National Register of Historic Places

White Church

Cainhoy, Berkeley County, South Carolina
Listed
March 22, 1972
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
72001193

About this property

White Church, also known as The Brick Church, and formally as St. Thomas Episcopal Church and St. Thomas and St. Dennis Parish Church, is a historic church north of Cainhoy in Berkeley County, South Carolina. It was built in 1819 as the parish church for St. Thomas and St. Dennis Parish and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, together with its vestry building and cemetery. In October 1876 the church was the site of a planned Republican meeting, attended mostly by freedmen, which was interrupted by a large party of more than 150 white men, Democrats from Charleston who arrived by steamboat and demanded equal time. As this followed the massacre by whites of seven freedmen at Hamburg in Aiken County from July 4 to July 8, tensions were high. While efforts were made to have both sides lay down their arms, the tensions broke out into shooting, which resulted in the deaths of one African-American man and three to six whites. It "represented a rare instance during Reconstruction where the African American combatants got the better of their opponents." It was one of several events during the campaign season in South Carolina in which violence was used to disrupt Republican meetings and suppress black voting, particularly in Edgefield County, which had a Republican/black majority. Typical of the times was a plan for Edgefield County by veteran General Martin W. Gary, who listed numerous activities to take place over several months by rifle clubs to disrupt Republican voting. Robert Shelton Converse, St. Thomas and St. Denis Parish Church: An Anglo-Franco Alliance in the Lowcountry, May 2011, a thesis project submitted to Clemson University and the College of Charleston

Location

Cainhoy, Berkeley County, South Carolina
32.96044, -79.85785

Categories

POLITICS/GOVERNMENTARCHITECTURERELIGION
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Cainhoy Historic District
Listed
2.7 mi
Otranto Plantation Indigo Vats
Industrial
4.6 mi
Quinby Plantation House-Halidon Hill Plantation
Industrial
6.9 mi
Slave Street, Smokehouse, and Allee, Boone Hall Plantation
Listed
7.5 mi
Boone Hall Plantation House and Historic Landscape (Boundary Increase)
Listed
7.6 mi

Questions about this property

When was White Church listed on the National Register?

White Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 22, 1972.

What type of historic resource is White Church?

White Church is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for White Church?

The period of significance for White Church is recorded as the industrial era.

Can I research the history near White Church?

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