Still in Charleston!

I wrote about St. Philip’s Episcopal Church back in 2013. However, it wasn’t a lengthy post because of an encounter I had there with a lovely woman named Dotty who (as it turned out) was personally connected to one of the graves I was looking for. I felt that story needed its own post because it was so special.

Churchyard and Cemetery

I wanted to write about St. Philip’s again because it has such a delightful combination of funerary styles. It also has the distinction of having both a churchyard (graves surrounding the church building itself) and a cemetery across the street. As I wrote back in 2013, the West Cemetery of St. Philip’s (which is across the street from the church) is said to have opened for “strangers and transient white people.”

Members, however, were later buried in the cemetery as well when space in the churchyard filled up. It is an active cemetery and St. Philip’s has a growing membership. So if you go on Find a Grave, just look for St. Philip’s Cemetery because it lists both burials at the churchyard and the West Cemetery.

I’m going to focus on the church and the churchyard in today’s post. If you look up at the permanent banner of this blog on top of the page, that photo comes from St. Philip’s churchyard. My husband, Chris, took that picture in 2013.

Established in 1681, St. Philip’s is the oldest church congregation in the state of South Carolina. After they moved to their Church Street site in 1710, they built a church that lasted until it was wiped out by a fire. The current building was constructed in 1835 and boasts a beautiful, tall steeple.

Highest Point in Charleston

A gentleman we spoke with at St. Philip’s in 2013 said there’s a local law on the books that no building in Charleston can be built taller than the steeple. At one point during the Civil War, it was used for sighting during the Union’s bombardment of the city and suffered damage. St. Philip’s chapel bells were actually melted down for the Confederate war effort. You might recall that the same was done to the bells over at First Scots Presbyterian Church.

The interior of St.  Philip’s is stunning so if you’re exploring the churchyard or cemetery, go inside the church and look around. It’s usually open, with helpful guides to tell you all about it.

We could have spent hours staring up at the detailed carvings amid the rich wood accents.

There are some memorials lining the walls of St. Philip’s and Chris photographed this one for William Mason Smith, which I recently re-discovered. Here’s the story behind it.

Born in Charleston in 1788, William Mason Smith was the son of the Rev. Robert Smith, who was made Bishop of South Carolina in 1795, and Anna Maria Tilghman Smith of Maryland. After graduating from Brown University in Rhode Island, William did a stint in the Navy before marrying Susanna Pringle. His brother had married Susanna’s sister, Elizabeth in 1812.

In addition to owning a large plantation called Smithfield that was 30 miles from Charleston and a handsome townhouse on Meeting Street, William was active in St. Philip’s Church and eventually became a vestryman there. He was also on the committee that helped in the rebuilding efforts in 1835.

After William died at the age of 50 on Aug. 7, 1838, Susanna commissioned this handsome memorial for him from famed sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey. Known for his statue of King George IV in London’s Trafalgar Square, Chantrey was a leading portrait sculptor in Regency-era Britain. You can see his name on the base of the memorial below the figure’s foot. Chantrey died in 1842, just a year after it was installed at St. Philip’s.

William and Susanna (who died in 1846) are both buried in St. Philip’s churchyard but both of their stones are now part of the walkway, although the inscriptions are still readable.

Wandering the Churchyard

I didn’t know that our visit in 2013 was going to be the one time I would get to freely wander around St. Philip’s churchyard. On the occasions that I’ve stopped by since that time, most of it has been closed off to visitors because they were doing restoration work. Here’s my picture of the right side of the churchyard, which is similar to Chris’ photo at the top.

One person I don’t want to leave out is one of the churchyard’s more famous burials. Charles Pinckney (1757-1924) was a United States Constitution signer, a U.S. senator, a U.S. congressman, and a four-term governor of South Carolina.

The Pinckney name is well known throughout the state and there are 43 Pinckneys buried in St. Philip’s churchyard and cemetery. Charlest Coatsworth Pinckney, whom I wrote about earlier and is buried at St. Michael’s Churchyard, was Charles Coatsworth Pinkney’s cousin. The two men were both among the men selected to be South Carolina’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, Pa.

In between his third and fourth terms as governor of South Carolina, Pinckney served as the Minister to Spain from 1801 to 1805. He rounded out his career by serving a term in the U.S. House of Representatives before dying in 1824 at the age of 67.

St. Philip’s also boasts another South Carolina governor and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Edward Rutledge. But I didn’t get a photo of his grave, sad to say.

One of my favorite monuments at St. Philip’s churchyard is this one for Captain Edward Rutledge Shubrick. Perhaps he and Edward Rutledge are related in some way.

Born in 1793 in Charleston, Edward Shubrick was the third of four brothers that had distinguished careers as mariners. A captain in the U.S. Navy, he married Hester Mary Berlin in 1820. They had one son, Edward, in 1832.

Thanks to an article in the Mississippi Free Trader, I learned the fate of Capt. Shubrick that caused his death on March 12, 1844. He was in charge of the U.S. Frigate Columbia on a voyage from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Cadiz, Spain when he became ill, likely caused by a chronic liver ailment he suffered from. He died after 30 days.

“Beloved and Lamented Commander”

The letter that communicated his death from the ship written by one of the men under his command said, “He was universally loved and and esteemed by all who knew him.” On his monument, it says it was erected by the officers and mariners of the U.S. Frigate Columbia. I especially like the detailed depiction of the ship, which you can see below, including small figures standing on the rolled up sails.

I’m going to finish today on the other side of the churchyard. In the picture below, you can see the can see in the back St. Philip’s Parish House, built in the 1920s for church administration and events.

The last marker I want to share for you is for William Pritchard, whose marker has a bugle and a Masonic symbol on it. I was eager to unlock the puzzle behind this young man.

Born on Feb. 11, 1832 in Charleston, William was the son of William George Pritchard and Margaret Pritchard. W.G. died in 1838 of influenza at the age of 30 when his son was only six years old. It was the same age William, his son, would be when he died.

I could only find William identified as working as a clerk and there’s no proof he was married. But he was definitely a member of the Washington Light Infantry, Company A. Established in 1807, it’s one of the nation’s oldest militia units, founded when America was anticipating a second war with Britain, which became the War of 1812. The company fought in the Seminole Wars (1836) and the Mexican-American War (1842).

When South Carolina seceded from the Union in early 1861, the Washington Light Infantry reformed into three distinct companies and served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. A total of 414 men served in the unit during the war, 114 of which were killed.

In 1891, an obelisk meant to resemble the Washington Monument was erected in Washington Square in Charleston to honor the men of the Washington Light Infantry. William Pritchard is one of the names inscribed on it. He is listed as a private.

“Tribute of Respect”

Records note that William died on Aug. 15, 1862 of typhoid fever, a disease common in that era.

William’s fellow soldiers were so shaken by his death that one of them penned this moving obituary that appeared in the Charleston Mercury on Sept. 17, 1862.

William’s marker says nothing about his affiliation with the Washington Light Infantry. In fact, it says:

Erected
By the Officers and Members
of the Vigilant Fire Engine Co.
In Memory of
Their Late Vice President
William Pritchard
Who Died Aug. 15, 1862
Aged 30 years, Six Months
And 4 Days

According to records, the Vigilant Fire Engine Co. may have been the first volunteer fire engine company in Charleston, submitting an application for incorporation in 1793. Many more would follow. It’s possible that William and his fellow volunteer firemen helped fight the infamous 1861 fire that destroyed much of Charleston.

The bugle on William’s marker, I learned, marked his high level of leadership as vice-president of the company. This indicates, as his fellow soldiers had, that the men with whom he fought fires also regarded him with respect and appreciation,

Next time, we’ll be across the street at the West Cemetery. I promise you won’t want to miss it.

Last week, I shared some of the complicated history of Charleston’s Bethel United Methodist Church and its burial ground. The markers I highlighted in that post were either lying on the ground or leaning against the church. There’s another one I want to start with today that’s in that category because I think it’s really lovely to look at. It also has a pretty cool epitaph at the bottom.

I couldn’t find much about Mary Syfan. She was born on Dec. 30, 1775 and married John Syfan. She died on July 6, 1825 at the age of 47. But her marker also includes information about the deaths of four children with the last name of Gladden: John, Ann, James, and Susannah.

The marker does tell us that these were all children of George and Susannah Gladden. The children died between 1815 and 1823. Susannah was a Syfan before she married George Gladden so my guess is that she was the sister of John Syfan, thus a sister-in-law to Mary Syfan. I did find a notice in a Charleston newspaper posted by John Syfan in April 1833 concerning the debts of George Gladden after his death. I could not find John Syfan on Find a Grave but another newspaper notice indicated that he died in 1841.

At the top of Mary’s marker is a familiar motif. It’s a woman garbed in mourning clothes next to a funeral urn beneath what appears to be a weeping willow tree. Again, this was a popular motif for this era although you see it more often later in the 1800s than in the 1820s.

“Spend a Tear”

Because this marker is not in the best condition, I was happy to learn that someone had transcribed the inscription in 1938. The epitaph at the very bottom is worth reading because it harkens back to those older markers with hourglasses on them. I did an  Internet search and actually found a few grave markers in British 17th-century churchyards with inscriptions similar to this one.

Stay reader stand and spend a tear
And think of me who now lies here
And while you read the state of who
Think on the glass that runs for thee.

One of my favorite markers from Bethel UMC is the for Rebecca Jane Bateman, daughter of Irish immigrants Charles D. Bateman and Rebecca Jane Tuig Bateman (yes, she and her daughter shared the same name). She is buried between her parents.

The difficulty with the Bateman plot (at least the day we were there) is that a large bush was planted directly in front of it. My husband tried to hold back the branches so I could photograph the markers. I believe all three were likely done by one or more of the Walker family of carvers.

Charles and Rebecca Jane left Cork, Ireland in 1852 for Charleston. Rebecca Jane, their first daughter, was born in 1856. She was followed by another daughter, Ella, in 1858. Charles worked as a bookkeeper for a time before attaining a post as agent for the South Carolina Railroad.

Rebecca Jane was only 19 when she died on Nov. 21, 1875 of consumption, better known today as tuberculosis.

You can only see the first sentence of her inscription in my photo, but it is worth reading the entire thing. It comes from a popular hymn from the 1800s called “A Voice From Heaven”, whose author is unknown.

I have learned the song they sing
whom Jesus hath set free
and the Jasper walls of Heaven ring
with my new born melody.

I am especially moved by the angel on the top.

In Oct. 24, 1882, Rebecca Jane (her mother) also died of consumption at the age of 54. Her marker is to the right of her daughter’s grave. I apologize for the obstruction of the inscription.

Rebecca’s marker features a profusion of calla lilies, which usually symbolize marriage. Her inscription (which says “fell asleep” instead of “died”) reads:

A tender mother, a devoted wife,
a true friend,
triumphant in death
and now resigning in the light
of an endless life.

Soon after her mother’s death, Ella married James Robb. They had at least four children together.

Charles Bateman died on Sept. 22, 1889 from complications due to hepatitis. He is buried to the left of his daughter, Rebecca Jane. Daughter Ella died in 1934 at the age of 74 and is buried at Elmwood Memorial Gardens in Columbia, S.C.

Adjacent to the Bateman plot is a detailed marker purchased for one of the pastors of Bethel UMC, the Rev. William Honor Fleming.

“Our Beloved Pastor”

Born in 1821, William is thought to be a native of Charleston. He received his doctorate of divinity (D.D.) degree from Trinity College (which later became Duke University) in Durham, N.C.

I’m not exactly sure when the Rev. Fleming became pastor at Bethel UMC, but I believe most of his career was spent there. He was also an active member of the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist church for 36 years, according to his obituary and monument. At one time he was Presiding Elder.

The Rev. Fleming was married twice, first to Agnes Magill (whose birth/death dates I cannot find) and they had at least one daughter, Mary, in 1848. After Agnes died, Rev. Fleming married Rosa Caroline Austin and they had at least one son. The Rev. Fleming died on April 6, 1877 of “gangrene of the lungs”.

William’s marker is indeed a work of art. It features two lovely carved wreaths and also includes a tasseled drape over a pulpit with an open book, most likely meant to represent the Bible. I suspect this monument was also done by one of the Walkers.

Killed in an Explosion

This final slate marker is older than any I’ve featured at Bethel UMC so far and features a young man cut down in the prime of his life.

Born in July 1773, George Stattler left little information behind about himself. We know from an advertisement he placed in the Dec. 4, 1797 Charleston City Gazette that he had spent time in England learning his trade, and had a business making looking glasses and frames. We also know that he was married.

George’s grave marker, which features a soul effigy, explains how he died. He was killed on Feb. 4, 1799 in a cannon explosion at Fort Mechanic in Charleston.

So where was Fort Mechanic? It was built in Charleston in 1794 at a point where high ground extended nearly to the edge of the Cooper River. This site was fortified in the 1750s, and again during the Revolutionary War, before international hostilities in the 1790s forced a new round of defensive construction in Charleston.

Construction of the waterfront battery went beyond the Congressional funds set aside for it because much of the work was done for free by the carpenters of the city. In November 1794, master carpenter Anthony Toomer, the president of the Mechanics Society, presented the fort to Governor William Moultrie. The governor named the work Fort Mechanic to honor its builders.

The wooden Fort Mechanic was replaced in 1809 by a fort of masonry. It was garrisoned by American forces until after the War of 1812 and was razed about 1818. The Edmonston-Alston House (which still stands) was built over a large portion of its land.

“Torn from the Fond Companions of Life”

How George Stattler ended up at Fort Mechanic is not known since he was fully employed at his own business. He may have been a member of a local militia called up for duty. His epitaph reads:

The youth obedient to his Country’s calls
A faithful victim to his duty falls
Torn from the fond companions of his life
His Mother, Brother, Sister and his Wife.

Next time, we’ll be heading to St. Philip’s Church in Charleston, which not only has its own churchyard but a cemetery across the street.

Happy 2020!

This post starts my eighth year of writing Adventures in Cemetery Hopping. When I wrote my first post in January 2013, my son was in kindergarten and I was just starting to get some time to pursue my family tree research. Now he’s in middle school and I’m still plugging along on this blog with little end in sight. And many of you have been along for the ride ever since.

There are simply too many awesome cemeteries to put the brakes on now. So I hope you’ll stay with me for the rest of the journey.

It seems fitting that this week I’m kicking off a new series on Bethel United Methodist Church’s (UMC) burial ground in Charleston, S.C. I’m referring to it as a burial ground rather than a churchyard because as you will find, it contains the remains of more than Bethel UMC’s congregants. My first visit and only visit to Bethel UMC was in September 2013, the first year of my blog and on a 10th anniversary trip I took with my husband to Charleston.

History of Bethel United Methodist Church

This visit is not part of my cemetery tour day in May 2018 with Frank Karpiel that I’ve discussed in the last several blog posts. I realized I had a quite a few photos from that 2013 visit and I’d not yet written about it. So why not now?

Bethel UMC’s origins are from 1797, when it met in a small wooden structure on the corner of Calhoun and Pitt Streets. Members were both black and white, with a specific order of whom sat where. Whites sat downstairs in the front rows, free persons of color occupied the seats in the back and slaves were allowed to sit in the upstairs gallery.

According to Bethel UMC’s web site, the original wooden building was moved westward on the lot facing Calhoun Street in 1852 to allow for construction of a new and larger structure. The early building, now known as Old Bethel UMC, was donated to the black congregation in 1876. In 1882, with the agreement of both white and black congregations, it was moved across the street to its present location, 222 Calhoun Street. It continues to serve as Charleston’s oldest standing Methodist church building.

Who’s Buried Where?

A wonderful thing happened while I was putting together this post. I had posted a photo on this blog’s Facebook page of a grave from Bethel UMC’s burial ground of a child who died at the age of three months in 1859. A gentleman by the name of Grant Mishoe, who is connected with the Gullah Society, contacted me via Facebook with information about her. I began to learn about the complicated past that is the history of Bethel UMC’s burial ground.

Bethel UMC does not deny this past and acknowledged it by placing a marker in 2012 to confirm that many burials took place here that were not marked or whose markers no longer exist, were moved or even paved over in some cases.

I could painstakingly go over the history of what parts of the old cemetery were paved over, what congregation they belonged to, and so on. Grant did a great job sharing his maps with me and it goes beyond Bethel to other black congregations (namely Trinity Colored Church Burial Ground and Eprath Burial Ground) that existed at the time. In addition, part of the Bethel’s churchyard was built over during the construction of the 1852 building. I’m sharing this map from Grant to give you an idea of just how complex these burials are.

After construction of the 1852 building, Old Bethel UMC purchased land for a cemetery on Cunnington Avenue several miles north of Charleston in the area I wrote about in 2016 known as the Magnolia Umbra Cemetery District and contains 23 different cemeteries (some very small). What became known as “Colored Bethel” cemetery is wedged between Lewis Christian Union Cemetery and Friendly Union Society Cemetery.

Who Was Engenia Robia?

While there are some grand monuments in the Bethel UMC burial ground that I’ll show you in this series, there’s also a curious mishmash of pieces of grave markers that resemble puzzle pieces on the ground surrounding the current church. Others, intact, are leaning against the building. Some are clearly old from the early 1800s and some are from later on. This is not a situation unique to Bethel UMC. I’ve seen it at just about every churchyard in the historic district of Charleston.

One of these was an almost totally intact marker I referred to earlier for a child named Engenia Robia. She was born on March 21, 1859 and died on June 23, 1859, barely three months old.

Engenia Robia’s past has been obscured by time and circumstances but thanks to Grant, I was able to uncover some possibilities. The Robias were likely descended from slaves who worked for the white Robiay (spelling is uncertain) family, who were originally French Huguenots. Engenia was probably the child of a white father and a mixed raced or black mother, free of slave. There are no known Robias that were white. The Robiays moved to New Orleans, La. after the Civil War.

Were Engenia’s parents members of Bethel UMC or was Engenia’s mother a member of Trinity, who also buried members in Bethel’s burial ground at that time? We don’t know for sure.

This grave marker carved so exquisitely must have been expensive. The epitaph comes from the first half of a song “Forgive Bless’d Shade” by John Wall Callcott. Published around 1775, it was a popular English song put on gravestones.

Forgive, blest shade, the tributary tear,
That mourns thy exit from a world like this;
Forgive the wish that would have kept thee here,
And stayed thy progress to the realms of bliss.

Died in the Pulpit

I could find little information about Elizabeth Martha Simons Vinmo Moore beyond the fact she was born around 1796 and died on Oct. 26, 1861, possibly 60 years old. Her marker’s epitaph is quite worn but the carving at the top (although the rainwater didn’t help) stands out. I found more information concerning the death of her husband.

Elizabeth was married to the Rev. George Washington Moore, who began serving as a pastor (according to his death notice) in 1820. They had an estimated 11 children together, a few dying in childhood.

On Aug. 13, 1863, the Rev. Moore died while attending a camp meeting near the Anderson Country Court House. A Charleston Courier article from Aug. 24, 1863 describes his death as follows:

The opening hymn has been sung, and with more than usually fervid power, he had invoked the divine blessing upon the assembled congregation, especially for the widows and orphans of the country. The last word was uttered, the “amen” impressively died upon his lips, and then as if God himself had thus pronounced His approval of a well spent life, the holy man fell forward, and in ten minutes more, was numbered among the sainted dead. He appeared to suffer but little, and did not speak again.

This article also noted that his remains were brought back to Charleston for burial. While his wife’s beautiful marker has survived, the one for the Rev. Moore did not.

“Happy Soul They Days Are Ended”

The last stone I’d like to feature today is for a young woman who was six days away from her 17th birthday and already a wife. That’s difficult for me to wrap my mind around that.

Ann Eliza Prince was born on May 25, 1842 to bricklayer Edwin Prince and his wife, Sarah. We don’t know when she married Edwin Eason Calder. But they had one child, Annie, shortly before Anna’s death on May 25, 1859. Edwin and little Annie went to live with his in-laws, the Princes.

At some point, Edwin married Ann’s sister, Sarah. They had three children together, Caroline, James, and John. Edwin enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army on Feb. 20, 1862 and was transferred to Co. A of the 25th South Carolina Infantry on July 22, 1862. He was captured at Fort Fisher, N.C. on Jan. 15, 1865 and sent to Elmira, N.Y. Edwin was released on May 17, 1865. He died at age 33 on Dec. 13, 1868 from some sort of heart ailment and was buried at Bethel UMC Burial Ground but has no surviving marker.

Sarah lived with her parents, and little Annie, along with her other children. The last record of her is that she was boarding at a residence at 231 Meeting Street. Son James was working as a carpet layer and his sister, Caroline, was living with him.

What Happened to Annie?

Annie was lived with her step-mother until she married mechanic John Reynolds McCarrell on April 7, 1879. They had two children, John Jr. and Alice. John died in in 1887 and Annie remarried to John P. Bee, with whom she had a son, John P. Bee Jr. John P. Bee, Sr. may have died in 1918. Annie vanishes after appearing on the 1920 U.S. Census living with daughter, Alice, and her family.

There’s much more to discover at Bethel UMC Burial Ground in Part II.