Author: Second Presbyterian Church (Charleston, S.C.). Association

Publisher:

Published: 1809

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

Records chiefly consist of minutes of meetings of the church association, corporation, deacons, and sessions; church registers of baptisms, communicants, marriages, and deaths; records of auxiliary organizations and committees; and miscellaneous items. "Minutes of the Association" (1823-1836) include entries on the calling of Rev. William Ashmead of Pennsylvania, his death in 1829, and an offering for his widow Clara F. Ashmead. Minutes of corporation meetings (1836-1857) include "Rules of the Temporal Government of the Second Presbyterian Church." Later corporation minutes include a letter (Apr. 1862) from the Confederate Ordnance Office in Richmond, Va., thanking the church for the offer of its bell and lead window weights to be cast into cannonry; a letter of resignation from Rev. Thomas Smyth (1865), suggesting John L. Girardeau as his replacement; and an entry noting the disrepair of the church, "our impoverished congregation," and the death of Rev. Smyth (1873). Minutes of the session (Oct. 1855) concern the establishment of a Sunday school for black members. Minutes of Apr. 1858 include copies of letters from Robert and Joseph E. Adger requesting certificates of disunion; and minutes of May 1861 note that fifty men of the congregation are in military service, and that almost all the "expected ministers" had become chaplains or joined the Home Guard. Minutes of June 1861 include a clipping of a newspaper article about Rev. Smyth's sermon on Fort Sumter and "the prosecution of this defensive war." An entry for Feb. 1862 notes the admission of Maria Johnston, a free person of color. Auxiliary organization records include minutes and accounts (1823-1897) of the Female Education Society, organized to give financial aid to theological students; a Home Mission Committee record book (1907-1917); a Men's Club minute book (1909-1915); and a Bible class attendance record (1857). Miscellaneous items include a church cash book (1828-1880); "Recollections of Our Choir and Cemetery," a ms. dated May 1861; and two scrapbooks. Printed material consists of a hymnal (1831), and a church manual (1854).