The Wesley United Methodist Church began as a church in the 1830s. Initially, it was for white parishioners and the people they held in bondage. It transitioned to a church for Black Methodists after the Civil War.
The building was used as a school and had been an active church until recent years.
The Prince Hall Masons were founded after the Civil War in South Carolina. Prince Hall (1738-1807) was a free Black leader and abolitionist in Boston. He founded the African Lodge No. 1 with several other men after being denied admission in the St. John’s Lodge. After his death, they renamed themselves the Prince Hall Grand Lodge.
Sons of Beaufort Lodge No. 36 was founded in 1896. The building was initially used by the whole community. The organization bought the building in 1937.
From the historical marker:
Berean Church Berean Presbyterian Church was founded by Samuel J. Bampfield, an influential African American political figure during Reconstruction. Bampfield served in the S.C. House of Representatives, was Beaufort’s postmaster, and clerk of the county court. In 1892 the congregation purchased this lot and constructed a church in the Gothic Revival style. Solomon P. Hood, who later was appointed U.S. Minister to Liberia, was the first pastor.
J. I. Washington Branch Library In 1931 the building was purchased by the Beaufort Township Library and converted for use as a segregated branch library for African Americans. It operated in that capacity until 1965 when this branch closed and Township Library was desegregated. The building was later used as headquarters for the Neighborhood Youth Corps and in 1993 was purchased by USC Beaufort for use as an art studio.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, here is info from the application which gives a good history of this praise house and the overall purpose of praise houses.
“The Mary Jenkins Community Praise House, built ca. 1900, is one of four known extant praise houses on St. Helena Island [one has since been removed – today there are only three praise houses on St. Helena Island]. Praise houses were first established on St. Helena plantations in the antebellum period, as slaves used small frame houses or other buildings as places to meet and worship. After they became freedmen, they built praise houses on or near the old plantation, in most instances calling their community by the name of the former plantation or plantation owner. Although the extant praise houses date from ca. 1900, their function has persisted since before emancipation and the basic architectural form has been retained. Since there were, and are, few formal church buildings on St. Helena, most islanders could only walk or ride to the main church on Sunday morning. For other community meetings or services, praise houses were built in each of the communities created by the former plantations, and services were held on Sunday, Tuesday, And Thursday nights, as well as the Watch Night Service each New Year’s. A typical service might consist of singing, prayer, perhaps a member’s testimony of a religious experience, and almost always ending with a “shout.” Kit Chaplin built this praise house ca. 1900; Paris Capers, born in 1863, was one of the early elders. Members of Ebenezer Baptist Church still attend services here today; a cow bell, which is still in the praise house, has been rung for many years to alert the members to a service or meeting.”
Coffin Point Community Praise House. The roots of praise or “prays” houses are tied to enslaved people building small places of worship on or near the plantation where they labored. They were kept small because enslavers feared large gatherings. (If you look at police response towards Black Lives Matter protests and the insurrectionists, then you know that fear continues today.) This praise house was built in 1900 and rebuilt in 1950. It is still used occasionally by the Coffin Point community.
Talbird/Tabor/Talbot Cemetery is the largest Gullah cemetery on Hilton Head Island. On one side are condos and the other is Skull Creek. The cemetery’s founding is in the 1800s, but the exact date is not known. The Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church tends to the cemetery that experienced significant damage during Hurricane Matthew.
