Sheldon Church, once known as the Prince William Parish Church, has a long history. The congregation held its first service in 1757. The British troops burned the church in 1779. It was rebuilt in 1826 with the walls that were still standing.
Originally it was believed the church was burned by Sherman’s troops. It came to light with unearthed documents that stated the church was burnt but ransacked by local people who needed supplies.
Built around 1740 to give planter’s access to church when traveling to their home church was too difficult, the Chapel was out on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. The tabby church was damaged in an 1868 forest fire. There is a small burial ground adjacent to the church with one distinctive mausoleum.
The graveyard next to the Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island is the location of one of South Carolina’s most famous ghost stories. The story is shared that at 22, Julia Seabrook Legare died of diphtheria and was buried in her husband’s family tomb. A few years later, her brother passed away, and when they opened up the tomb, a pile of bones was found inside of the tomb. The belief was that Julia had been buried alive. Hence, this is why there is no door on the tomb today.
I love a good ghost story, but I also like thoughtful debunking. Writer Jaime Rubio dove deep into the family records of the Seabrook and Legare families to determine that there is limited truth to the story, but it is a ghost story that continues to be perpetuated.
Established in the 1680s, the Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island is one of the oldest Presbyterian churches in the country. The current church building was built in 1831 and has largely stayed the same in its almost 200-year history.
The church’s graveyard contains graves as old as 1787. The headstones illustrate this long history ranging from slate markers to more modern granite ones. The most famous burial is Julia Legare.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
It’s difficult to capture the magnitude of the Angel Oak, a 400 to 500-year-old Southern Live Oak, on Johns Island. The tree is named after the plantation of Justus and Mary Waight Tucker Angel. The oak was part of an original land grant given to Abraham Waight.
I visited Charleston in 2019 to visit the cemeteries there. If you’ve visited Magnolia Cemetery, you will know there are several cemeteries in the area. As I was leaving Magnolia, I was driving down the side roads around the other cemeteries when I noticed Ethel Lance’s marker.
The grounds were being tended to, so I had to wait until the mowers moved away from the marker. Once I got out, I noticed that she was buried near several other members of the Mother Emanuel mass murders.
The other victims are buried in different cemeteries around Charleston and South Carolina.
