shall 
 be allowed to receive public maintenance by grant of Parlia- 
 ment." 
 
 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 estab- 
 lished 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 
 colony on the Ashley (25 June, 1670,) that a clergj^man of the 
 Church of England should be sent to them — "one Mr. Samp- 
 son 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 9tli 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 
 corrupted 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 {SainS' 
 lury) London, 1889, 202-21^6.'] The Rev. Mr. Bond, who was 
 in Bermuda, did not come, though the Proprietors offered him 
 500 acres of land and £40 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 ( Yol. 1, 372), 
 gives a letter which first appeared in the Gentleman^ s 
 Magazine for March, T7IiO, ( Yol. 10, 103-J,), purporting to 
 have been written by this clergyman March 10, 1685-6, 
 in which he states that he was sent from Yirginia by Sir 
 William Berkeley, the Governor, to meet the fleet under 
 
West on its arrival. The letter is full of anaclironisms and 
 impossibilities, and is manifestly a fabrication. It is safe 
 to say fhat no such clersjyman 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 17Y2, marks a tract re- 
 served, as he supposed, for a minister. Bishop Perry in his 
 Historij of the American Episcopal Church, Vol. i, 37^2 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 1680. 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 £.30 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 him- 
 self." {Dalrho\s Church Hist., 32.) There was a clergyman in 
 Carolina in 1689, for it was one of the tyranical acts of Governor 
 Colleton that lie fined and imprisoned him for preaching 
 what the Governor considered a seditious sermon. {Hist. 
 Sketches of So. Ca., Rivers, .'^10.) But who this minister 
 was, Mr. Williamson or another, is not known. Mr. William- 
 son was certainly in the Province at that time. 
 
 ISTeither 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 
 Richmond, the vessel that brought the first Huguenots in 
 1680, in a description of Carolina published upon his return 
 in 1682, says : " The town is regularly laid out into large and 
 
3 
 
 capacious streets, which to buildings is a great ornament and 
 beauty. In it they have reserved convenient ijlaces for a 
 church, town house and other iniblic structures^ {Carrols' 
 CoUection, Vol. 5, 82.) "We may safely assume that no church 
 had tlien 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, nearly as large as 
 that occupied bv 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 be- 
 cause by a deed dated June 11, 1697, a lot of land adjoining 
 the church was conveyed '* to the Right Honorable Pro- 
 prietor Joseph Blake, Governor, and his successors in trust 
 for the use of St. Philip's Church for a yard thereunto for- 
 ever.'' {Dalcho's Church History, '27.) 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 Octogenarian 
 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. Pamsay states that the first church was 
 built about 1690, but gives no authority. Dr. Dalcho thinks 
 

 
 that it was built in 1681 or 1682. As we have said, we may 
 assume that it had not been built in 1682 ; but probably it 
 was built before 1690. This is all that can be said on the sub- 
 ject. 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 unseasoned ma- 
 terials as the Act of 1720 for hastening the completion of the 
 new brick church which had been begun in lYlO recites that 
 it "must inevitably in a very little time fall to the ground, the 
 timbers beino- 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 colony 
 he does not appear to have been the minister of St. Philip's in 
 1696, for Dalcho states that that year, the Church being va- 
 cant, the Kev. Samuel Marshall, A. M., was appointed 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 maintenance on a minister 
 of the Church of England in Charles Town, declares by his 
 devout and exemplary life and good doctrine hd had approved 
 himself worthy. His rectorship was, however, short ; he died 
 of yellow fever in 1699, the lirst 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 ^'Ati Act to settle a maintenance 
 on a )/imister of the Church of England in Charles Town.'' 
 From the recital in this Act we learn that Mr. Marshall, "out 
 of the zeal he had for the propagation of the Christian re- 
 ligion, and particularly that of the Church of England," had 
 "left a considerable benefice and honorable way of living in 
 England to come out to Caiolina," and for that reason, and 
 upon the recommendation of the Bishop of London and the 
 Lords Proprietors, the Act provided that he should enjoy all 
 
10 
 
 the lands, houses, negroes, cattle and moneys appointed for the 
 use, benefit and behoof of the minister of Charles Town, and 
 and specificallj appropriated a salary of £150 lyer annum 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. Afifra Com- 
 ing, widow of John Coming, deceased, and a lady of eminent 
 piety and liberality, made the munificent donation of seven- 
 teen acres of land (then adjoining the town, now in the very 
 heart of the city) to Mr. Marshall, and his successors, minis- 
 ters 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 CliurGli Hlsf.^ 
 32-35.) 
 
 Before learning of the death of Mr. Marshall, the Proprie- 
 tors; had secured the services of the Rev. Edward Marston, 
 M. A., for the settlement on Cooper River, but upon his ar- 
 rival in 1700 he was put in charge of St. Philip's Church in 
 the place of Mr. Marshall, deceased. Unfortunately, Mr. 
 Marston was a person of very different disposition and char- 
 acter from Mr. Marshall. Though recommended bj 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 in England for railing against the gov- 
 ernment. {Hist. Am. Epis. Ch., Bishop Perry., Yol. 1, 376.) 
 He brought with him the same violent passions and conten- 
 tious disposition. A Jacobite in England in the reign of Wil- 
 liam, 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 meddling in politics. 
 
11 
 
 Daring the controversy over the establishment of the 
 Church and the contentions with Mr. Marston, another minis- 
 ter of a name very similar to his came into the Province, 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, fully worthy of their high calling. Bnt 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 es- 
 tablished with eight clergymen in this Province, the Bishop of 
 London sent out the Rev. Gideon Johnson, an Irish clergy- 
 man who had been recommended by the Archbishop of Dub- 
 lin 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 verj' tedious passage Mr. 
 Johnson arrived off the bar, and the ship being unable to cross 
 on account 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, 
 and did not get to the city for some days. Mr. Johnson, 
 whose health was not good, suffered much from the exposure 
 and his temper, as it appears, still more so. T(> add to his dis- 
 comfort, he found Mr. Marsden in the "parsonage house," 
 claiming to be the incumbent of St. Philip's Church. In his 
 distress he poured out bitter complaints to the "Great Bishop" 
 
12 
 
 who had sent him out, declaring that he had never repented 
 so much of anything, his sins only excepted, as coming to this 
 place. He described the people to whom he was sent as the 
 vilest race of men on earth, witli neither honor, nor honesty, 
 nor religion. Marsden, who was with little doubt an impos- 
 ter, 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 rec- 
 tor of St. Philip's. Dalclio says tliat the assiduity and piety 
 of Commissary Johnson soon gained him tlie affection of the 
 people, and that the laborious duties of his parochial cure so 
 impaired 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 1711 a free school was established by the General As- 
 sembh^ in connection with the Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel, and placed under the care of the Rev. Wil- 
 liam 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 Morritt as master of the school, who 
 appears to have been but a deacon at the time, but who 
 having gone to England returned in priest's orders in ITlY. 
 A strange thing now happened. Commissary Johnson had 
 been cast away on his coming to the Province upon a sand 
 bank. In the month of April, ITlfi, 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 
 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 sorrow. 
 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. 
 
13 
 
 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 machinery. The township, which preceded the 
 parish, was the unit of civil and the parish the unit of ecc^e^i- 
 ^s^^'caZ administration. {Blackstone, Vol, 1, 112-16. Stuhhs 
 Cons. Hist., 1. 237.) The Puritans of New England, dis- 
 affected to the Church, adopted the township system to the 
 exclusion of the parochial. The Churchmen, who settled at 
 Bnrbadoes, nearly about the same time, on the other hand 
 established parishes, and from time to time, adding civil to 
 the ecclesiastical duties of parochial officers, contented them- 
 selves with that organization as the basis alike of civil as of 
 ecclesiastical 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 com- 
 mitted 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 hetter observation of 
 the Lord's Day., commonly called Sunday — which required 
 all persons to abstain frcm 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 St. 
 Philip's, once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon in 
 time of divine service, to walk through the town and to ob- 
 serve, 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 con- 
 ducted by her wardens, and various municipal duties were im' 
 posed upon her vestry. 
 
14 
 
 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 imprac- 
 ticable. 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 extensive 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 regulations and made directly all such municipal ordi- 
 nances 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 assess- 
 ing, levying and collecting the tax for the support of tJie poor 
 of the parish. This was a peculiarly heavy and troublesome 
 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 
 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 pro- 
 test 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 vestrj^ 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 London, opposed the memorial, 
 the Lords' Justices in council, upon 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. 
 
15 
 
 The Rev. Alexander Garden arrived in Cliarles Town in 
 1TI9, the year in which tlie Proprietary Government was 
 overthrown, and was elected Hector of St. Philip's, and as such 
 he faithfully served the Church for thirty -four years. {DalcJio's 
 Clnirch Hisiory^ 98.) In 1710 an Act had been passed, we 
 have mentioned, "for the erecting of a new brick churcli 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 sup- 
 poses 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 deiinitely ascertained. Dr. Ramsay, 
 in a note to his history, {Vol. S,j). IS,) states that divine ser- 
 vice was first performed in the second St. Philip's Church in 
 1723, and in that of St. Michael's in 1761. Bishop Gadsden, 
 in his sermon 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 commemora- 
 tion of the one hundred and fiftieth year since the congrega- 
 tion of St. Philip's Church had worshipped upon the 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 carried chairs with them 
 upon which they sat during the service. 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 allotted.^ Dr. 
 Dalcho, writing in 1820, thus describes the building: 
 
 *NoTE. — This commemoration service was held on Sundaj'^, 9th Au- 
 gust, 1874, the allotment of pews having been made in August, 1724; 
 but the first se7'vice^'as held in the Church on Easter Day, 1723. 
 
 a On the corner stone of the present church laid after the burning 
 of the old church in 1835, is this inscription: 
 
16 
 
 ^' St. 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 church was nearly finished 
 when the King purchased the Province of the Lords' Proprietors. 
 This circumstance probably suggested the idea. Beneath the figures 
 is this inscription: Pro2nus res aspice nostras. This has been adopted 
 as the motto of the seal of St. Philip's Church. Over the middle arch 
 on the north side is this inscription: Deus mihi sol, with armorial 
 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 
 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 Tanka'-ds, 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 
 Oift of Col. Wm. 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 
 
 St. Philip's Church, 
 The 1st edifice built of wood, 1681, on the site now occupied by St. 
 
 Michael's Church, was taken down 1727. 
 The 2d built of brick, commenced 1710-11, finished 1723, and burnt 
 
 February 15, 1835. 
 This 3d covering the greater portion of the site, will be of the dimen- 
 sions and order of architecture and after the plan of the second, 
 with addition of a chancel. 
 
17 
 
 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 12 feet; these give to the whole building the 
 form of a cross and add greatl)' to its beauty. This, however, is some- 
 what obscured by the intervention of the wall of the grave yard. Pi- 
 lasters 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 
 structure, lofty arches and massive pillars, adorned with elegant sepul- 
 chral 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 Revd. Wm. Tredwell Bull, commissary to the Rt. Rev. 
 Lord Bishop of London in' South Carolina, in " a short memo- 
 rial of the present state of the Church and Clergy in His 
 Majesty's Province of South Carolina," (dated at London, 
 August 10, 1723), speaks of St. Philip's as follows: "In the 
 said city" {Charles City, as he calls it) " tliere is a newly 
 erected Church, not yet entirely finished, a large, regular and 
 beautiful building, exceeding any that are in His Majesty's 
 Dominions in America." 
 
 In a full and particular account of the Parishes and Churches 
 
 ^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. 122-126, and in the first Year Book of the City. 
 1880. (Mayor Courtenay.) 
 2 
 
lb 
 
 ill the Province in 1766, bj the Rev. Charles Woodinason, the 
 Church is thus described: 
 
 " St. Philip's, Charles Towu— This Church, is allowed to be the most 
 elegant religious edifice in British America. It is built of brick; 
 length 100 feet, breadth sixty, height forty, with a cupola of fifty feet, 
 with two bells and a clock and bell. It has three porticos before the 
 west, south, and north doors. It was built from the model of the 
 Jesuits Church at Antwerp, having galleries around exceeding well 
 planned for sight and hearing. In this Church is a good organ. The 
 great organ has sixteen stops; the choir organ eight. It is well orna- 
 mented ; has rich pulpit cloths and coverings for the altar and a very 
 large service of plate. A lecturer (or assistant) is maintained here 
 by the public. * * * Divine service is performed here with great 
 decency and order both on holy days and week days. 
 
 The present Meeting Street was originally called Church 
 Street, but upon tlie removal of St. Pliilip's to the present site 
 of the Churcli, tlie street on vrhich it was erected took the 
 name of Churcli Street, and the old Church Street became 
 Meeting Street from the white ''Meeting House" or Congre- 
 gational Church, now known as the Circular Church. 
 
 The register of births, marriages and deaths still exists form 
 the year 1720, but we have no minutes of the proceedings of 
 the Yestry before 1732. On the 22nd August, 1748, the 
 Vestry ordered 'that Mrs. Woolford be again apply'd to about 
 the journal of the Vestry before the year 1782, which from 
 the demise of Mr. Heyman, the former clerk of the Vestry, 
 hath been missing and ac(juaint her that unless she will make 
 oath that she hath not that book in her possession or knows 
 not in wliose possession it is that she will be prosecuted — that, 
 upon Mrs. Woolford exculpating herself in such manner, an 
 advertisement be put in the Gazette offering a reward of five 
 pounds to any person that shall produce the same." Mrs. 
 Woolford must have exculpated herself, for we lind adver- 
 tisements for the lost minute book in the Gazette of the 6th 
 and 12th of September following. The book was not recov- 
 ered, 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 Parliament 
 
39 
 
 *' and likewise to snbscrilie the test." The minutes for the 
 3^ear 1733 and 1734 contain merely the entry that the vestry- 
 men and wardens took tlie several oatlisand qnaliiied. 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. Phihp's, 
 <Jharles-town, who have hereto subscribed our names, do declare that 
 we believe that there is no trans-substautiation 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- 
 teenth day of April, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven 
 Hundred and Thirty-flve." 
 
 Ill the first vestry, of which we have the record, we lind 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 this Province — 
 Mr. Gabriel Manigault, the son of the emigrant and of Judith 
 Manigault, a most interesting sketch of whose remarkable ca- 
 reer is found in the 4th number of the Transactions of the 
 Huguenot Society of South CaroHna — 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 whicli it will appear that there is little reason 
 for wonder that persons had to be forced to serve under penal- 
 ties for refusing. 
 
 An account is opened '"'"The Parish of St. Pltilijp's Churoh, 
 Charles Tow7ie, William Rhett and Henry Housea, Church 
 Wardensr It charges them with cash received from Gov- 
 ernor Nicholson ; from the former church wardens ; from 
 "Mr. Joseph Wragg, out of the Saci-ament 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." 
 
20 
 
 "Ditto Thomas Garrat, sick with the flnx, £2.10." "Ditto 
 Mary Mathews, in a poor and miserable condition, £15," and 
 so on day by day. We find them collecting fines "for a man 
 swearing without a book ;" paying money "for six days work- 
 ing 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, 10s." "Ditto 
 sundry fines received from several persons for walking about 
 streets on Sunday during divine service, 19s. 6d-" The same, 
 April 11, 1Y43, £1. 5s. 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 strikii]g 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 Yestry that 
 Dr. John Turner was willing to take care of the poor of the 
 parish and look after them for £100 current money, which 
 the Vestry agreed to give. On the 5th July 1734 tlie Vestry 
 signed the tax list for £1,000 towards the relief and mainte- 
 nance of the poor — i!i 1738 the tax list is signed for £1,534 8s. 
 3d, &c. &c. 
 
 In 1734 the Vestry presented a memorial to the Assembly 
 representing the poor accommodation for the lodging and care 
 of the sick and the extravagant charges for tlie same, the 
 trouble of the officers, and the suffering of the sick in conse- 
 quence 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 hospital, and for authority to erect 
 buildings at their own proper charge. August 3, 1738, the 
 Wardens advertised that the number of poor and sick suffer- 
 ing from smallpox daily increases, and the cost as well as the 
 difliculty in providing lodging and nurses is so great that they 
 have hired a house and provided proper attention for the re- 
 
21 
 
 ceptioii of all such as are the objects of charity. The hospital 
 was erected (See Statutes Yol. VI 1-90,) and appears to have 
 been in operation as we lind on IMarch 7, 1748, an advertise- 
 ment in the Gazette that Frederick Holzendorff, chirurgeon, 
 of St. Philip's Hospital, in Charles Town, has removed his 
 residence. 
 
 The death of Mr. Commissary Johnson in 1716 left the 
 Bishop of London without a representative in this part of 
 his charge. The number of clergymen iiicreasing, 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 liave no 
 record of the conduct of the Rev. Gideon Johnson in the 
 discharge uf his duties as Commissary ; but Commissary 
 Garden, we iind, 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 visitations 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, pursuant 
 to Act of Assembly, not only of the Vestry and Wardens of 
 the Church, but of such municipal officers as five Commis- 
 sioners of the High \vay, five Commissioners of the Markets, 
 six Packers, five Wood Measurers and five Fire 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 Assem- 
 bly, December 12, 1712, the school of the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel was united with the Provincial 
 institution, and the school thus formed was continued in con- 
 nection with St. Philip's Church until the Revolution. In the 
 year 1728 the Rev. Mr. Morritt was removed from the charge 
 
22 
 
 of the school npou his appointment to tlie cure of Prince 
 George's, Winyaw, and the Rev. John Lambert, A. M., was 
 appointed by the Society tlieir school master in Charles Town 
 and afternoon preacher at St. Philip's Church. He died, 
 howevei-, the following year, and was buried in the church 
 yard, where the stone which marks his grave still stands.* In 
 1736 the parochial duties at St. Philip's had so increased that 
 the Rector found it impracticable to perform them alone. The 
 Assembly, therefore, May 29, 1730, appropriated £50 sterling 
 per annum, to be increased by such further sum as the people 
 might be willing to subscribe, for the support of an assistant, 
 and upon +his provision the Yestry, June 8, 1736, solicited the 
 Bishop of London to recommend and appoint some suitable 
 person to assist the Rec'or 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 toobtain a " ring of six bells" 
 and a clock for the Church, and the sum of £'1,192 currency, 
 equal to £149 sterling, was raised by subscription for the pur- 
 pose, but this 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. The}' were sent, but upon their 
 arrival proved unsatisfactory. The stroke of the clock was 
 weak, and the bell, the Yestry said, sounded as from a dung- 
 hill, 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 1 740. These were the trial of 
 the 'Rev. George Whitefield by Connnissary Garden's ecclesi- 
 astical court, and the great lire of that year. 
 
 Mr. Whitefield, who had come out to America to aid Ogle- 
 thorpe in the settlement of Georgia, had previously been to 
 Charlestown. In August, 1738, while about to embark for 
 Europe, he had paid a visit to Commissary Garden, and, at his 
 
 *See the inscription given in Dalcho's Church History, p. 114. 
 
23 
 
 request, preached in St. Philip's tlie next Snnday, nioniiiiir 
 and evening', and was most cordially thanked by him. He re- 
 turned in 1740, after havin": had a most wonderful 
 career in England, where his auditories had often consisted 
 of 20,000 persons; but where he had given occasion 
 to the Bishop of London for publishing a charge to 
 his clergy to av'oid alike the extreme of enthusiasm and 
 lukewarmness. He had come this time by the way of Phil- 
 adelphia, and travelling through Pennsylvania, tlie Jerseys, 
 New York and back again to Maryland, Virginia, Korth Caro- 
 lina and this Province, he had preached all along to immense 
 congregations. With ]V[r. James Habersham's assistance he 
 had founded an orphan asylum in Georgia, which he called 
 Bethesda ; and the first collection he made for it was in the 
 Congregational Church in Charlestown — the Circular (Jhurch. 
 He had been cordially received in this city (the place, his 
 biographer says,' "of his greatest success and the greatest op- 
 position'') by Commissary Garden on his first visit ; but the 
 enthusiasm, against which the Bishep of London had to warn 
 him, led him here to disregard canonical obligations, which 
 Commissary 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 Praj'er in public worship, White- 
 field departed from the rule of his Church, making extempore 
 prayers and conducting services without regard to the Prayer 
 Book. This Commissary Garden pi'ohibited, and, Whitefield 
 persisting, he was cited to appear before an ecclesiastical 
 court, held in St. Philip's Church on the 15tli July, 1740, to 
 answer for his conduct. He did not himself appear in re- 
 sponse to the summons, hue Mr. Andrew Rutledge, his coun- 
 sel, appeared for him and protested against the autliority of 
 the Court. The Court overruled the plea to its jurisdiction, 
 and Whitefield appealed to the Lords' Commissioners in Eng- 
 land, 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 
 
24 
 
 the expiration of tlie"tirae limited, lie having procured no pro- 
 hibition against the Court's proceeding, it went on with the 
 case, and, Whitefield failing to answer after successive ad- 
 journments to allow him an opportunity so to do, judgment of 
 suspension was pronounced against him. {Dalcho's Chtirch 
 Hist., 128-lJi,6.) Unfortunate indeed was it for the Church 
 of England that it could at that time find no means of avail- 
 ing itself of the great work of the Weslejs 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 18th 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 north- 
 west, 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, storehouses, and 
 produce were destroyed. The loss was estimated at nearly 
 one million and a half dollars, and the number of houses de- 
 stroyed at three hundred. Universal sympathy was exerted 
 for the distresses of the people. A solemn fast was held on 
 Friday, the 38th, 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 
 £1,500 appropriated by the General Assembly and £20,000 
 voted by Parliament, was paid into the hands of the Church 
 Wardens 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, receiving 
 contributions and distributing to the poor, and as late as April, 
 1741, awarding William Osborne £100 currency towards buy- 
 
 *NoTE — The following is represented as the state of the ditJ'erent re- 
 ligious bodies in Carolina in 1740 : 
 
 Episcopalians ^ (4^1 
 
 Presbyterians, French and other Protestants. . . | To the 1 4i |^ to 10. 
 
 Baptists j whole as | 1 | 
 
 Quakers -J [ | J 
 
25 
 
 ing a pilot boat, liis 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 
 Pev. William McGilchrist, who had been sent out by the 
 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 11, 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 Majesty's colonies in America, had re- 
 solved 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 Ciiristian 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 adver- 
 tisement goes on to state that in pui-suanc(! of this plan the 
 Society had purchased, about fifteen months before, two such 
 negroes for this service, and assigned one of them for Charles- 
 town, who would be sufficiently 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 mas- 
 ters and owners ; and Mr. Garden concludes 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 expen- 
 ditures in which it spears that he had received contributions 
 to the amount of £226. 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 
 
26 
 
 receive instructions from teachers of their own race with more 
 facility and wilhn<ruess than from white teachers. The scliool 
 was conthined for twenty-two years, first under the super- 
 vision of Commissary Garden, as Rector of St. Philip's, then 
 of his successor, the Rev. Mr. Clarke, and then of the Rev. 
 Robert Smith, afterwards tlie first Bishop of South Carolina. 
 
 The Rev. Commissary wrote to the Society in 1743 that 
 the negro school was likely to succeed and consisted of thirty 
 children. In 17 14 upwards of 60 children were instructed in 
 it daily, 18 of whom read in the Testament, 20 in the Psalter 
 and the rest in the spelling books. In 1746 there were 55 
 children under tuition, and 15 adults were instructed in the 
 evening. In 1755 there were 70 children in the school, and 
 books were given for their use. In 1757 Mr. Clarke informed 
 the Society that the negro school m Charleston was flourish- 
 ing and full of children. The Rev. Mr. Smith, during his 
 Rectorship, examined the proficiency of the children twice a 
 week, and the scliool was deemed in a flourishing condition. 
 But Andrew, one of the teachers, died ; and the other, Harry, 
 " turned out profligate" — -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. 26tli 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. Fiirniss, 
 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 
 kcee. 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 11th, 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- 
 
27 
 
 jnred the Dissenters' Meeting- House, and that several houses 
 were struck in ditierent parts of the town, jet it did no dam- 
 age. The injury to the steeple and organ cuuld not have been 
 very 2"reat, however, as we find in the journals 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 Yestrj applied at once to the Lord Bishop of 
 London to send them out another clergyman lo fill his place, 
 and in their letter they made the statement that "the Parish 
 is large, and that the usual auditory in it is six or seven hun- 
 dred people." Mr. McGilchrist was succeeded on January 25, 
 
 1746, by the Rev. Robert Betham, A. M., l)ut he lived 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 havino- resii^ned, the Rev. Alexander Keith, 
 Rector of Prince George, Winyaw, succeeded 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. Li less than thirty years it had again 
 outgrown its second edifice. So in 1751 an Act directed "that 
 all that part of Cliarlestown, situate and lying to the south- 
 ward of the middle of Broad Street - ^ * * be known 
 by the name of the Parish of St. Michael," and that a church 
 be erected "on or near the place where the old Church of St, 
 Philip's, Cniarlestown, formerly stood" at a cost to the i)iiblic 
 of not more than £17,000 proclamation money. Tiie corner- 
 stone was laid February 17, 1752, by his Excellency, Governor 
 Glen, which ceremony was followed by a grand dinner. Tiie 
 dinner over, his Majesty's health was druids, followed by a 
 discharge of the cannon at Granville Bastion ; then the health 
 of the Royal Family, and the other Royal toasts. The Gazette 
 adds : The day was concluded with peculiar pleasure and sat- 
 isfaction. The building of the church did not however pro- 
 gress much faster than had that of St. Philip's. The tirst 
 A^estry of St. Michael's was not organized until 1759, and the 
 first service was not performed until February, 1761. The 
 
28 
 
 church wliich still stands is well known for the beauty of its 
 steeple, and is famed for its chime of bells, alike remarkable 
 for their sweetness of tone and romantic history. The cost of 
 the church was £53,535 8s. 9d. currency of the time, about 
 $32,775.87. Of this £21,877 were subscribed for pews, and 
 £31.056 15s. 9d. 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 inhabitants of 
 the Parish of St Michael as upon the inhabitants of the 
 Parish of St. Philip. The representation in the General 
 Assembly was equally divided between the two Parishes ; 
 each was to send 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 perquisites he would lose by the division of the 
 Parish. It was provided by the Act that it should be lawful 
 for the inhabitants 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. YII, 
 79,) Besides their distinctive names (St. Philijy's and St. 
 MichaeVs) the Churches obtained the appellations of "the 
 Old Church," and "the New Church," and St. Michael's con- 
 tinued 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 accustomed to hear St. 
 Michael's called in his family until the late war between 
 the States ''the New 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 
 to the Vestry that he intended to resign the Rectorship on or 
 
29 
 
 before the 25th ot* March. 1754 — Mr. Keitli, the assistant 
 minister, had also given notice of his intention to resign — the 
 Vestry thereupon wrote to the Bisliop of London, requesting 
 liim to send out two clergymen in their room. In their letter 
 to the Bishop the Vestry gave the following honorable testi- 
 mony 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 Roman x, 1. Dr. Dalcho gives the concluding passages 
 of this most touching and eloquent address. 
 
 How different is this character whicl Commissary Garden 
 gives of the people from that written b his predecessor, Com- 
 missary Johnson, to the Bishop of Londv i : 
 
 You know (my Brethren) I abhor flattery; it is sinful a 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 
 truth 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 manj' bad individuals amongst them, too many 
 despisers of Religion and Virtue, yet, generally speaking, the most 
 substantial and knowing 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 st md or fall; let us live in 
 peace, friendship and charity towards them. My hope and earnest 
 desire of my heart andp?-a^er to God for them also is, that they may 
 be saved. And moreover I take this opportunity tiius 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." 
 
30 
 We can (juote i'! addition only this last passage : 
 
 "Once more, (ray beloved Brethren) farewell .' 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 on you, the beloved people of my late charge — may the 
 ever blessed and glorious Trinity bless yon in the city, and in the Field; 
 in the fruit of your Body, the fruit of your Cattle, and the iruit of your 
 Ground. lUess 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 yoii with truly faithful and obedient Hearts and Anally 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 congrega- 
 tion for whose spiritual welfare he had labored so many years. 
 The Vestry, Wardens and Parishioners joined in an address, 
 expressing their reverence and love, and presented to him a 
 piece of plate with an engraving upon it of the west front of 
 the Church and an appropriate inscription. {See the Address 
 in Dalclid's OJturch Hist., with names thereto, p. 171-174.) 
 
 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 November 
 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. Win- 
 wood 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, 
 who in two years was chosen the first Rector of St. Michael's. 
 
31 
 
 The Rev. Joseph Dacre Wilton arrived from England at the 
 end of 1701, and was elected assistant January 9, 1762. He 
 died in 1767, and was buried in tlie church yard. Mr. Wil- 
 ton 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 ab- 
 sence. Mr. Smith remained in England near two years, and 
 while there engaged the Rev. Robert Purcell, A. M., as As- 
 sistant Minister of St. Philip's. This clergyman had been cu- 
 rate 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 re- 
 mained in England and received a pension of £100 jjer annum 
 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 liearty accord. Of the party which Christopher Gads- 
 den assembled under the Liberty Tree, in 1766, ten of the 
 twenty-six were his fellow worshippers in the old Church, to 
 ioit~^\n. Johnson, Joseph Yerree, Nathaniel Lobby, John 
 Hall, Tunis Tebout, William Trusler, Robert Howard, Alex- 
 ander Alexander, Edward and Daniel Cannon. That we are 
 correct in saying that the leaders of the Revolution were most 
 from St. Philip's will be recognized when we recall well 
 known names of those who led the people and worshipped in 
 this Church, to wit — Christopher Gadsden, Henry Laurens 
 and his son John, Rawlins Lowndes, Col. Charles Pinckney, 
 
32 
 
 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas Pinckney, the Rut- 
 ledges (Edward and Hugh — John Rutledge had removed to 
 St. Michael's,) Henry Middleton and his son Arthur, William 
 Johnson and Daniel Cannon. Of the sixty principal citizens 
 of South Carolina, upon the fall of (Jharleston 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 — 
 Christopher 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 Middleton, 
 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 ITth 
 February, 1778, as a day of fasting, liumiliation 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 Smitli, for which he received the thanks of the 
 body. Mr. Smith continued to officiate during the Revolu- 
 tion until Charleston 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 
 had been sequestered by tlie British, made it necessary for 
 him to add to the great and multiplied labors of his pastoral 
 function the arduous and anxious responsibility of tuition. 
 He organized an academy, for which he spared neither trouble 
 
33 
 
 iK>r expense in ubtaininii; the best qualified classical teachers, 
 and which afterward, upon the passage of an Act estahlishincr 
 the Charleston College in 1785, became incorporated with 
 that Institution, of which he was appointed the principal. It 
 was also, says Dalcho, through his unwearied exertions that 
 the Vestries of St. Philip's and St. Michael's were led to asso- 
 ciate in a convention for the purpose of sending delegates to a 
 General Convention of the Episcopal 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, Dela- 
 ware. 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, 
 notwithstanding 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 Chui'ch in an anomalous con- 
 dition. 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 question. [It does 
 not appear that any division of the Glebe lands given by Mrs. 
 Affra Coming had been made between St. Philip's and St. 
 Michael's Churches upon the ci-eation 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 in- 
 corporating the Yestries and Church Wardens of the two 
 Parishes into one corporate body, with power to hold ana dis- 
 pose of the lands and other property then vested in the said 
 
34 
 
 Clinrclies or any other they might acquire. {Statntes 8, Vol, 
 168.) This arrangement did not. however, work well, and so 
 in 179r the Vestries and Wardens of tiie two Churches ob- 
 tained from the Legislature another Act making the two 
 Churches separate and distinct bodies politic and corporate 
 [Hid. 168.) Befoi'e the passage of this Act an agreement had 
 been entered into by the two Churches for a division of the 
 Glebe lands. This agreement was confirmed bv the Act sep- 
 arating the Churches. It was not, however, until the j-ear 
 1797 that a formal deed of partition was executed by the two 
 bodies. In this division St. Philip's Church obtained the 
 i>-reater quantity of land, most of which, however, was at the 
 time vacant and unimproved ; while St. Michael's obtained 
 most of the improved 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 Senator's, one for each of the Par- 
 ishes. This was the origin of the allowance of two Senators 
 to the City of Charleston, which continued until the Constitu- 
 tion of 1895. The Senators and Representatives were styled 
 from the Parishes of St. Philip'' s and St. MichaeVs, woifrom 
 Charleston. 
 
 When Mr. Frost became Rect(>r 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. Philip's December 2, 1804, and the 
 Rev. William Percy was elected a temporary or third Minister 
 of St. Philip's and St. Michael's conjointly. In the Spring of 
 1807 Dr. Jenkins went 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. The Rev. Christopher Edwards Gadsdei., 
 Minister of St. John's Berkelev. was elected assistant Decern 
 
35 
 
 ber 21, 1809, when Dr. Percy ceased to officiate at 8t. Phil, 
 ip's. The Rev.. Mr. Simons died May 27, 1814, 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 lires which had 
 devastated the city in 1740, 1778, 1796, and in 1810. In that 
 of 1796 the French Protestant Churcli, but a short distance 
 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 morning, February 14, 1835. 
 We 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 be- 
 loved 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 re- 
 gretted 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 form- 
 ing literally a pillar of fire, and finally enwrapped the whole body of 
 the church in its enlarged volume. The burning of the body of the 
 Church was the closing scene of the catastrophe. In 1796 it was pre- 
 served by a negro man who ascended it and was rewarded with his 
 freedom for his perilous exertions, and again in 1810 it narrowly es- 
 caped 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.'' 
 
3G 
 
 The Rev. John Johnson. D. D., the present Rector of St. 
 Philip's Clinrch, in his sermon preached on Sunday, Auojust, 
 9, 1874, in commemoration of the one hundred and iiftietli 
 year of tlie 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 whicli really bridges over a great uhasm 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 chureli yard. Dr. Gads- 
 den had been your Rector for twenty-one years, when on that fatal 
 Sunday morning in February, of the year 1885, the Hakes of the tire 
 from the north of us caught the dry wood work of our steeple, and 
 the flames descending wrapt the Church of so many consecrated affec- 
 tions, until despite all efforts 'our holy and once beautiful house where 
 our fathers praised God, was burned np 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 thau that of old St. Philip's Church. 
 To show how general was the feeling in our community, our congrega- 
 tion had places of worship otiered them by many of their fellow Chris- 
 tians of all denominations. And one occurrence during the fire was 
 made the subject of some lines by, it is thought, Mr. Charles Fraser, 
 ouce 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 afflicted flock were gathered by their Shepherd, as well as they 
 could be, in the old Sunday School building to the east of us, and how 
 to a weaping 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 the church, because 
 
37 
 
 it was said the congregation was a rich corporation, the 
 Vestry state, in the Southern Patriot, of the 19th February, 
 1835, that in the last few years some of the building leases 
 of the Glebe lands having expired the Ycstry were obliged to 
 pay for the improvements upon them, when, from the depre- 
 ciation 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 remembered, was just 
 before the great financial panic of 1S37. Xotwithstanding 
 this, Dr. Johnson points out that on the 12th of November 
 of that year the corner-stone of the new building was laid 
 with appropriate ceremonies; the lirst service under its roof 
 was held on a fast day, the 3rd May, 1838; and the church 
 was consecrated by Bishop Bowen on the Oth day of j^ovem- 
 ber, 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 tire 
 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 above 
 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 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 immediately next to the side walls; 
 one hundred and two pews on the floor provided Ave hundred 
 and fltty sittings, while thirty-six in the galleries, reached by 
 stairs in the vestibule, provided two hundred and fifty more, 
 making accommodations, without crowding, for upwards of 
 
38 
 
 eight hundred persons. But, with seats arranged along the 
 aisles and in the vestibule, as has been done for special occa- 
 sions, the capacity of the church may be assumed as about 
 twelve hundred sittings. So, in regard to its external 
 sittings, the new differs not greatly from the old building. 
 The three characteristic porches, north, south and west, were 
 repeated, 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. But, 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 snrmounted 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 prevailed; and 
 the new plans, as has been seen, departed in some important 
 particulars from the old. Both structures retained the inte- 
 rior features of the Georgian period of London church archi- 
 tecture, 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 improvements. 
 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, 
 vvere not repeated because they darkened the interior, and 
 interfered seriously with vision and hearing. 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 
 
 * These appear in the columns, and on tlie frieze, of the Market 
 Hall, Charleston. 
 
39 
 
 and frieze, the order they iUustrate. The interior ot the 
 sacred edifice is finished in th.e Corinthian order of architec- 
 ture, and is the only specimen in the city of tliat order, with 
 all the rich ornaments of the later, or Roman, period. f 
 These are executed, for the most part, in stucco, but the capi- 
 tals of the columns are in carved wood. The roof and gal- 
 leries are supported by eight fluted columns, four on each 
 side, rising from pedestals of the same level as the rail of the 
 pews to the height of twenty feet above the floor. There, 
 these columns, flnished with their appropriate capitals, meet 
 the line of the entablature, not extended in the usual way 
 from column to column, but circumscribed above each colunm, 
 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 d ' esprit. ' ' But it has its reason in the 
 precedent of one of the finest London churches, designed 
 by James Gibbs, architect, 1721, and the express wish of the 
 Charleston congregation to secure, thereby, tlie light and airy 
 effect of the English prototype. 
 
 "At a meeting of the congregation of St. Philip's, 27th 
 June, 1830, 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 ]H-acticable) after the 
 style of St. Martin's in the Fields, London, be adopted."' 
 And again. Resolved, "That the pillars of the plans presented 
 be lowered, so as to reduce the arches." These arches were 
 tiie motive of tlie whole scheme. Springing longitudinally 
 from the square of cornice above each column, at an altitude 
 of about twenty- Ave feet, and rising at their crown to a level 
 of thirty-six feet above the floor, these flne arches on each 
 side support the roof, and contribute 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 
 
 t The earliest (Grecian) Corinthian column is seen in the colonnade 
 of the Charleston Hotel. 
 
40 
 
 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 chan- 
 cel, 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 Commandments." The Holy Table, 
 saved from the old church while it was burning down, still 
 continues to be used in the services, an emblem of union and 
 communion between the generations of St. Philip's, past, 
 present and future. A vestry- room has been bnilt in recent 
 years in the northeastern angle of the church. 
 
 Dimensions of the Exterior. 
 
 Extreme length of building, not iacluding the western poroh . .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 " 
 
 "■'The cost of the new church, as reported to the congrega- 
 tion, 15th July, 1839, was $84,206.01. Tlie subsequent 
 
41 
 
 expense of erecting a steeple must liave raised the total cost 
 to nearly $100,000. "•• 
 
 At the time of the burning of the Old Church the ardent, 
 gifted and lamented Daniel Cohia was Assistant Minister. 
 His ministry was brief; of but three years; it was almost 
 entirely spent in the temporary building called the Tabernacle. 
 His elofjuent voice was not heard in the present edilice — he 
 died in 1837, and was succeeded by the Rev. Abraham 
 Kaufman, whose ministry was e(|ually brief, whom all had 
 begun to admire, and sorrowed thus to lose. Tal)lets 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 
 l»eing selected as the final resting place of that illustrious 
 man, and that the Mayor, in l)ehalf 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 l)e permitted to repose among 
 them. This recjuest was acceded to; the body was l)rought 
 to the 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 
 
 * On the inside walls of the present church are monnmental tablets 
 to Bishop Christopher E. Gadsden, the Rev. William Dehon, William 
 Mason Smith, and Mrs. Mary A.nn Elizabeth Cogdell — and in the 
 vestibule is one to Maj. Gen. William Moultrie, erected by the Society 
 of the Cincinnati, and also one "In memory of those Soldiers of the 
 Confederate States connected with St. Philip's Church, who died for 
 their Country." 
 
42 
 
 a peculiar fitness in the circumstance that Bishop Gadsden, 
 the Kector of St. Pliilip's, had been a class-mate 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 
 the body and its lying in state in the City Haii, was appointed for the 
 removal 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 Mar. 
 shal, 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 St. 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. Gads- 
 den, Bishop of the Diocese, with great feeling and solemnity, read the 
 burial service, to which succeeded an eloquent funeral 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, pen- 
 dant 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 'C.alhoun," adjusted to its position." 
 
 It was ultimately decided tliat 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 remain. 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 tonil) was quietly and secretly opened, and the coffin 
 containing them removed to another place in the eastern 
 church yard where they remained until the war was over 
 when they were as quietly restored to the original tomb. 
 
 * Rev. James W. Miles. 
 
43 
 
 In December, 1883, Mr. Charles Inglesby, a member of 
 St. Philip's Church, then a RejDreseiitative in the State 
 Legislature from Charleston, introduced a Joint Kesohition 
 appropriating funds for the construction and erection of a 
 Sarcophagus upon the grave. The Resolution recited tliat : 
 
 "Whereas, upon the announcement in March, 185U, of the lamented 
 death of the late Senator John C. Calhoun, the State of South Caro- 
 lina 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 of time it was only then possible to erect a 
 temporary structure in which Senator Calhoun's remains could be 
 deposited ; 
 
 "And whereas, by reason of the many public disabilities since 
 accruing, which have prevented the intended action of the General 
 Assembly in the construction of an appropriate sarcophagus of endur- 
 ing material, suitably inscribed, in which the remains of South Caro- 
 lina'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 unani- 
 mously, 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. ' ' {18th Stat of S. C. , 661. ) 
 With the sum so appropriated the sarcophagus was erected.* 
 Dr. Johnson kindly furnishes this description of the tomb : 
 
 * "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: 
 
 ''This marble for thirty -four years covered the tomb of CALHO UN 
 in the Western Churchyard. It has been placed here by the Vestry, near 
 the spot tvJiere his remains were interred during the siege of Charleston, 
 from, which sp)Ot they were afterwards removed to the original tomb, 
 and subsequently deposited under the Sarcojihagus erected on the 
 same site in 18S4 by the State." 
 
44 
 
 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 holds 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 height of 10 feet. The iron coffin 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 
 highly polished columns, one at each angle of the super- 
 structure, support a solid mass of entablature and pediment, 
 covering and finishing the structure in rectangular dimen- 
 sions, somewhat less than those of the base first described. 
 The inscriptions are as follows : 
 
 [North Side.] 
 Erected by the State of South 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 State. 
 
 A beautiful and vigorous JMagnolia tree, planted near the 
 sarcophagus, on the western side, rises some thirty feet above 
 it; and, perennially green, typifies the undying reputation 
 
47 
 
 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. 
 Christopher P. Gadsden, the deceased Bishop's nephew, 
 became Assistant Minister, remaining as such for six years, 
 when he became Rector of St. Luke's. Mr. Campbell 
 resigned in 1858, and in 1859 the Rev. William R. Dehon 
 became Rector, and the Rev. W. B. W. Howe, Assistant 
 Minister. Mr. Dehon died in 1862, and Mr. Howe suc- 
 ceeded 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 Beaufort, 
 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 Govern- 
 ment 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 as targets for the great guns with which the 
 city was bombarded. St. Philip's suffered particularly. 
 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 November, 
 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. W. Howe, so endeared himself, to the con- 
 gregation and community at large. The Rev. Dr. Johnson, 
 the present Rector of the church — himself the Engineer 
 Officer of Fort Sumter, by whose skill, patient labor and 
 
48 
 
 bravery the crumbling walls of the fort were rendered tena- 
 ble — 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 administered 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 hesi- 
 tated 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 
 continued to be large, he found time to visit assiduously the sick and 
 wounded in the hospitals. Though the sound of battle grew nearer 
 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 1863, the 
 regular services of the church were maintained in this building. And 
 it was not until the autumn of 1868, 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 con- 
 gregation 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 recjuired 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 
 
49 
 
 refusing to use the prayer for the King of England ; Bishop 
 Howe 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. 
 Welsman, a member of the congregation, most generously 
 advanced the money necessary; and divine service was 
 resumed in the church, after an interval of two years and 
 nearly four months, on Sunday, the 4th March, 1866, with 
 a large congregation then and there assembled. Upon this 
 occasion, the Rev, Mr. Howe, the Hector, preached a most 
 elocjuent sermon from the text : "I am the Lord, I change 
 not; therefore 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 
 separated, 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 philosopbers, 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 acause for congratu- 
 lation, 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 support, but our Heavenly [Father, who is greater than all, and 
 who will not permit 'tribulation or distress, or persecution or famine, 
 or nakedness or peril, or sword,' to pluck us out of our great Redeemer's 
 hands 1 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 
 4 
 
60 
 
 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 moment, '.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 poiir 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 Repub- 
 licanism ? 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 thos^^ who in the late war contended for 
 principles more than for results. How then, as Christian men. shall 
 we view present results f Shall we view them as condemning the 
 cause for which we prayed and suffered and died, aad as proclaiming 
 it to be an imrighteous cause ? For one I am this day as satisfied of 
 its justness, consonance with previous American principles, as when 
 I last spoke to you from this pulpit, and you listened m 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 .iustice as she 
 weighs in impartial 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 Pericles said from the bema, outside the walls of Athens, 
 over those Athenians who fell in the first year of the Peloponnesian 
 war: 'Therefore, in behall '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 iier 
 glorious. Let us who sur\'ive, 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 ur)on 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 
 
51 
 
 necessary to have a complete and thorough reparation and 
 restoration of the editice. This was undertaken and accom- 
 plished at large expense. But by economy and careful man- 
 agement 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 ladie? 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 other accounts, 
 excepting one still remaining from the original 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 destroyed, the north and south 
 porclies 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 column and brick arches in the 
 lantern were thrown down. The cost of repairing the build- 
 ing 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 Pinckney, 
 Jr., James Maxwell Pringle, Christopher P. Gadsden, Roberts 
 Poinsett Johnson, P. F. Stevens, James W. Miles, Edward 
 
52 
 
 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 beeen but sixteen Rectors, 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 Rector, Dr. 
 Johnson, 26 years. There have been during that time 
 twenty-four Assistant Ministers. 
 
 Rectors. 
 
 Atkin Williamson 16S0- .... 
 
 Samuel Marshall 1696-1699 
 
 Edward Marston 1699-1705 
 
 Richard Marsden 1705-lTOT 
 
 Gideon Johnson (Commissary) 1707-1716 
 
 Alexander Garden (Commissary). . 1719-1754 
 
 Richard Clarke 1755-1759 
 
 Robert Smith (First Bishop of So. Ca.) 1759-1801 
 
 Thomas Frost 1801-1804 
 
 Edward Jenkins 1804-1809 
 
 James Dewar Simons 1809-1814 
 
 Christopher E. Gadsden (Bishop) 1814-1852 
 
 John Barnwell Campbell 1852-1858 
 
 William Dehon .1859-1862 
 
 William B. W. Howe (Bishop) 1863-1872 
 
 John Johnson (the present incumbent) 1872 
 
 Assistant Ministers. 
 
 Thomas Morritt 1717-1728 
 
 John Lambert 1728-1729 
 
 * The son of Prof. John MoCrady. 
 
53 
 
 William Orr 1737-1741 
 
 William McGilchrist 1741-1745 
 
 Robert Betliam 1746-1747 
 
 Samuel Qiiincy 1747-1749 
 
 Alexander Keith 1749-1753 
 
 John Andrews 1755-1756 
 
 Robert Smith (First Bishop of So. Ca.) 1756-1759 
 
 Joseph D. Wilton 1761-1767 
 
 Jaihes Crallan 1767-1768 
 
 Robert Purcell 1769-1775 
 
 Thomas Frost 1786-1801 
 
 Peter M. Parker 1801-1 802 
 
 Milward Pogson 1802- 
 
 James Dewar Simons -1809 
 
 Christopher E. Gadsden (Bishop) 1809-1814 
 
 Thomas D. Frost 1815-1819 
 
 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 con- 
 tains 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. Before 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 
 
54 
 
 a2:ainst the invasion of the S])aniards and French in 1706. 
 and of the expedition against the pirates in 1718, the donor 
 of the Silver Communion Service to the church,* vras interred 
 in the western yard, just in front of the church, in 1722. 
 Thomas Hepworth, Chief Justice, was buried there in 1728. 
 A slab of slate still marks the grave of the Rev. John Lam- 
 bert, 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 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 Vestry had built as a mark of their gratitude for his long 
 and faithful services. To Hector Berenger DeBeaufain, 
 Collector 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 Buale, 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 
 
 * Noble benefactions have from the earliest times been made to the 
 church. Among the donors have been Mrs. Affra Coming — Colonel 
 William Rhett— Mrs. Kirkland — 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 — Mi.ss Susan B. 
 Hayne — and Mrs, Anna D. Kaufman. 
 
55 
 
 from 1754 to 1764, still stands next to that of Colonel Rliett, 
 his ancestor, in the western cemetery, directly in front of the 
 church. Of physicians there worshipped in this charch the 
 two Doctors John Moultrie, father and son — Dr. John Rut- 
 ledge, father of the distinguished trio of sons — and Dr. Lionel 
 Chalmers; the two last are buried in the church yard. 
 
 Of the statesmen, heroes and exiles of the Revolution many 
 lie around the edifice. Among these are Christopher Gads- 
 den, the foremost of all, and William Johnson, his uncom- 
 promising 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 IVIoul- 
 trie, 2Sth June. 1776; Thomas Pinckney, Major in the Con- 
 tinental Army during the Revolution, Major-General in the 
 War of 1812, Minister to England and Spain, and Governor 
 of the State; Major Benjamin Huger, who fell before the 
 lines of Charlestown, on tlie lltli May, 1779, during Pro- 
 vost's invasion; Major Thomas Grimball, who commanded 
 the Battalion of Artillery during the siege of Charlestown, 
 in 1780; Daniel Iluger, 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 Cluirch, and Jimt 
 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 Avas a tablet to the 
 memory of Jacob and Rebecca Motte. Jacob Motte was a 
 distinguished citizen, long the Treasurer of the Province; his 
 widow, Rebecca, was the heroine of Fort Motte, the lady 
 who fired her own roof as the most decisive method of reduc- 
 
56 
 
 iug tlie hostile British garrison wliich held and sujTounded 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 contin- 
 uously ; ^md of iiis son of the same name. Assistant Postmaster 
 for thirty-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 Ciafts; the 
 venerable Daniel Huger; Di-. Henry K. Frost, and Dr. 
 Thomas G. Prioleau, Chairmen of the Vestry; the distin- 
 guished 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 Chairmen of tlie Vestry ; 
 Mr, J. J. Pringle Smith, a distinguished representative 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. Colonel 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 
 
59 
 
 Edward Kutledge Shubrick, and Commodore Irwine Shubrick 
 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, almOvSt 
 in line, the remains of four of the leaders of the great nullifi- 
 cation struggle — on the one side the two ntbllijiers^ John C. 
 Calhoun and Robert J. Turnbull — and on the other the two 
 Johnsons, union men, sons of William, before mentioned, 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 Ci^'y, etc. 
 
 The fallowing deceased Members of Congress have come 
 from the congregation : William Laughton Smith, General 
 John Rutledge, Joel R. Poinsett, AVilliam Lowndes, Henry 
 L. Pinckney, Isaac E. Holmes and William Aiken. Wil- 
 liam Porcher Miles, still living, also a member of the congre- 
 gation, was the last Member of Congress from the Charleston 
 District before the war, and was also a Member of the 
 Confederate 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). Assistant 
 Secretary of State under President Buchanan's administration, 
 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, Bichop 
 Gadsden, Bishop Howe, the Reverends Thomas Frost, Mil- 
 
60 
 
 ward 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 community; his 
 son, the late venerable Edward McCrady, lawyer and theolo- 
 gian, 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(]rady, Major of Engineers 
 in the Confederate Army, Professor of Mathematics in the 
 Charleston College, of Zoology in Harvard, Cambridge, 
 Mass., and of Biology in the University 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, of the British Army, the ances- 
 tor of several families in N^orth and South Carolina. 
 
 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 waged over the Church Acts of 1704-1706; the 
 Rev Gideon Johnson, Commissary, who was drowned in the 
 harbor in 1716: Chief Justices Benjamin Whitakcr and 
 
61 
 
 James Micliie; Arthur Middleton, J'resident of the Conven- 
 tion whicli overthrew tlie 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 Laurens, President 
 of the Continental Congress from 1776 to 1778; and his son, 
 Colonel John Laurens, an Aide to Wasliington and Env'o}- to 
 France; General William 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 Mani- 
 gault, Speaker of the Commons during the first JSTon-Impor- 
 tation 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 merchant — and his son of the same name, an Assis- 
 tant Judge; the wise and noble William Wragg, who, exiled 
 from his country because ol his loyalty to his King, perished 
 at sea, to whose memory there is a tablet in Westminster 
 Abbey; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, General in the Conti- 
 nental Army, member of the Convention 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, L^'nited States Senator, Ministerto Spain and 
 Governor of the State; Ralph Izard, a diplomat of the Rev- 
 olution, 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 1812, and Minister to Mexico; 
 
62 
 
 William Lowndes, of whom it was said, the liighest and 
 best hopes of the country looked to him for their fulfillment, 
 and whose character has been described by an eminent writer 
 "p.s 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 A^ttorney General of the State; "William Alston 
 Pringle, Recorder of the City; and H. 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 Episcopate 
 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 numbering among her 
 worshippers two other Colonial and four other State Gov- 
 ernors, who are buried elsewhere. Six Colonial Chief 
 Justices worshipped in her sanctuary, four of whom are 
 buried in her cemetery. Two Presidents of the Continental 
 Congress, and two signers of the Declaration of Independence 
 were reared in this church, one ol 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. Soldiei-s 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 Iheir country : 
 
63 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 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, 18GL 
 
 Died 27 July, 1861. Age 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. 
 
 NATHANIEL HEY WARD, Jr., 
 
 Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; killed Manasses, Va., 29 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., 1862. Aged 30 years. 
 
 JOSEPH HEYWARD, 
 
 Capt. A. A. G. Provisional Army C. S. 
 
 Died 7 Novr.,1862. Aged 32 years. 
 
64 
 
 WASHINGTON ALSTON, 
 Sergt. Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; killed Fredericksburg, Va., 13 Dec, 1862. 
 
 Aged 18 years. 
 
 GEORGE COFFIN PINCKNEY, 
 
 Co. L, 1 S. C. Vols.; killed Fredricksburg, Va., 13 Dec, 1862. 
 
 Aged 25 years. 
 
 WILLIAM GAILLARD INGRAHAM, 
 
 Lieut. Co. B, Act'g Adj't., 23 S. C. Vols. 
 Died 8 March, 1863. Aged 22 years. 
 
 JOSEPH SANFORD FERGUSON, 
 
 Marion Art'y- 
 Died 15 July, 1863. Aged 19 years. 
 
 WALTER EWING GIBSON, 
 
 Co. A, 25 S. C. Vols.; killed Fort Sumter, 31 Oct., 1863, 
 
 Aged 18 years. 
 
 JOHN WEBB, 
 
 Capt. Co. K, 2 S. C. Vols.; killed Spottsylvania, Va., 12 May, 1864. 
 Aged 26 years. 
 
 JAMES MERRITT SCHMIDT, 
 
 Co. C, 11 S. C. Vols. ; killed Drewry's Bluff, Va., 16 May,'_1864. 
 Aged 31 years. 
 
 FRANCIS KIN LOCH MIDDLETON, 
 
 Co. K, 4S. C. Cav.; mortally wounded Hawes Shop, Va., 28 May, 1864 
 
 Died 30 May, 1864. Aged 29 years. 
 
 CHARLES EDWARD PMOLEAU, 
 
 Co. K, 4 S. C. Cav. ; killed Hawes Shop, Va., 28 May, 1864, 
 Aged 24 years. 
 
 WILLIAM HUEY FAIRLEY, 
 
 Co. K,, 4 S. C. Cav.; killed Treviilian's Sta., Va., 11 June, 1864. 
 Aged 27 years. 
 
 WILLIAM MASON SMITH, 
 1st Lieut., Adjt. 27 S. C. Vols.; mortally wounded Cold Harbour, Va., 
 
 3 June, 1864. 
 Died Richmond, Va.., 16 Aug., 1864. Aged 21 years. 
 
 MATTHEW VASSAR BANCROFT, 
 
 Major 23 S. C. Vols. ; killed Petersburg, Va., 22 June, 1864. 
 
 Aged 25 years. 
 
65 
 
 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 83 years. 
 
 EDWARD B. HEYWARD, 
 
 Marion Art'y; diedCliurch 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 LESEtSNE, 
 
 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.' 
 5 
 
PHOTOMOUNT 
 PAMPHLET BINDER 
 
 S4anu/aclurtd by 
 
 GAYLORD BROS. Uc. 
 
 Syrscut*, N. Y. 
 
 Stockton, C«lif.