Founding of the Church

Ours is the oldest Unitarian Church in the South and the second oldest church building on the Charleston peninsula.  St. Michael’s is the oldest, at the corner of Meeting and Broad.

This church was started in 1774 to handle the overflow from the First Independent Church of Charleston, which is on the site of the present-day Circular Congregational Church.  In those days, the official church of South Carolina was the Church of England, supported by taxes.  Anyone who did not want to be Church of England was termed a dissenter and joined an Independent Church. 

The First Independent Church of Charleston was founded in 1681 and was referred to as “the old white meeting house.”  It is believed that Meeting Street was named for this church.  By 1772, the First Independent Church had so many members that more space was needed and this church was built to handle the overflow.

The structure that was built was a simple, utilitarian Georgian structure, as you can see in the pictures here.  This is how the church originally looked.

While the church was started in 1774 and substantially completed, it was not used as a church until 1787.   The revolutionary war got in the way.  The building was first used by the Americans as a barracks, then by the English, and then again by the Americans after the British were driven out.  The English had great disdain for dissenters and did not treat the building well.  Some say it was used to stable horses.

Change to Unitarianism

After repairs, the church was consecrated in 1787, and for the next 25 years shared a ministry with the church on Meeting Street, with morning and afternoon services.  In 1815, the first Unitarian Minister came on board, the Reverend Anthony Forster, although he did not refer to himself as a Unitarian.  Forster was married to Altona Gales, the daughter of Joseph Gales, a North Carolina printer and a close associate of Joseph Priestley.  Gales and Priestley were friends in England, and both fled England to escape religious persecution in 1795-1796.   Dr. Joseph Priestley was the eminent British Scientist who discovered oxygen, among many other gases.  Priestly was also a Unitarian Minister and a dissenter.  After the French Revolution, England and Spain cracked down on dissenters, which gave rise to the Spanish Inquisition, and persecution of Catholics, Presbyterians, Jews, Quakers and all other dissenters in England, and anyone who was not Catholic in Spain.  Priestley’s house was burned down, and he and his family fled to the United States, winding up in Pennsylvania.  Priestley helped found the first Unitarian church in Philadelphia.  Gales and his family moved to Altona, Germany, and then came to America, where he reconnected with Priestley.

In 1819, we received our second Unitarian minister, Rev. Samuel Gilman, whose picture is on the wall in our Sanctuary.  Gilman remained with the church for almost 40 years, and he and his wife Caroline were responsible for freeing the church of debt and establishing it as a solid institution.  By 1852, Gilman was able to say that the congregation “averaged about 400 souls”.

Remodeling

The church had plenty of money in those days, Charleston being one of the wealthiest cities in the nation, and Gilman wanted to improve the edifice.  To help finance the remodeling, the pews were sold to the congregation – you had to buy your seat.  In 1852, the architect Francis Lee was commissioned to design the building you see today.  Lee was a member of the congregation and a mere 26 years old.  He patterned the perpendicular gothic design after churches in England, particularly King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.

The beautiful fan tracery ceiling – all lathe and plaster – was copied from that structure.

The old building is still with us, which is why we can say we are the second oldest church on the Charleston peninsula.  The congregation was so attached to the brick walls of the old building that they would not permit them to be demolished, so the stucco you see today was placed over the old bricks. The stucco was then scored to look like large blocks.  This is a common treatment in Charleston.

Caroline Gilman

Caroline Gilman was a legend herself.  She was at one time the best-known woman author in the South, and some would refer to Samuel Gilman as “the husband of Caroline Gilman.”  She did many important things, among them the design of the churchyard in 1831.  The Gilman’s had seven children, but only four, all girls, survived beyond infancy.  The Gilman’s and several of their children are buried under the large monument you see outside.

In 1858, Samuel Gilman died while visiting his daughter in Massachusetts.  He was 67 years old.  Caroline Gilman lived to be 94 and died in 1888 while visiting her only surviving daughter in Washington, D.C.

Earthquake of 1886

In the great earthquake of 1886, the tower came down through the roof of the Sanctuary.  There was daylight coming through the roof.  The beautiful fan tracery ceiling had to be constructed a second time. 

The side windows were blown out by a hurricane in 1885, a year before the earthquake.  Miraculously, the chancel window survived both the hurricane and the earthquake.  The chancel window dates from 1854, and the side windows date from about 1865.  The chancel window is painted glass, done by a German process no longer replicable.  The side windows are solid stained glass, donated by the Boston Unitarian Church.  The writings in the windows say “The Lord is One” in Hebrew, and “Spirit of God” in Greek.

Charleston

By the 1850s Charleston was a very wealthy city.  This wealth came from rice, indigo, cotton, and tobacco – all labor-intensive industries reliant on slaves.  Slaves outnumbered whites in South Carolina by 9 to 7, and in Charleston, by 3 to 1.  After the war, the industries collapsed, thus by the time of the earthquake, Charleston was no longer a wealthy city, but rather poor.  Money had to be obtained from northern Unitarians in order to rebuild the church.

The Civil War was, of course, devastating to Charleston and to the Church, which was closed from 1861 until the end of the war in 1865.  Caroline Gilman fled to Greenville, SC, returning after the war to her home on Orange Street, which escaped major damage.  Both her home and the church survived the great fire of 1861, which destroyed a thousand buildings.  Valuables from the church – the organ, silver, records, and furniture – were moved to Columbia where they were destroyed when Sherman’s troops burned the city to the ground.

Alva Gage

Alva Gage was one of 15 children, though he and his wife had no children of their own. Alva was a long-term church member who became wealthy selling ice packed in sawdust and brought on barges from the North to the South.  He retained his wealth through the Civil War by investing overseas, and by not converting his wealth to Confederate dollars.  For a number of years, he was the financial savior of the church, paying the minister’s salary for a time.  In 1892, he funded the construction of Gage Hall, and upon his death in 1896, left half of his estate to the church.

Organ

The organ pipes on the balcony are decorative only. The first organ was installed in 1825, which was the one sent to Columbia and destroyed.  The second organ was installed in 1866 after the War.  The third was installed in 1916. The third organ had not worked since 1982 and could not be repaired.  An electric organ was placed in the choir loft and then moved downstairs in 2000. It was replaced in 2010 by the digital organ that is on the right side of the church. 

Summary

Our church has an interesting and varied history.  It has survived two wars, six major hurricanes, two devastating fires, and an earthquake.  We are hoping to keep it going for another hundred years.