Beaufort’s St. Helena’s Parish Church- One of America’s Oldest

 

There are street names such as King and Church that seem very “Charleston” to those of us who live in the Holy City area.

Tour guides steer horse-drawn carriages full of tourists- a common site in Charleston’s Historic District. 

The churchyard is filled with Barnwells, Elliotts, Heywards, Rhetts, Gibbes, and other surnames common in Charleston’s old burial grounds. 

This rare marker type is made of zinc. Continue reading for more details about this style and the New England company that manufactured them. 

But this is not Charleston. It is its neighbor 70 miles to the south, Beaufort.

Charles Town was founded by the British in 1670. The British came to Beaufort 41 years later in 1711. St. Helena Parish Church was formed the very next year in 1712. Back then the Anglican Church was a (strong) arm of the government. Separation of church and state would come many years later after the hard-fought Revolutionary War. 

Signs and plaques touch on St. Helena's long and rich history. 

It was a treat to see, photograph and learn about this old church and churchyard.

I drove to Beaufort at the request of Carl Howk, a longtime docent at St. Helena. He is pictured on the right side of this photo with another docent, Bradley Parker. Carl has my “In the Arms of Angels” Magnolia Cemetery book and was interested in networking with a fellow traveler also passionate about churches, graveyards and local history.

A couple years ago Carl completed a major cleaning of the grave markers at his church. He used a special formula to remove decades, if not centuries, of grime. 

Here's a good example of Carl's handiwork. He says many markers were no longer legible but now they are. 

With the help of a few volunteers, the big cleaning project brought the graveyard back to life, you could say. 

This marker is a palmetto tree with its top cut off, signifying "the cutting off of youth before maturity," according to a church publication. 

Visitors in the past would not have been able to read the lengthy inscription on the flat ledger beneath the cropped stone tree. Grime, dirt and mildew made it difficult if not impossible to read. 

The ledger tells the sad but inspiring tale of 19-year-old Hugh Toland Sams. In 1860 he was a senior cadet at the S.C. Military College (The Citadel today). A fire broke out on campus and Sams died as a result of trying to put it out. 

His commanding officer at the military school praised young Sams and his parents chose to put the tribute on Hugh's grave. It says in part, "His courteous bearing, high-toned sentiments and exemplary conduct for nearly four years secured for him the high esteem of his professors and won the affectionate regard of his fellow cadets." 

Carl says the cross on his marker, before he applied all the necessary elbow grease and cleaning solution, could not be recognized as the holy symbol it is. 

Carl showed me around the beautifully appointed sanctuary. 

There are stories at every turn. 

The altar engraved with “Do this in Remembrance of Me” was hand-carved by sailors aboard the USS New Hampshire. 

The U.S. Navy crew was on duty in the Beaufort during the Civil War Reconstruction period. The wood altar was considered an offering of reconciliation after the long, bloody war. 

What the bell? St. Helena’s bell dates to 1726. It was made at a foundry in the Netherlands. Clear as a bell (ha!) still today can be read “Soli Gloria Deo” (“for the glory of God only”). The small bell was hidden from the British during the American Revolution. Its whereabouts were unknown for many years but was eventually returned to the church in 1952. That’s 180 years or so after it was hidden! 

Another very old artifact is this small baptismal font that is still used today. The wonderful book published to commemorate St. Helena’s 300th anniversary (1712-2012) says the font is the lone church furnishing to survive the long Union occupation of Beaufort during the Civil War from 1861-1865. The font was found in a rubbish pile in the churchyard at the war’s end, according to St. Helena records. 

Carl Howk said the wood base was crafted by a church member in recent years. 

On the Saturday of my visit, I noticed the lights were on and there was an “Open” sign on the door.

The church has an active docent program that enables visitors to come inside, look around and receive tours. Quite a welcoming place! 

As stated on the historic signs, the church building dates to 1724. There were additions and expansions in 1770, 1817 and 1842. 

By comparison, downtown Charleston’s oldest existing church edifice is St. Michael’s which was built in 1751. 

On a Wikipedia list of the oldest churches in the United States, St. Helena's is cited as the oldest Anglican/Episcopal church south of Charleston. 

Charleston's Old St. Andrew's Parish Church, founded in 1706, is considered the oldest church structure in South Carolina and the oldest south of Virginia. 

The wraparound gallery was added in 1817. This upstairs section was for enslaved church members who also entered and exited through a door different than White people.  

Here are more interior images of St. Helena’s Parish Church. 

What a beautiful organ is in the back of the church up in the gallery! This is a Taylor and Boody mechanical tracker model installed here in 1985. It was built especially for St. Helena and is a reproduction of an 18th-century organ (from the “Amazing Grace” 300 years of history book).

A view of the graveyard from the gallery shows how family plots dominate the layout. A pamphlet available in the church says this is by design:

“Members of many long-time Beaufort District families are buried in this churchyard, including members of the Barnwell, Elliott, Stuart, Chaplin, Rhett, Gibbes, Marscher, and Heyward families, to name only a few.

“Members of these families represented distinguished leaders in education, politics, religion and the military during the Antebellum.” 

The churchyard is very well documented. Inside I picked up three different free publications about the graveyard. One of them states that 750 people have been buried here since 1724. 

The first burial was in 1724 and that distinction went to Col. John Barnwell (1671-1724). He had the interesting nickname "Tuscarora Jack." Barnwell came to America from Ireland in 1700 or 1701. 

Barnwell became an important leader and official in the fledgling colony. He led an army against the Tuscarora indians in 1711-12. 

His Barnwell name would continue and flourish in the S.C. Lowcountry and beyond.  

Here are some other things I find distinctive about this churchyard.

                                                     WHY THE STONE WALL? 

I assumed the fence was to keep the graveyard safe and secure, or maybe to keep the people out and the spirits in. But Carl Howk told me it was built to keep out rutting hogs. Yes, if early Beaufort settlements had a wild hogs problem, then a strong high wall would do the job. 

WHITE ZINC OR BRONZE MARKERS 

I have seen a couple of these metal markers in Charleston burial grounds. This Beaufort graveyard has nearly a dozen, a number that might reflect the wealth of St. Helena’s congregation. 

Carl Howk knocks on one such example to confirm the metal material of this tall pedestal marker.

A closeup of the cross. It marks the grave of Henry Herman Von Harten (1823-1881). 

Another white zinc creation, this one was erected for a Confederate veteran. 

This marker has an elaborate design that included drapery and a passage from the Apostles Creed. 

At the bottom can be seen the name of the company that made these unique blue-gray “stones.” 

Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut is well represented here. Like I said, I’ve never seen more of this product in one place than here. 

The Monumental Bronze Co. was in business 40 years, from 1874-1914. It was the only producer of this distinctive grave marker in the U.S. 

“WAR BETWEEN THE SECTIONS” 

Dr. Henry Middleton Stuart (1832-1915) went by “Hal” according to his entry on Find A Grave. As a young man he commanded an artillery battery in the Confederate Army during not the Civil War or the War Between the States but in the “War Between the Sections.” 

Read the inscription on the back of Dr. Stuart’s large  layered marker and there it is: “He served his generation in his day well and faithfully, commanding a battery of artillery from Beaufort during the War Between the Sections…”

This is only the second time I’ve seen the war called this. The other example is at Charleston’s Magnolia Cemetery. A Confederate officer named Kerrison termed the war this way. My 2014 book “In the Arms of Angels” about Magnolia Cemetery includes a brief item about Kerrison and this reference. I note that in an article listing more than 30 other names for the Civil War, War Between the Sections is not on this list. Curious right? I will do additional research and put here if I find details.

MORE CONFEDERATE VETERANS 

Dr. Robert Reeve Gibbes served in the “War Between the Sections” as a surgeon in the Confederate States Navy, as stated on his stone in the middle of my photo. It also says he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1859.  The Masonic square and symbol is at the top of the marker. 

Dr. Gibbes only lived to age 40, dying in 1877. 

Lt. Gen Richard Heron Anderson was a top commander in Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. 

Anderson was not from Beaufort but spent his later years here where he died in 1879 at 57 years led. 

As noted in this impressive historical marker (erected by a local Sons of Confederate Veterans camp), Anderson, born in Sumter County, S.C., graduated from West Point and served with distinction in the Meccan War. 

He earned the sobriquet “Fighting Dick” as a brigade commander in the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. Anderson was twice wounded in battle, the second time at Sharpsburg (Antietam). 

After the war back home he became a State Phosphate Agent. 

This tall obelisk-style markers is above the grave of a second Confederate general. He is Brig. Gen. Stephen Elliott Jr. (1830-1866). He was a Parris Island planter and a well known yachtsman and fisherman. Educated a Harvard and South Carolina College, Elliott served in the state legislature and was a captain in the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery. 

Elliott was instrumental in defending Fort Sumter, then as an officer in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, he rose to the rank of colonel then brigadier general by the time of the Siege of Petersburg in 1864. He was wounded in the Battle of the Crater where Union troops dug underground to ignite a massive mine. Elliott was wounded the next year in North Carolina’s Battle of Bentonville, the final Confederate offensive of the war. His wounds and other health issues led to his death in early 1866 when only in his mid-30s. 

On the church exterior is mounted a plaque dedicated “In Memory of our Honored Dead of St. Helena Parish. They wore the Gray and fell in the service of THE CONFEDERATE STATES 1861-1865.”

Thirty three names are listed along with where the men died. The first name listed is Ltc. Benjamin Johnson who was mortally wounded at the war’s first major battle Bull Run (called First Manassas in the North) in July 1861.

I know of Johnson as he is buried at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston. He and his gravesite are in my “In the Arms of Angels” Magnolia Cemetery” book. 

REVOLUTIONARY WAR CASUALTIES 

A point of pride at St. Helena’s is that its churchyard has the graves of nearly 100 veterans of every major conflict since 1711 and the graves are marked with the flag under which they fought, according to “Old Churchyard Cemetery: A Brief History and Map.”

This includes the grave of Lt. Benjamin Wilkins who fought with the South Carolina militia in the Revolutionary War. Age 33 or 34 he was mortally wounded on Feb. 4, 1779 by British troops at the Battle of Gray’s Hill, which is also called the Battle of Port Royal Island. 

Two British soldiers who also died in that battle are buried at St. Helena’s. The Union Jack marks the grave of Lt. William Calderwood and Ensign John Finley. 

The story is that the Patriot Captain Barnwell went to the Port Royal battlefield and came upon the two British bodies. He had them buried at his church, St. Helena’s in Beaufort. 

Barnwell conducted a funeral service for the enemy soldiers and then said, “We have shown the British we not only can best them in battle but that we can also give them a Christian burial.”

MORE INTERESTING GRAVE SITES

Nothing wrong with the natural look of this pair of headstones. One of the interred was a U.S. military veteran as indicated by the American flag. 

It's not quite clear how this old grave stone became part of the brick wall. The marker is for, as inscribed, "Eliza Sanders Drayton who died in her 36th year at Beaufort 1793." 

I don't recall in all of my grave-trotting over the years seeing cubed or pentagon shaped grave markers like these. 

These folks were all Marschers, a common surname in this churchyard. 

Here is another series of family graves that have a look that does not fit into a category that I recognize. 

This brick mound is a mystery too. This was a rudimentary yet effective way to cover and protect a casket. 

This picture gives an idea of the nice mix of trees and plants in the churchyard. And shows how it it walled to, again, keep out the hogs! Well, that was the idea back in the 1700s anyway. 

I like the military look of this headstone. James Stuart was a brevet captain in a U.S. Army "mounted rifles" unit. He was stationed out west (way out west!) in what today is Oregon when on June 17, 1851 he was mortally wounded fighting Indians "while leading his men gallantly to victory." 

"He was a gifted, accomplished and noble hearted  gentleman" are the words inscribed at the bottom  attributed to "Gen. Jones" in his report about the battle. 

This mausoleum is impressive with its white stone. The name above the gated entry is F.W. Scheper. There are some two dozen Schepers interred at St. Helena's. They include four F.W.s, which stands for Frederick William. 

The first Frederick lived from 1842-1913. He came to America from what is today Germany. He was a merchant, apparently, who owned a store built in 1885 that still exists today as a historic general store located in Port Royal in Beaufort County. (Wikipedia).

Inside you can see six Scheper names engraved in the marble burial vaults. The "handles" look like dollar signs! 

In recent times, F.W. "Willie" Scheper was a third-generation business and civic leader who served as Beaufort's mayor from 1963-1967. He passed in 2017 and is buried in a separate site in this churchyard. 

Downtown Beaufort has a stand-alone cottage called the Scheper House Suite. It is located at the corner of Scott and Craven streets. From this website, it looks like a very nice place to spend a weekend! 

This is a very unique mausoleum with a strange legend. Known as “Dr. Perry’s Tomb” the story is that the good doctor was concerned that he might be buried alive. So he designed his own above-ground grave with instructions that when he died that inside his tomb should be the following items: a pick ax, a jug of water, and a loaf of bread. 

Should Dr. Perry be able to escape his mausoleum the entrance was made of wood so he could chop his way out. When that didn’t happen, the red brick you see sealed the tomb for eternity. 

This "tumulus" mausoleum is similar in style to the Gibbes mausoleum at Magnolia Cemetery. Both have earth and grass on the top. This element dates to ancient times and "tumulus" may also be called barrows and burial mounds. 

Sadly, the nameplate on Dr. Perry’s Tomb was probably lost to vandals. Information is vague as to when the doctor died, but apparently, it was connected with another yellow fever plague in the area. 

See this blog post I came across for more on this tale.

This is a fine example of the tabletop. It's not too common but did have a period of popularity. 

The table top covers the graves of Richard and Guerard and "his amiable wife" Bridget. She preceded Richard in death, passing in 1789 at age 36. He lived to 57, passing in 1795. 

What are these?  Carl Howk calls them slave tiles. I have seen these before, at Magnolia Cemetery, I think. Carl made curious to find out more. 

A bit of research finds that “slave tiles” may be a misnomer. Some may have been forged by slaves back in that time period but others were made in more recent times, some antiques experts contend. The tiles' purpose was likely to serve as borders for grave plots. 

People who come across them today may put them in gardens as decorations. 

Note the name at the very bottom of this box tomb belonging to Harriet Elliott (1818-1854). She was the wife of St. Helena pastor Rev. James B. Elliott.

Her tomb was crafted by W.T. White. William White was part of a Charleston family that for years was a top monument maker in the region. They seemed to sign their finer works. Along with W.T. White, at area burial grounds you may see on graves R.D. White (his brother Robert) and E.R. White (Edwin White).

Beaufort’s ties with Charleston are many. It’s a place smaller in size and population than the “Holy City” up the coast but as evidenced by St. Helena Parish Church, Beaufort’s history runs as deep and rich as any place in America. 

I know I am richer by being exposed to this sacred and special place. Thank you Carl Howk!