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St. James's Episcopal Church,
Santee
NEAR McCLELLANVILLE
A few miles from
McClellanville on a lonely dirt road, we find one of South
Carolina's most interesting old houses of worship, St. James's
Episcopal Church. It is known to the people in the
neighborhood as "the Old Brick Church".
Erected in 1768
of red brick, it is the fourth oldest church in St. James's
Parish. The first in the parish, built by the Huguenots, was
on the banks of the Santee twenty-five miles above at
Jamestown. We do not know its date, but John Lawson, going
there in 1700, mentions the church and its congregation. The
second church was built lower down the river on Echaw Creek,
of wood, under an Act passed June 12, 1714, while the third
was built of brick on the same spot in 1748.
The
communion plate belonging to Echaw Church consists of a
chalice and two plates. On the chalice is engraved, "The Gift
of Ralph Jerman 1750". On one of the plates is the Latin
inscription, Pro Sancta Jacobi. Jacob Xicoia Schwartzkoff;
11th Feb. 1756; and on the other, Pro Sancta Jacobi, Santee;
The Gift of George Simmonet, July 13th, Anno Domini 1764Mrs.
Rebecca Motte presented the parish a large folio Bible and two
prayer books in 1773, which were stolen and carried to England
by British troops. Some years later they were returned and are
still in possession of the church.
The Register of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages goes back to 1758. The first
book of Meetings of the Vestry was lost in one of the wars,
but the book of the church now has dates from
1806.
Many prominent men and women of our nation
worshiped God in this old building, which stood for more than
a century and a half.
BY
HAZEL CROWSON SELLERS
South Carolina
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