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Barnwell Presbyterian
Church
BARNWELL
The Barnwell Presbyterian Church was organized
in the early part of the last century. The families of Clarke,
Gantt, Hay, Hagood, and a few
others, with their servants, composed the early congregation.
The building was erected around 1830, on a lot given by
Frederick Jay Hay.
The
court house and many other structures in the village were
burned when Sherman's army passed through Barnwell in 1865
during the campaign of the
Carolinas, and the church was used as the county court house.
It was at this time that Judge A. P. Aldrich, distinguished jurist, resigned his
judgeship, seeing that the judiciary would be subordinated by
military despotism. On this dramatic occasion he addressed the jury in these
words: "Gentlemen of the jury, the Court stands adjourned, the
voice of justice is stifled in our land. Pure and unstained, I lay aside this
ermine, but I will wear it again, please God."
The
church, recognized after the war, has at times been inactive,
but it stands today, after a century, an active organization
in one of South Carolina's
most attractive little towns.
BY
HAZEL CROWSON SELLERS
South Carolina Churches
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