St. Andrew's Church, St. Andrews

St. Andrew's Church, St. Andrews

1956-1957

11/10/2016 (digital)

St. Andrew's Church, or Old St. Andrew's,as it is locally known was another of the ten churches started by the 1706 Church Act. It is the oldest surviving house of worship in South Carolina, and south of Virgina on a whole. It is also the only cruciform church still standing in South Carolina. The original colonial structure built in 1706 had a pine roof and could barely contain its congregation, which was why the 1723 cross shaped red brick exterior expanasion was necessary. By that time the pine roofing also needed to be replaced with sturdier cypress as well. In 1927 the Colonial Dames had the whole wooden roof replaced with a metal one. The church survived a fire in 1760's and was rebuilt. After the Revolutionary War, it had lost most of its white parishoners, and by the antebellum period 90% of St. Andrew's parishoner's were slaves. This protected St.Andrew's when Union traveled through the area, as they ministered to slaves, and the Union saw no need to burn the church as they did with so many others. St. Andrew's operated as a polling place during Reconstruction, but did not reopen as a church until 1876. It only operated for about ten years until the church was badly damaged by the Earthquake of 1886. In 1891 when Rev. Drayton, who had been ministering the church for over forty years passed away, the church was not operational until 1948 when the new suburban community of West Ashley decided to "reopen" and restore it. It was added to the National Historic Registry in 1973. The church was damaged again by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, but it was finally fully restored in 2004-2005. St. Andrew's Church celebrated its tricentennial anniversary in 2006.

Vories, Dylan (digital assistant)

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35 mm black and white negative film

StillImage

CLS Audio/Visual Collection, Henry P. Staats Photograph Collection

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staatschurch_003