Tag Archives: Abbeville County

-South Carolina, Black History, Churches and Temples, Historic Photos

Mulberry AME Church-Abbeville, South Carolina

May 12, 2024 Cynthia L Jennings Leave a comment

Mulberry AME Church was organized in 1871. Like many churches in the South, the congregation began meeting in a brush arbor, a shelter constructed with poles covered in tree limbs and hay. It was named after a mulberry tree near the church.

A log structure was completed in 1872. Another building was built in 1878 and used until 1918 when it was lost to fire. The current Carpenter Gothic church was completed in 1919. Mulberry is the mother church to the St. Paul, St. Peter, and Shady Grove AME churches in Abbeville County.

This is a 1939 drawing of the church created during a WPA Survey of State and Local Historical Records.

-South Carolina, Stores

Abbeville Arsenal and Dendy’s Store-Abbeville, South Carolina

October 8, 2023 Cynthia L Jennings 1 Comment

This home has a long, varied history in Abbeville that had been lost to history until Tim Drake purchased the home to restore it. To his surprise, he found 1791 etched into one of the beams. This discovery sent him down a rabbit hole where he determined that this building was initially one of three arsenals built in South Carolina during Governor Moultrie’s administration. Located on the town’s square, it was a place to store munitions until 1836.

It was then decommissioned and purchased by Charles Dendy, where it was a store until the 1850s. Sometime in the late 1800s, the building was moved to its current location at the corner of Cherry and Henry M. Turner streets.

Once it was moved, the building served as a private residence.

-South Carolina, Abandoned, Black History, National Register of Historic Places, Rosenwald Schools, Schools

Abbeville County Training School-Abbeville, South Carolina

May 14, 2023 Cynthia L Jennings Leave a comment

Newly added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1922, the Abbeville County Training School was also known as the Branch Street School. The site is overgrown and difficult to photograph because there are storage buildings in front of the school. There are current plans to turn this into housing and a Black History Museum.

-South Carolina, Black History, Cemeteries, Churches and Temples, Vernacular Headstones

Martha Griffin Marker at Brownoh AME Church-Calhoun Falls, South Carolina

November 26, 2022 Cynthia L Jennings Leave a comment

The marker of Martha Griffin (1874-1933) utilizes marbles set in concrete for a handmade headstone. Folk art headstones using marbles can frequently be found in rural church cemeteries.