St. Philips Parish, South Carolina

United States   South Carolina    St. Philip's Parish

History
St. Philip's Parish serves Charleston.

It was the city's first church. Made of wood, it was located at the southeast corner of Broad and Meeting streets. This structure was replaced by a more permanent edifice in 1723 and opened on Easter. St. Philips was the earliest Church of England in the Carolinas and was the first Protestant foundation south of Virginia.

South Carolina's "Anglican parishes were used as election districts and had responsibility for road development, care of the poor, and education."

Founded

 * 1681

Boundary

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

Cemetery



 * St. Philip's Church Cemetery, Church Street, Charleston, South Carolina (Est. 1680) (photographs and transcripts of graves)

About 2,000 of the cemetery's graves are described at Find A Grave. Includes transcripts and select photographs.

Parish History
For a history of the parish, see Chapter 2, St. Philip's Church, pages 26-74, and Chapter 3, pages 75-16 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.
 * Fraser, Walter J. Charleston! Charleston!. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1989.
 * McCrady, Edward. A Sketch of St. Philip's Church. Reprint, 2000.
 * Pine, W. Morton. Historic St. Philip's Church. 1981.
 * Thomas, Albert S. The Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, 1820-1957. Columbia, S.C.: R.L. Bryan, 1957.

Parish Registers
The original St. Philip's Parish Registers are kept at the church. The collection was microfilmed by the South Carolina Historical Society and is available on microfiche there and at the Charleston County Public Library South Carolina Room.

Published abstracts:


 * Salley, A. S. The Register of St. Philip's Parish Charlestown (1720-1758). 1904.
 * Smith, D.E. Huger and A.S. Salley. Register of St. Philip's Parish, Charlestown or Charleston, 1754-1810. Charleston, S.C.: South Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1927
 * Pinckney, Elise, ed. Register of St. Philip's Church, Charleston, South Carolina, 1810 through 1822. [Charleston, S.C.] : National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of South Carolina, 1973.

Marriages from the registers and other miscellaneous sources have been abstracted:


 * Holcomb, Brent H. and Thomas L. Hollowak. South Carolina Marriages, 1688-1799. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980.
 * Holcomb, Brent H. and Thomas L. Hollowak. South Carolina Marriages, 1800-1820. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981.
 * Holcomb, Brent H. and Thomas L. Hollowak. South Carolina Marriages, 1688-1820. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984.

In 1951-1952, the Genealogical Society of Utah microfilmed some of the later registers and typescripts of other parish registers, created by the WPA in the 1930s and 1940s:.

The following Charleston church records have been indexed on the International Genealogical Index:

Websites

 * St Philip's Church, Charleston, South Carolina (official site). Includes a history
 * St. Philip's Church Marker, The Historical Marker Database. Includes a history