St. James Goose Creek Parish, South Carolina

United States   South Carolina    St. James Goose Creek Parish

History
St. James Goose Creek Parish has served Berkeley County and historic Charles Town District. It had a chapel of ease in ruins by 1820. The chapel of ease at Strawberry includes a graveyard.

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

Founded

 * 1706

Boundary

 * Borders Christ Church, St. Andrew's, St. George, St. Johns Berkeley, St. Matthew's, St. Michael's, St. Philip's, St. Thomas &amp; St. Denis parishes. For a map, see: Early parishes in South Carolina. An overlay of districts is available at Carolana.com.

Cemetery
Many graves from the parish church cemetery are described at Find A Grave. Graves at the chapel of ease cemetery at Strawberry are also described at Find A Grave. Includes transcripts and select photographs.

Parish History
For a history of the parish, see Chapter 5, St. James' Parish, Goose-Creek, pages 244-263, 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.

For a history of the area, see:


 * Heitzler, Michael J. Goose Creek: A Definitive History. 2 vols. Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2005-2006.

Taxation
A 1694 assessment of St. James' Goose Creek Parish's inhabitants was described in two books published in the 1850s. For further information, see Morgan's article (below), footnote 5, on page 52. Morgan states some of the names on the assessment, which he believes no longer survives, were published in these two books:


 * 1) Poyas, Elizabeth Anne. A Peep into the Past. Charleston, S.C., 1853.
 * 2) Poyas, Elizabeth Anne. The Olden Time of Carolina. Charleston, S.C.: S.G. Courtenay &amp; Co., 1855. Digital version at Google Books.

A partial 1745 tax return for St. James' Goose Creek Parish survives. It is kept in the Archive of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (London), Reference C/AM/7.149. The tax return is abstracted in:


 * Morgan, Philip D. "A Profile of Mid-Eighteenth Century South Carolina Parish: The Tax Return of Saint James', Goose Creek," The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Jan. 1980):51-65. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

Websites

 * Goose Creek Church Marker, The Historical Marker Database
 * St. James, Goose Creek Marker, The Historical Marker Database
 * St. James, Goose Creek Chapel of Ease / Bethlehem Baptist Church, The Historical Marker Database