Beaufort, SC Visit

Last year we tried to visit downtown Beaufort, SC but we could only get as far as the Piggly Wiggly as there was a HUGE parade that was 2 miles long! This year, we lucked out and got to visit St. Helena’s Episcopal Church before a bunch of 6^th graders were coming in…we were all a 6^th grader at one time so we know what they’re like! In any event, we had the docent all to ourselves and he was wonderful.

St. Helena was related to Constantine and was sainted because she went to Jerusalem and found the cross of Jesus. (We didn’t think to ask what she did with it!) The parish is VERY active and if we lived there, we would become Episcopalians. Once a week they bake 150 dozen cookies for the prisoners of their jail ministry. There are 60 people who volunteer to be the docents for the month and they are split between morning and afternoon. They have all kinds of choirs and the organ is not electric like so many churches these days. A hurricane had taken out the back wall but the altar remained intact.  Here are pics of the outside and inside.

The church has a rich Revolutionary War history as well as a Civil War one. It is rumored that the flat tombs were used as hospital beds but the docent said there was little truth to that. After the box stalls were ripped out and a boarded floor from balcony to balcony made, the inside of the church was used for Confederate soldiers to recuperate. During the Reconstruction, this baptistry was found in three parts and put back together.

They also retained the Communion chalice from the 1700’s and our docent was able to take Communion from that cup. He was very emotional talking about it.

A doctor is buried in this tomb.

Before he died, he requested that when it came time for his burial, they would place a loaf of bread, bottle of wine and a pick ax in the tomb, just in case he wasn’t really dead! I can identify with that because there are so many times medical staff cannot get a blood pressure on me!! You know, also, how I feel about bread and wine!

There were Confederate generals buried here as well, and the trees among the grave sites have unique personalities.

If you are interested, you can read about the church here. 
http://www.sthelenas1712.org/index.php?page=history

We then went in search of the “Secession House”. As you can see, we found it! 

It had a lovely curved marble staircase going up to the front porch, which apparently I didn't capture. It was here that the papers were drawn up for South Carolina to be the first State to secede.

Because I am reading a book about some black stars of the Civil War, we were off to find the house formerly owned by a slave named Robert Smalls. 

Jackpot!

Robert Smalls was forced to be on the Confederate ship, The Planter, and he asked his fellow slaves to help him hijack the ship. When the white crew left the boat one evening, he piloted the ship out of the harbor safely past other Confederate gunneries and when he got close to Ft. Sumter, he raised a white flag and surrendered all the guns on board to the Union forces. He went on to become a Congressman. You can read more about him here.

http://www.robertsmalls.com/history2.html

We finished our visit by returning to Piggly Wiggly and nothing had changed since last year…we even had the same cashier! It was a fun morning. Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as we did.