St. Marks Parish, South Carolina

United States South Carolina  St. Mark's Parish

History
St. Mark’s Parish's first colonial church was built about 1740, near Wright’s Bluff north of the Santee River. During the Revolutionary War British troops destroyed it. A new building was constructed in Williamsburg County in 1809. That church was destroyed by fire. From 1827 to 1828 a new one was rebuilt near Remini on the Clarendon/Sumter border by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. However, this was an unhealthy location. So, it was moved up on the Charleston-Camden Road. But that church was burned in a forest fire a few years later. The current church was built in 1856 in the heart of the Sand Hills.

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
St. Mark's Parish (originally in Summerton, Clarendon, SC, now near Pinewood, Sumter, SC) was created in 1757 from the northwest side of Prince Frederick Parish on the far northwest side of Craven County.

Boundary
Borders: Prince Frederick and St. Stephen's parishes on the southeast, St. John's Berkeley Parish in Berkeley (1682-1768) County on the southwest, and the North Carolina line on the northeast. In 1767 the northwest half of the parish was split off into St. David's Parish. In 1768 St. Matthew's Parish in Orangeburgh District, and St. James Goose Creek became the southwest border. For a map, see: Early parishes in South Carolina. An overlay of districts is available at Carolana.com.

Areas Served: St. Mark's Parish served:


 * part of Craven County 1757-1768
 * parts of Camden, Cheraw, and Georgetown districts 1768-1800
 * parts of Richland, Claremont, Darlington, Liberty, Williamsburg counties, and all of Clarendon (1785-1800) County 1785-1800
 * part of Salem County 1792-1800
 * Liberty County became Marion County 1798-1800
 * parts of Richland, Sumter, Darlington, Marion, Williamsburg counties 1800-present
 * Clarendon County 1855-present
 * part of Florence County 1888-present
 * part of Lee County 1902-present

Modern equivalents: The original parish covered most of what are present-day Clarendon, and Sumter, and parts of Lee, Darlington, Dillon, Horry, Marion, Florence, Williamsburg, and Richland counties.

Cemeteries
Select graves from St. Mark's Parish Church Cemetery are described at Find A Grave.

The tombstones at Richardson Cemetery, a private burial ground within the parish, have been transcribed:


 * "Tombstone Inscriptions, Richardson Cemetery: Located in Old St. Mark's Parish; Four Miles Southeast of Remini, Clarendon County, S.C.," The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Jan. 1927):55-68. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

Parish History

 * Burgess, James M. Chronicles of St. Mark's Parish, Santee Circuit, and Williamsburg Township, South Carolina. Columbia, S.C.: Charles A. Calvo, Jr., Printer, 1888. Digital version at Google Books;
 * Richardson, Thomas E. The Parish of St. Mark..

For an early history of the parish, see Chapter 13, St. Mark's Parish, pages 323-325, 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.

Websites

 * St. Mark's Episcopal Church Marker, The Historical Marker Database