ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH - 1769 St. Stephen's Parish

St. Stephen's Church - 1769 The parish church of St. Stephens Parish

The strip of land running along the south side of the Santee River up to the point where it makes a southward dip in its westward bend was a part of Colonial Craven County and was established as St. James, Santee Parish in 1706 at a time when the Huguenots were being told that they should come into the establishment and have State (Provincial) support for their church rather than pay taxes and also support their separate church. The lower part of St. James, Santee Parish was thickly settled by Huguenots, but the upper part, like upper St. John's, Berkeley, was first settled chiefly by English. The upper section became known as English Santee while the lower section was called French Santee.  As the French families accumulated wealth and increased in numbers, they moved up the River in search of new lands. Another factor that entered the picture was the fact that at that time the lands of St. Stephen's and St.. John's Berkeley that lay along the River did not flood as much as the swamp lands did along the lower Santee.

Many of the English moved on to new frontiers, but others remained here and inter married with the French. By 1754, when the upper part was cut off to form St. Stephen's Parish, that section had a large French population. It is not known whether or not a French Church ever actually existed here, but the influence was strong here and was found to a marked degree in civic and religious activities. This section prospered and we are told that it became the most thickly settled part of the Province outside Charles Town until the Revolutionary War.

When the Parish was established there was already here a wooden chapel and by 1759 plans were being made to replace this with a brick church. Samuel Gaillard Stoney tells that the new church was begun in 1767 and completed in 1769, being built with money from the "Indigo Prosperity" of the time.

The Commissioners did not let a contract for the entire construction but let the work out "piecemeal." Brick that. was considered suitable was secured only after several attempts at making brick. The supervisors of the project were A. Howard and Francis Villepontoux. Most of the work on the building went to Villepontoux and William Axson. Axson, a member of the Wambaw Lodge of Freemasons, inscribed his name and the Masonic Insignia in ground brick above the window of the chancel.

At the beginning of the American Revolution, this section had an unusually high percentage of Tories, who made things difficult for their Whig neighbors and for Francis Marion and his patriots over in St. John's, Berkeley.

With the departure of the British troops many of the Anglican Clergy left the State. Bishop Albert S. Thomas, in his Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, discusses in detail the increasing decline of the Church after 1802 and the efforts of various ministers to reopen and reactivate the parish. He states that the more extensive renovations of the building took place in 1808, 1870, 1934, and more recently.

For many years the doors of this fine old Church were open to the winds and to any comer. The cemetery appears to have always been a community cemetery, except for those families that long continued burying in the plantation family cemetery. These cemeteries were generally only a short distance from the plantation house spot and appear to have often been begun with the death and burial of a child in what had been a garden spot.

Just forty years before the brick church was begun here, this section was the frontier of the Province, which makes it that much more remarkable that this building is unique and represents the tastes and the resources of these grandchildren of laboring immigrant ancestors. Here, as elsewhere in the rural South, hard work and the accumulation of  wealth brought about the evolution of a growing planter aristocracy from immigrants of all classes from most European countries.

An announcement in "The Berkeley Democrat" of May 20, 1970 stated that Secretary of the Interior Walter J. Hickel had announced that this "small Georgian country parish church" was one among nine buildings in South Carolina and one among four in Berkeley County eligible for designation as National Historic Landmarks. See photograph, above.

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church by Jane Searles Misenhelter, published by The State Co., Columbia, S. C., 1977 is an interesting source of additional material on the Church, revealing such facts as that the old wooden chapel was still here where "it formerly stood" on Oct. 16, 1769 when Francis Villepontoux was authorized to move it and convert it into a "Vestry House" for the sum of 70 pounds currency. As in many rural churches in Berkeley County, this church spot and cemetery appear to have been located here originally on the oral authorization of the landowner, for in 1846 they took steps and obtained a Quit-Claim Deed (Book X-11, page 51, Recorder's Office, Charleston County).

Other interesting material on the Parish and its people may be found in A Contribution To The History Of The Huguenots Of South Carolina, consisting of pamphlets by Samuel Dubose, Esq. of St. John's, Berkeley and Prof. Frederick A. Porcher of Charleston, which was republished by T. Gaillard Thomas, M.D., The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1887. In 1962 this book was again published.

Information and Article from "Historic Ramblin's Through Berkeley"  written by and used with permission of Mr. J. Russell Cross