St. Helena Chapel of Ease Graveyard and Ruin, 17 Lands End Road, Frogmore

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-25. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Constructed in the mid-eighteenth century, enlarged in the early nineteenth century, and destroyed by fire in the ruins of St. Helena Chapel of Ease and the graveyard that surrounds it are significant reflections of, first, settlement patterns of South Carolina s sea islands; second, the ecclesiastical landscape of South Carolina from the formation of the colony s Anglican parishes in the early eighteenth century to the era of reconstruction; and, third, the Lowcountry s changing racial dynamics as the chapel first served a white congregation until a congregation of former slaves worshipped in it during the Civil War and the Reconstruction era.

St Helena Chapel is also significant as an early example of tabby construction, a method of pouring a mixture of oyster shell and mortar into forms that was also used here in raising low walls that surround some family enclosures in the graveyard. The ruins and graveyard also recall the isolated character of South Carolina s sea island plantations. St. Helena Chapel of Ease like its counterparts elsewhere in the South Carolina Lowcountry served rural populations separated by considerable distances from primary parish churches. Separated from the mainland and St. Helena s Church in Beaufort by creeks, marshes, and rivers that required ferries to cross, this chapel of ease answered the needs of the plantation families on St. Helena Island.

The roles these chapels and their graveyards played in remote areas declined with the disestablishment of the Anglican Church following the American Revolution and declined again as rural populations shifted during Reconstruction. As a result, few of these chapels remain. St Helena Chapel of Ease (HABS was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in (NRIS # An Egyptian style mausoleum erected for Edgar Fripp (HABS was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in (NRIS # Description: St. Helena s Chapel of Ease and its graveyard occupies a trapezoidal 1.29-acre site along Land s End Road (State Road a heavily-used road that follows a north to south route through St. Helena Island.

The chapel has faced this road since its construction as a centrally located place of worship for the islanders who lived far from the mother church in Beaufort. The ruins of the chapel ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 2 dominate the site and serve as a reference point for its graveyard and features in the landscape. The chapel is aligned to the compass with the altar set in the east end of the chapel. Set back from the road, a semicircular, unpaved driveway which maps indicate has existed in some form since provides access to the site. The site is largely open and covered with grass, punctuated by live oak trees draped with Spanish moss that are a character defining feature of the graveyard.

Sweetgum, sycamore, hazelnut, and palmetto trees are also scattered across the property, casting deep shadows over much of the landscape. Dense, low shrubby growth, most dominant yaupon and elder, encroaches on the north, south, and east edges of the graveyard and threatens to engulf outlying gravestones. Historic photographs indicate the site has retained this character since the Legible grave markers in the graveyard date internments from the second quarter of the nineteenth century Four types of grave markers, tablets, ledgers, box tombs and a mausoleum, remain. Most of the remaining twenty- eight grave markers are organized into clusters of two to four markers or in one of four small enclosures for members of the Chaplin, Fripp, Pope, and Perry families.

Low tabby walls enclose three of these family groups. A partially collapsed cast iron fence delineates a fourth family enclosure. Two of the tabby enclosures flank the rear (east) of the chapel set away from its north and south walls. Early dates for these enclosures is suggested by the use of lime binder in the tabby. A third tabby enclosure which lacks surviving gravestones was built to the southwest of the chapel. Portland cement was used to bind the oyster shells in this tabby wall, an indication of a more modern construction date. Except for the red sandstone Edgar Fripp Egyptian style mausoleum erected in which faces north and is aligned with the chapel s southern door, gravestones are oriented east to west. The Fripp mausoleum dominates the southern portion of the graveyard.

Ages of the interred range from infants to the elderly with six of the twenty-eight markers commemorating persons under the age of sixteen. Evidence of the fire of in the form of fire cracking and soot remain on some of the grave markers. More recent vandalism, abrasion from string trimmers, and ground disturbance caused by tree roots has damaged most of the remaining markers. Accumulated harms from ground disturbance, ground settlement, and weathering have left the Fripp mausoleum in need of repair and conservation.

The ruins of the chapel occupy the center of the site, visually shielded by dense shrubby undergrowth from a power transmission right-of-way immediately to 1 HABS photographer Jack Boucher visited St Helena Chapel on two occasions (November, and March,1987) to photograph both the ruins of St Helena Chapel and the Edgar Fripp Mausoleum. ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 3 the east. Planters living on St Helena Island secured permission to build a place of worship more convenient for them in the and embarked on a building campaign in When completed perhaps the following year, St. Helena Chapel was similar in plan and proportion to other churches and chapels constructed during the second quarter of the eighteenth century elsewhere in the South Carolina Lowcountry.

St Helena Chapel s tabby walls, measuring forty by thirty feet, survive with minor repairs to their original height and distinguish this chapel from its brick counterparts. Measuring one and a half feet thick, the chapel walls were raised by pouring a mix of lime mortar, sand, and oyster shell into forms in a series of lifts for which evidence remains on the interior of the ruins. Bond timbers laid in place as the chapel rose provided the means to attach interior finishes. The exterior was stuccoed and scored to imitate ashlar blocks. Window and door surrounds are rusticated and pilasters visually anchored all four corners.2 The chapel was forty feet in length and thirty feet wide when completed. Compass-headed windows flanked central doors set in the north and south walls.

Smaller windows flanked the door set in the west gable end. An ocular window set in the west gable end provided light for a gallery. A clipped gable or jerkin head roof covered the building. The chapel was enlarged about with a ten- foot addition and a projecting six foot by sixteen-and-a-half-foot chancel on the east end. A pedimented porch which extended ten feet from the west doorway and supported on two stuccoed brick columns, the southernmost of which survives, was also added at this time. Architectural historian Carl Lounsbury has noted that in size and execution, St Helena Chapel is similar to Strawberry Chapel, a stucco and brick chapel of ease built about the same time and surviving at the site of the lost town of Childsbury, St John s Parish in Berkeley County.

Pompion Chapel, also located in Berkeley County, is also similar in size and plan.3 The overall condition of the remaining tabby structure is good. The charred ends of windowsills, door frame and window frame bond timbers, and joists remain throughout the ruin. Impressions of fired square clay pavers laid in the cross aisles of the chapel survive in place under grass cover. The walls bear evidence of numerous repair campaigns that have replaced missing material and applied lime mortar to protect exposed surfaces. Tabby is a fragile material, its lime- 2 Louis P. Nelson, The Beauty of Holiness: Anglicanism & Architecture in Colonial South Carolina (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 3 Carl Lounsbury, St.

Helena s Chapel of Ease (Old White Chapel), Beaufort County, South Carolina, also known as Old White Church; c. enlarged c. burned February 22, Summary of Field Notes, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives. ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 4 based binder particularly susceptible to weathering. Historically protected by an outer lime-based stucco, St Helena s tabby walls remain under threat from exposure to the elements. The east end of the chapel is also threatened by several large trees whose roots are lifting the walls of the chancel. History: St Helena Chapel s construction, expansion, and decline reflects the broader ecclesiastical history of early South Carolina.

In the colonial assembly s Church Act established ten parishes which served the dual purpose of organizing religious activities and setting political boundaries. St Helena Parish, established around the Port Royal region, was the largest and southernmost of South Carolina s parishes. A church for the parish was constructed in Beaufort soon after passage of the Act. Population growth in the second quarter of the eighteenth century resulted in subdivisions of the parish in (Prince William Parish) and Peter s Parish) to facilitate the construction of additional churches and to balance representation of the colony s lower house of assembly.4 It was during this period of population growth that planters on St Helena Island successfully petitioned for construction of a chapel.

Begun in and completed as soon as the next year, St Helena Chapel operated under the aegis of St Helena Parish Church in Beaufort. The parish established a six-week cycle that provided services to parishioners of the island.5 A petition in to split St. Helena Island from the parish suggest dissatisfaction with the infrequency of visits from the parish priest. The Assembly denied this request and reliance on visiting rectors continued until St Helena Island was established as a separate parish in Not until however, did the chapel elect its first rector, Philip Mathews, who served until his death in A deacon, Rev. John S. Field, served briefly following Mathew s death. Mathews tenure as rector of St Helena Chapel coincided with rising wealth derived from cultivation of sea island cotton.

New wealth propelled expansion of the enslaved population on the island and supported enlargement of the chapel and placement of new and more expensive markers in the chapel s graveyard. By the parish had elected a new rector, Rev. David McElheran, who would guide the parish through a revival in religious interest that paralleled a period of 4 History Committee of St. Helena s Episcopal Church, Beaufort, South Carolina, The History of The Parish Church of St. Helena, Beaufort, South Carolina: Church of England Protestant Episcopal (Beaufort, SC: The History Committee and The Vestry of St. Helena s Episcopal Church, 5 Frederick Dalcho, An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South-Carolina (Charleston: E. Thayer, 6 Dalcho, An Historical Account.

ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 5 great prosperity.7 McElheran became St Helena Chapel s longest serving rector and would oversee, in repairs to the chapel, including the addition of a gallery and, in construction of a new chapel of ease at the east end of the island to serve the island s growing population. In a new chancel was built a new pulpit installed, and the interior of the church painted.8 After McElheran retired for health reasons in three priests served the Parish before Rev. Edward T. Walker was elected rector in Walker s term would be short, ending as the white inhabitants of the island fled in November prior to Union occupation.9 By Episcopal leaders listed the Parish of St. Helena s, St. Helena s Island as extinct.

Following the Civil War, Methodist former slaves worshipped in the chapel. When Episcopal bishop William Howe visited St Helena Island for the first time in April he reported that the only former vestryman still living on the island had permitted the African Methodist congregation to use the chapel.10 This congregation had y then erected a fence around the chapel and its graveyard. A forest fire swept through the area on February 22, leaving the church unusable and leading its congregation to abandon it. The roofless chapel, surrounded by its graveyard, became a picturesque ruin. In recent years, the tabby walls have been conserved. The chapel and surrounding site was in possession of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina until it was transferred in to the Parish of St.

Helena, Beaufort.11

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-25. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Beaufort County Register of Deeds Property Plats. Dabbs, Edith M. Leigh Richmond Miner s Photographs of Saint Helena Island. Face of an Island. Columbia, South Carolina: The R. L. Bryan Company, 7 Episcopal Church. Journals of the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina (Charleston 8 Albert Sidney Thomas. A Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, Being a Continuation of Dalcho's Account, (Columbia, Bryan Co., 9 Ibid. 10 Episcopal Church. Journals of the Proceedings, 11 Beaufort County Register of Deeds Property Plat by Trogdon. Plat Book 18, ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 6 Dalcho, Frederick. An historical account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South-Carolina.

Charleston: Published by E. Thayer, at his theological Bookstore, Broad Street. Arch d. E. Miller, Printer, 120 Broad Street. Episcopal Church. Journals of the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Charleston. Grimmer, Anne E. National Park Service Preservation Brief 22: The Preservation and Repair of Historic Stucco (Washington, DC: October accessed February 10, stucco.htm. History Committee St. Helena s Episcopal Church Beaufort, South Carolina. The History of The Parish Church of St. Helena. Beaufort, South Carolina. Church of England Protestant Episcopal Columbia, South Carolina: The R. L. Bryan Company, Kovacik, Charles F., and Lawrence S. Rowland. Images of Colonial Port Royal, South Carolina.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers 63, no. 3 Lounsbury, Carl. St. Helena s Chapel of Ease (Old White Chapel), Beaufort County, South Carolina, also known as Old White Church; c. enlarged c. burned February 22, Summary of Field Notes, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Archives. National Register of Historic Places, St. Helena Chapel of Ease, Received August 2, Nelson, Louis P. The Beauty of Holiness: Anglicanism & Architecture in Colonial South Carolina. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, Parish Church of St. Helena (Beaufort, and A. S. Salley. Minutes of the vestry of St. Helena s parish, South Carolina, Columbia, Printed for the Historical Commission of South Carolina by the State Company. Pyszka, Kimberly.

Built for the Publick Worship of God, according to the Church of God: Anglican Landscapes and Colonialism in South Carolina, Historical Archaeology 47, no. 4 Richardson, Matt. Pon Pon, Old Sheldon, and the Chapel of Ease- Old, Burned Houses of Worship Still Resonate with the Soul Bluffton Today June 16, (accessed via America s Historic Newspapers, ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 7 Rowland, Lawrence S., Alexander Moore, and George C. Rogers, Jr. The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina. Volume 1, Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, Runnette, Mabel. Tombstone Inscriptions from St. Helena Island. The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 35, no. 1 Sheehan, Michael S., and Lauren B. Sickels-Taves.

Vernacular Building Materials and the Factors Conditioning their Use: Tabby, A Case Study Material Culture, Vol. 34, No. 2 (FALL Sickles-Taves, Lauren B. Understanding Historic Tabby Structures: Their History, Preservation, and Repair, APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology, 28, No. 2/3 Thomas, Albert Sidney. A Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, Being a Continuation of Dalcho s Account, Columbia: Bryan Co., Walling, Rachel.

The Preservation of Tabby Ruins: Suggestions for the Future of Chocolate Plantation (master s thesis, Clemson University, Historians: John Bennett, Kayleigh Defenbaugh, Monica Hendricks, Tanesha High, Elliott Simon, Rachel Wilson Clemson University / College of Charleston Graduate Program in Historic Preservation April 15, HALS Challenge Entry: Vanishing or Lost Landscapes ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 8 Figure 1: West gable end of St Helena Chapel of Ease with unpaved access road in foreground. View faces east (Photograph by Elliott Simon). Figure 2: South facade of St. Helena Chapel of Ease. View faces north (Photograph by Tanesha High). ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 9 Figure 3: Southern portion of St Helena Chapel graveyard.

View faces north toward ruins of St Helena Chapel across remnants of late-nineteenth century cast iron fence surrounding family enclosure toward low tabby wall surrounding a family enclosure. View faces north (Photograph by Elliott Simon). Figure 4: Southern portion of St Helena Chapel graveyard. View faces northeast toward ruins of St Helena Chapel with modern tabby family enclosure in foreground and Fripp Mausoleum at right (Photograph by Rachel Wilson). ST HELENA CHAPEL OF EASE GRAVEYARD AND RUIN HALS NO. PAGE 10 Figure 5: North fa ade of St Helena Chapel of Ease. View faces southwest across sand access road with Fripp Mausoleum visible beyond the chapel ruins (Photograph by John Bennett).

Figure 6: East (chancel) end of St Helena Chapel of Ease where live oak tree intrudes on tabby church walls and low tabby wall of family grave enclosure at northeast corner of the chapel. View faces east (Photograph by Monica Hendricks).