Christ Church Parish, South Carolina

United States South Carolina  Christ Church Parish

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
Christ Church Parish (Mount Pleasant, Charleston, SC) was officially created in 1706 as an original colonial parish from the northeast coastal part of Berkeley (1682-1768) County.

Boundary
Borders: St. Philip's, and St. Thomas and St. Denis, and St. James Goose Creek parishes. For a map, see: Early parishes in South Carolina. An overlay of districts is available at Carolana.com.

Areas Served: Christ Church Parish served:


 * part of Berkeley (1682-1768) County 1706-1768
 * part of Charleston District 1768-1800
 * and survives to the present

Modern equivalent: The original parish covered part of what is present-day Charleston County.

Cemetery

 * Gregorie, Anne King. "Cemetery Inscriptions from Christ Church Parish," The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Apr. 1920):73-76; Vol. 21, No. 3 (Jul., 1920):132-135. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

Select graves are photographed and transcribed at Find A Grave.

The cemetery records for the Independent or Congregational Church at Wappetaw have also been transcribed:


 * "Inscriptions from the Church Yard of the Independent or Congregational Church at Wappetaw, Christ Church Parish," The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul. 1924):136-142. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

Census

 * 1790 Charleston District Christ Church Parish, courtesy: South Carolina Tri County Genealogy.

Genealogy

 * [Bond] Webber, Mabel L. "The Bond Family of Hobcaw Plantation, Christ Church Parish," The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Jan. 1924):1-22. Digital version at JSTOR ($).
 * [Bond] "Corrections: The Bond Family of Hobcaw Plantation, Christ Church Parish," The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul. 1924):158. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

Parish History

 * Gregorie, Anne King. Christ Church, 1706-1959, A Plantation Parish of the South Carolina Establishment. Charleston, S.C.: The Dalcho Historical Society, 1961.

For an early history of the parish, see Chapter 7, Christ Church Parish, pages 275-283, 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
In the 1950s, the parish held its registers at the church. The records begin in 1694. Copies:. Births and christenings are indexed on the IGI for the years 1694 to 1843. Abstracts have also been published:


 * South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vols. 18-22 . Digital versions at JSTOR ($).

South Carolina Historical Society holdings: "Christ (Episcopal) Church. Mt. Pleasant. Records, 1674-1865. 4 vols."


 * "Vol. of births and baptisms (1694-1743); marriages (1723-51); burials (1709-59); church proceedings (1708-59); vestrymen’s oath of allegiance to Queen Ann, to belief in royal supremacy over the church, and to compliance with the Test Act; mention of illegitimate births, including occasionally the father’s, and more rarely the mother’s, name. Family names recurring include Haddrill, I’on, Logan, Maybank, Metheringham, Pinckney, Player, and Wigfall; among notables in the early decades were Dr. Andrew Rutledge and Gov. Robert Daniell. Births and baptisms (1737-88); marriages (1758-85), and deaths and burials (1721-89); the first 14 pages in the vol. are missing. Eden, Jay, Neyle, and Whiteside are new family names appearing. Copies of these 2 vols. made by Edmund Hall in 1880 and used, with the originals, in preparing the text of the registers which appeared in this Magazine (1917-21)."

Taxation

 * [1784] "1784 Tax Returns," The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer 1975):178-182.
 * [1786] "1786 Tax Returns," The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter 1980):27-28.

Websites

 * Episcopal Christ Church Parish, Mt. Pleasant, SC waypoint brief history
 * Christ Church Marker, The Historical Marker Database
 * Christ Church: The Episcopal Church of Christ Church Parish Marker, The Historical Marker Database