EXCERPTS

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COLONIAL MINISTRY: EXPANSION FOR THE SETTLERS (1723)

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From 1705 to 1721, the parish went from having no church, to building a small one in 1706, to needing a larger one fifteen years later. Expansion required both a growing economy to provide the funds and a sound relationship between the rector and his parishioners to provide a stable environment. Reverend [William] Guy was “well esteem’d of in [his] Parish,” wrote Commissary William Tredwell Bull to the Bishop of London....

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​The rectangular 1706 church was enlarged to a cruciform shape that is the footprint of today’s Old St. Andrew’s. This style was a popular way to expand a church in South Carolina—all three building additions funded by the assembly were constructed in the shape of a cross.... Of the cruciform churches in colonial South Carolina, only the Latin cross St. Andrew’s remains....

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​When the enlarged St. Andrew’s Parish Church had been completed, the effect was one of simple elegance, or as a commentator on early English churches in America put it, “a quaint severity combined with great charm.” The church “reflected many of the essential design features that characterized eighteenth-century church architecture in South Carolina,” said Louis Nelson....

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“For [Edward] Brailsford [a devout parishioner and medical doctor],” said Nelson, “the church in rural St. Andrew’s Parish, South Carolina, was home of the perfect, sovereign, triune God.... Once inside, the lofty, vaulted ceiling lifted Edward’s spirit; it seemed to him to be the cope of heaven itself.... For Brailsford, this building demanded pause and reverence as no other building in the colony could.”

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ANTEBELLUM MINISTRY: EXPANSION TO THE SLAVES (1840s–50s)

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Throughout the antebellum period, this once prosperous parish had been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Clerical instability and vacancies were more the norm than the exception. While a minority of wealthy landowners continued to play key roles in church affairs, ministry shifted to the vast majority of the population, the enslaved Africans....

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​St. Andrew’s was one of the earliest of many Episcopal churches that ministered to its plantation slaves during this period. Following the halting efforts of [Reverends and rectors] Paul Trapier and Jasper Adams, outreach began in earnest under Stuart Hanckel. During his rectorship, Hanckel and his parish planters established three slave chapels, and possibly as many as five....

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​A third chapel, at Magnolia plantation just three miles north of the parish church, was located on the grounds of a diocesan candidate for Holy Orders, John Grimké Drayton. From the earliest days, Drayton possessed an unshakeable faith in his slave ministry. He was convinced that religious instruction made his enslaved workers better people; in fact, he made it clear that they were indeed people and not merely disposable assets. His slaves, Drayton said, could teach their white masters a thing or two about living their faith.

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​Almost all the adults have become savingly acquainted with the truth as it is in Jesus: they give evidence of this in regulated lives; a perceivable improvement appears in all their domestic relations—in their virtue, honesty and fidelity. For years I have not been robbed of the value of a pin.... Much has been said slightingly of the piety of our negroes. Many suppose it little better than a compound of psalm-singing and animal excitement. I take a different view. I have never seen clearer examples of undoubting faith—of holy love, and of a meek and consistent walk than among them.

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NEW BEGINNING: A CHURCH REOPENED (1948)

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The idea of establishing a chapel separate from the parish church faded. Reopening the mother church was no easy decision. It was located nearly at the end of civilization, a long commute and the last stop before striking out on the long road to the Ashley River plantations. Driving time aside, the condition of the church was dreadful. “You can imagine how our hearts fell when we went out to inspect the grounds and building,” wrote Mrs. Gene Taylor, one of the early members who became parish historian and a tireless promoter of the church. “A veritable forest surrounded the church, and plaster was hanging from every side, and remember, there were only a very, very few of us, none with fat bank accounts.” Parishioners and clergy took a deep breath and plunged forward. They entered the future by restoring the past....

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​“Pessimists said we were fighting a losing battle,” Gene Taylor recalled, “and would never accomplish anything.” But the pessimists were outnumbered. Men, women, and children from All Saints’ Mission readied the church for its first service. With sixty-seven worshippers in attendance, St. Andrew’s Parish Church reopened on Easter Day, March 28, 1948, with Rev. Stanley Jeffery officiating at the 4:00 p.m. service. This day of Christ’s resurrection promised new hope that this church, written off for dead fifty-seven years earlier, would survive to serve future generations.

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NEW LIFE: A CHURCH RESTORED (2005)

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In November 2002 [architect Glenn] Keyes issued his report, describing every architectural feature in the church and providing an assessment of its condition, with recommendations for correcting deficiencies. The findings were shocking; so many critical issues required attention. What began as a prudent exercise to keep the church in good order would become an effort to save it from collapse. For the next three years the restoration would dominate the life of the church.... Or as one parishioner overheard in conversation, "The church seemed held together by paint and the grace of God...."

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​Fifty-seven years after Rev. John Grimké Drayton died and the church became dormant, St. Andrew’s reopened on Easter Day 1948. Fifty-seven years after that Easter reopening, the church again was reopened, on Easter Day 2005. The Great Restoration was finished. The services that day were filled with praise, joy, and thanksgiving....

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​Father George [Tompkins, the eighteenth rector] praised the dedication of his people. “For whatever else we may be remembered, by the grace of God and your courage and sacrifice,” he said in his annual rector’s report, “we have done something for which generations will be grateful. Storms, earthquakes, moisture, insects, design flaws, enlargements, previous restorations, generations of well intentioned ‘do-it-your-selfers,’ and, above all, time—that ambiguous asset and liability of all that is material—had brought this house of prayer to the point of near collapse.” New St. Andrew's Parish Church was now beautifully old and structurally sound.