Prince Frederick Parish, South Carolina

United States South Carolina  Prince Frederick Parish

This parish is also known as Prince Frederick Parish, Winyah, and also Old Prince Frederick Winea, and after 1848 Prince Frederick Parish, Pee Dee.

Before the American Revolution, the state church of South Carolina was the Church of England (the Anglican Church, or Protestant Episcopal Church). Besides keeping parish registers, the church kept many records of a civil nature in their vestry books. The Vestry was as much a political body as a religious one. The wardens and commissioners were responsible for the roads, education, the poor and orphans, voting and collecting taxes in addition to their church duties.

Founded
Prince Frederick Parish, Winyah (originally near Brown's Ferry on the Black River (Dunbar), Georgetown, SC) was created in 1734 by splitting Prince George Parish. Prince George Parish's old wooden church building was transferred to the new Prince Frederick Parish, which was formed from an interior part of Craven County.

Boundary
Borders: St. James Santee, Prince George, St. Stephen's since 1754, St. Mark's since 1757, and St. David's since 1768 parishes. For a map, see: Early parishes in South Carolina. An overlay of districts is available at Carolana.com.

Areas Served: Prince Frederick Parish served:


 * part of Craven County 1734-1768
 * part of Georgetown District 1768-1800
 * The parish church was moved in 1848 to Plantersville, Georgetown, SC where it was called Prince Frederick Parish, Pee Dee. It served to at least the 1880s before falling into disuse.

Modern equivalents: Prince Frederick's once took up a large area of South Carolina. By 1790 this parish (as well as Prince George's to the east) took up all or parts of six present-day South Carolina counties: Williamsburg, Florence, Marion, Dillon, Horry and Georgetown counties.

Cemetery

 * Altman, Eunice and Flora B. Surles. Georgetown County, Epitaphs of Prince Frederick's Parish, Pee Dee, 1749-1896 W.P.A. Project 2004. Typescript, South Carolinian Library, 1937.

John Green's survey of Old Prince Frederick Episcopal Church Cemetery (2004) is available online at SCGenWeb. See also Old Gunn Church Cemetery (Prince Fredericks).

Parish History
For a history of the parish, see Chapter 10, Prince Frederick's Parish, pages 319-321, in:


 * Dalcho, Frederick. An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina from the First Settlement of the Province, to the War of the Revolution; with Notices of the Present State of the Church in Each Parish and Some Account of the Early Civil History of Carolina, Never Before Published. Charleston: E. Thayer, 1820. ; digital versions at Google Books; Internet Archive.

Parish Records
The original parish registers are kept at [blank], South Carolina. Abstracts of baptisms from 1713 to 1794 and marriages from 1726 to 1752 have been published:


 * Prince Frederick Parish and Prince George Parish. The Register Book for the Parish Prince Frederick Winyaw, Ann: Dom: 1713. Baltimore: Williams &amp; Wilkins, 1916. ; digital version at Internet Archive.

Marriage register are also abstracted in:


 * Holcomb, Brent H. and Thomas L. Hollowak. South Carolina Marriages, 1688-1799. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980.

South Carolina Historical Society holdings: "Prince Frederick, Winyah (Episcopal) Church. Georgetown Co. Vestry Minutes and Registers, 1713-1794. 3 vols."


 * "Vestry meetings recorded before 1734 relate to Prince George, Winyah, the parish out of which Prince Frederick was created in 1734; correspondence with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts re the supplying of rectors and the building of church and rectory; administration of the poor tax and frequent attention to boarding out the parish poor and binding out minors as apprentices; account of specially commissioned inquest, with a layman acting as foreman of a grand jury, Dec. 6, 1770. (See entries under M. Bonnell in Register and Parish Records Books of Prince Frederick, Winyah, ed. E. W. Pringle [Baltimore, 1916].) Material (1752-1756 on controversial S.P.G. missionaries, Michael Smith, poet and preacher of talent, and on C. W. Woodmason, author of Journal of Charles Woodmason: Itinerant Minister in South Carolina, 1766. Family names recurring include Allston, Avant, Brunson, Cantey, Cromwell, Cross, du Bose, du Pre, Evans, Plowden, Pyatt, Rutledge, Sanders, and Swinton. Two vols. of transcripts in which births, deaths, and other records have been gathered in separate sections."

Taxation
A partial 1756 tax return for Prince Frederick Parish survives. It is kept in the Maps and Monuments section of the South Carolina Historical Society, and, according to Morgan, describes "69 taxpayers, 702 slaves, and 44,129 acres of land."

Some tax return from the 1780s survives and have been published:


 * [1784] "1784 Tax Returns," The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Fall 1975):201-206.
 * [1786] "1786 Tax Returns," The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter 1983):33-39.

Websites

 * Prince George Winyah Parish / Prince Frederick's Parish Marker, The Historical Marker Database