Strawberry Chapel and Childsbury Town Site

Last updated

Strawberry Chapel
Strawberry Chapel, Cooper River, West Branch, Cordesville vicinity (Berkeley County, South Carolina).jpg
Strawberry Chapel
USA South Carolina location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location Berkeley County, South Carolina
Nearest city Goose Creek / Moncks Corner
Coordinates 33°5′36″N79°56′7″W / 33.09333°N 79.93528°W / 33.09333; -79.93528
Built1707 (Childsbury)
1725 (Chapel)
NRHP reference No. 72001194 [1]
Added to NRHPApril 26, 1972

Strawberry Chapel is a parochial chapel of ease in the lower part of St. John's, Berkeley Parish in Berkeley County, South Carolina that was built in 1725. It is on Strawberry Chapel Road between South Carolina State Highway 8-44 and the West Branch of the Cooper River. [2] Bordering Strawberry's property is the South Carolina State owned historic site of the “Town of Childsbury.” It was a planned community that was settled in 1707. The town no longer exists. They were named to the National Register of Historic Places on April 26, 1972. [1] [3] [4] Strawberry Chapel, graveyard and lands are private property and only open to the public on special occasions and annual church services.

Contents

History

James Child, an English settler, was granted a tract of 1,200 acres (490 ha) on Strawberry Bluff overlooking the Cooper River. This location was the furthest upstream that ships could travel. He established a ferry across the river. [4]

The town of Childsbury was planned for the bluff. [4] [5] At one time, the town had a tavern, school, chapel, race track, general store, and ferry. A tanner, butcher, shoemaker and carpenters lived in the town. [6] Due to the growth of nearby plantations, the town withered. [7] By 1750, the chapel and tavern continued to be used. Fairs were held until the mid-1750s. [6]

The chapel was a parochial chapel of ease of the Parish of St. John's, Berkeley. The parish church at the time was Biggin Church, which is about 10 mi (16 km) away. [8] The designation of "parochial" meant that it had the authority to baptize and bury the dead. [9]

By 1825, Strawberry Chapel replaced Biggin Church as the parish church. [4] The town is now a South Carolina Heritage Preserve. [6] [10]

Town plan

The town was planned to have twenty-four blocks on Strawberry Bluff. At its center was a market square. Two other squares were named Child's Square and Dixe's Square. The streets were 66 ft (20 m) wide. [4]

Property was assigned for a college, a free school, a church, and a minister's house. Child designated 600 acres (240 ha) for farms and pastures and 100 acres (40 ha) on the bluff for a future citadel. A sketch of the plan for the town has been published. [4]

Chapel architecture

The chapel is a simple, rectangular brick building covered in stucco. It has a jerkin-head roof. The south-facing facade has a double three-paneled door with a flush fanlight. There are shuttered windows on either side of this door. The west end has a single door flanked by a pair of windows. There is decorative rosette window above. The east end has two windows with the rosette window above. Extending from the north wall is a small anteroom for the vestry. [4] [11]

A mural tablet in memory of an early rector of the parish was moved from Biggin Church to Strawberry Chapel. [8] The silver Communion service from Biggin Church, which had been hidden at the end of the Civil War, was found buried in a barn at the Comingtee Plantation in 1947. [12] It is not used at services at Strawberry Chapel but it is on loan to the Charleston Museum.

Additional pictures of the chapel are available. [11] [13]

In preparation for the Chapel’s 300th Anniversary, its once-in-a-century restoration project should be completed by 2025.

Management

Strawberry Chapel has Ball, Harleston, Waring and Stoney descendants actively working to protect its historic 1725 structure and graves. A major renovation should be completed by the Chapel’s 300th Anniversary in 2025. Steps began in 2018 to dry-out the Chapel walls from years of water intrusion. Four communion services are held annually which visitors may attend. Strawberry Chapel and its burial grounds are on private property and not open to the public. Although the chapel and graveyard property share a property line with the Childbury Township land, the two are completely separate entities. The historic Childsbury Township property is open to the public and owned by the State of South Carolina. It section is not part of Strawberry Chapel's private property.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moncks Corner, South Carolina</span> Town in South Carolina, United States

Moncks Corner is a town in and the county seat of Berkeley County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 7,885 at the 2010 census. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, Moncks Corner is included within the Charleston-North Charleston, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul (Charleston, South Carolina)</span>

The St. Luke and St. Paul Anglican Church, located on Coming Street in Charleston, is the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina. It was originally known as St. Paul's Radcliffeboro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bremo Slave Chapel</span> Only slave chapel known to exist in the Commonwealth of Virginia

Bremo Slave Chapel, constructed in 1835 and located in Bremo Bluff, Virginia, United States, is the only slave chapel known to exist in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This Gothic Revival structure originally served as a place of worship for the slaves at the Bremo Plantation of General John Hartwell Cocke. Cocke was deeply concerned with the religious and moral state of his slaves, which drove him to construct this chapel.

Doar is the surname of an aristocratic family in the southern United States. Prior to the American Civil War, family members were among the largest landowners in the South. The family's fortune in the U.S. originates mainly from plantations in Charleston, Georgetown, Berkeley, Orangeburg, Barnwell and Beaufort Counties, South Carolina. Among the plantations that the Doar family owned are: Doar Plantation, Doar Point Plantation, Palo Alto, Harrietta, Woodville, Walnut Grove, Montgomery, Oak Grove, Buck Hall, Egremont, Elmwood, Woodside, Hopsewee, Wedge and Windsor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. James Church (Goose Creek, South Carolina)</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

St. James' Church, Goose Creek, also known as the Goose Creek Church, is an Episcopal church at 100 Vestry Lane in Goose Creek, South Carolina. Built in the 1710s, it is one of South Carolina's oldest surviving buildings, and one of a small number of surviving early Georgian chapels in the nation. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huguenot Church</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

The Huguenot Church, also called the French Huguenot Church or the French Protestant Church, is a Gothic Revival church located at 136 Church Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Built in 1844 and designed by architect Edward Brickell White, it is the oldest Gothic Revival church in South Carolina, and has been designated a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The congregation it serves traces its origins to the 1680s, and is the only independent Huguenot church in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Brickell White</span> American architect

Edward Brickell White, also known as E. B. White, was an architect in the United States. He was known for his Gothic Revival architecture and his use of Roman and Greek designs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Michael's Anglican Church (Charleston, South Carolina)</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

St. Michael's AnglicanChurch is a historic church and the oldest surviving religious structure in Charleston, South Carolina. It is located at Broad and Meeting streets on one of the Four Corners of Law, and represents ecclesiastical law. It was built in the 1750s by order of the South Carolina Assembly. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Stephen's Episcopal Church (St. Stephen, South Carolina)</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church is a historic church located at 196 Brick Church Circle in St. Stephen, South Carolina. Built in the 1760s, it is one of a handful of surviving 18th-century brick parish churches in the state, with a number of architectural features not found on any other of the period. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prince George Winyah Parish Church</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

Prince George Winyah Parish Church is an Anglican church in Georgetown, South Carolina. Prince George Winyah is one of the oldest continuous congregations in South Carolina, and the church building is one of the oldest churches in continuous service in South Carolina. Prince George Winyah (Anglican) and Churchyard was named to the National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (Columbia, South Carolina)</span> Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina

Trinity Episcopal Church, now known as Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, is the first Episcopal and the oldest surviving sanctuary in Columbia, South Carolina. It is a Gothic Revival church that is modeled after York Minster in York, England. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places on February 24, 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biggin Church Ruins</span> Historic ruins in South Carolina, United States

The Biggin Church Ruins are the ruins of a church in Berkeley County, South Carolina. Biggin Church is its name in the USGS Geographic Names Information System. The ruins are about 2 mi (3 km) from Moncks Corner, South Carolina, near the intersection of South Carolina Highway 402 and State Highway 8-376. The church has been burned three times since it was first constructed in about 1711. It was the church of the parish of St. John's, Berkeley The ruins are from the church built in 1761 and its reconstruction in 1781. It was included in the National Register of Historic Places on December 13, 1977. UPDATE 11/2019: Biggin Church Ruins remain part of Strawberry Chapel’s land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old St. Andrew's Parish Church</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

Saint Andrew's Parish Church is located in Charleston, South Carolina, along the west side of the Ashley River. Built in 1706 it is the oldest surviving church building south of Virginia. Its historic graveyard dates from the church's establishment. Expanded in 1723 into the shape of a cross, the church is the only remaining colonial cruciform church in South Carolina. In 1973 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Old St. Andrew's, as it is commonly called, remains an active place of worship and is affiliated with the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina and the Anglican Church in North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adams Run, South Carolina</span> Census-designated place in South Carolina, United States

Adams Run is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Charleston County, South Carolina, United States. It was first listed as a CDP in the 2020 census with a population of 421.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willtown</span> Archaeological site in South Carolina, United States

Willtown Bluff, also known as Wilton and New London, is a historic settlement site located on the S. Edisto River near Adams Run, Charleston County, South Carolina. Founded about 1704, it was the second planned town to be established after the relocation of Charleston in 1682. Willtown served as a local governmental center and regional commercial center. The property includes three early-19th-century buildings: the Parsonage, the Willtown Plantation House, and the remains of a single column of the Episcopal Church. Unexposed remains are of a colonial village thought to have had 80 houses.

The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina was established in 1785 as one of the nine original dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States. The diocese originally covered the entire state of South Carolina, but the western part of the state became the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina in 1922. In 2012, a controversy led to the existence of two rival dioceses, the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina and the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, each claiming to be the legitimate successor of the original diocese.

John Grimké Drayton was a nineteenth-century planter and priest in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a horticulturalist at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens on the Ashley River and an Episcopal priest who served nearby Old St. Andrew's Parish Church for forty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Andrew's Mission Church (Charleston, South Carolina)</span>

Saint Andrew's Mission is a church in the West Ashley area of Charleston, South Carolina, that is affiliated with the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina and the Anglican Church in North America.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. ↑ "33° 5′ 36" N, 79° 56′ 7" W". Google Maps. Google Maps. Retrieved May 10, 2009.
  3. ↑ "Strawberry Chapel and Childsbury Town, Berkeley County (S.C. Sec. Rd. 44, Mount Holly vicinity)". National Register Properties in South Carolina. South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Retrieved May 10, 2009.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bull, Elias B. (December 28, 1970). "Strawberry Chapel and Site of Town of Childsbury" (PDF). National Register of History Places Inventory - Nomination Form. National Park Service. Retrieved May 9, 2009.
  5. ↑ Dalcho, Frederick (1820). An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina: E. Thayer. pp.  266–269. An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina.
  6. 1 2 3 "Childsbury Towne Heritage Preserve". DNR Heritage Preserves. South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Archived from the original on April 26, 2009. Retrieved May 9, 2009.
  7. ↑ Edgar, Walter (2006). South Carolina Encyclopedia. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. p. 934. ISBN   1-57003-598-9.
  8. 1 2 Thomas, Albert S. (1957). A Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina: R.L. Bryan Co. pp. 186–189.
  9. ↑ Dalcho, Frederick (1820). An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Charleston, South Carolina: E. Thayer. pp.  271–274. An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina.
  10. ↑ Clark, John F.; Pierce, Patricia A. (2003). Scenic Driving South Carolina. Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot. p. 131. ISBN   0-7627-1139-6.
  11. 1 2 Stoney, Samuel Gaillard; Simons, A.; Lapham, Samuel Jr (1989). Plantations of the Carolina Low Country (7th ed.). Mineola, New York: Courier Dover Publications. pp. 66–67, 180. ISBN   0-486-26089-5.
  12. ↑ Saturday Evening Post, June 21, 1947, "How the Comingtee Treasure Was Found," Herbert Ravenel Sass & Charlotte Ball
  13. ↑ Waterman, Thomas T.; Nichols, Frederick D. "Strawberry Chapel, Cooper River, West Branch, Cordesville vicinity, Berkeley County, SC (Photographs)". Historic American Buildings Survey. National Park Service. Retrieved May 10, 2009.

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Strawberry Chapel and Childsbury Town Site at Wikimedia Commons

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.