Old Sheldon Church Ruins I

by Harriet Feagin

Title

Old Sheldon Church Ruins I

Artist

Harriet Feagin

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Known also as the Sheldon Church or Old Sheldon Church, the building was originally known as Prince William's Parish Church. The church was built as a chapel of ease in the English Georgian style, using the Roman Tuscan or Doric order, between 1745 and 1753.

The traditional understanding is that Prince William's was burned by the British in 1779 during the Revolutionary War, rebuilt in 1826, and then burned again in 1865 during the Civil War:

The official South Carolina report on the “Destruction of Churches and Church Property,” after the War Between the States, described Sheldon’s second burning: “All that was combustible was consumed..., its massive walls survive the last as they did the former conflagration,” Bishop Thomas wrote, “Exactly as it happened a hundred years before in 1779, when General Prevost, marching from Savannah into South Carolina burned the Church, so now in February 1865, General Sherman marching from Georgia into South Carolina, burned it a second time.[4]

However, an alternative view has more recently come to light. In a letter dated February 3, 1866,[5] Miton Leverett wrote that "Sheldon Church not burn't. Just torn up in the inside, but can be repaired." In this view, the inside of the church was apparently gutted to reuse materials to rebuild homes burnt by Sherman's army.

Uploaded

June 30th, 2018

Statistics

Viewed 189 Times  -  Last Visitor from New York, NY on 04/11/2024 at 7:35 PM

Colors

Embed

Share

Sales Sheet

Tags