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Trinity, Black Oak, Episcopal Church
BERKELEY
COUNTY
In the early spring of 1941 the Trinity, Black
Oak, Episcopal Church was standing in its beautiful setting of
gray moss covered oak trees. This sketch of the church is
probably the last one made before the building was taken down
because it was in the Pinopolis basin of the Santee-Cooper
Hydro-Electric Navigation Project. It is interesting to note
that a small, beautifully proportioned earthen jar was removed
from the northeast pillar of the church at this time. The
records tell us that a list of families of the early
congregation was written in Latin on paper and placed in this
jar. When the jar, now in the possession of the vestry, was
removed in the spring of 1941, its contents were found to be
pulverized.
There was a church at Black Oak as early as
1808. It was in reality built as a chapel of ease to St.
John's, Berkeley (Biggin Church). In 1816 the old building was
taken down and the materials given to the Methodist
congregation of Rehobeth. The new church, built in the same
year, was consecrated by the lit. Reverend Christopher E.
Gadsden, Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, assisted by
the rector of the congregation, the Reverend William Dehon,
the Reverend Paul Trapier, and the Reverend Cranmore Wallace,
and given the name of Trinity Church. The land on which it was
built was given in or about the year 1806 by Rene
Ravenel.
Trinity Parish was cut off from St. John's,
Berkeley (Biggin) in 1855 to become a separate parish.
BY
HAZEL CROWSON SELLERS
South Carolina Churches
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