St. Stephen’s Chapel, Charleston, South Carolina

United States South Carolina  Post-Colonial Parishes  Charleston  St. Stephen’s Chapel

South Carolina Historical Society holdings:


 * "St. Stephen’s (Episcopal) Chapel. Charleston. Records, 1822-1880. 6 vols. and 1 folder."


 * "Vestry minutes (1866-1880) include materials re chapel’s economic difficulties, fund raising, organization of the Free Church Society, abolishment of pew rentals and ownership; families represented include Archer, Buist, Courtenay, Hanckel, Newton, Pringle, and Simons. Baptismal register (1833-1866) indicates relatively high infant mortality rate after 1848. Register (1867-1880) includes “Baptisms for Colored People” (1872), other baptisms (1867-1880), confirmations (1872-1880), marriages (1866-1879), and deaths and burials (1873-1878); the causes of death are given. The 1855 congregational list, alphabetical by streets, is the minister’s pocket visiting book; it gives names and birth years of children, status as to freedom and church observance, and in some cases, occupations – e.g., mill woman, plasterer, printer, shoemaker – as well as descriptions of locations of tenements. Marriage register (1822-1866) includes entries for slaves and free black families such as Brodie, Deas, Forrest, Kinloch, and Weston; other families represented include Ayers, Dawson, Gadsden, Jeffords, Lucas, Maybank, Polhemus, Pregnall, Simmons, Wigfall, and Wightman. Burial record (1822-1865) indicates race, if Negro, age at death, place of service and burial, and often cause of death. Memoranda and clippings (1870-1878) re baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Letters (1880) of the Rev. E. R. Miles re baptisms. Extract from printed lecture on prison reform."