St James Santee
I almost always visit both these places, Hampton Plantation and St James, never one or the other. St James-Santee, or the Old Brick Church is only 2.5 miles from Hampton Plantation. St James Episcopal Chapel of Ease is approximately 10 miles south of Hampton, in the village of McClellanville.
There is a story of John Henry Rutledge of Hampton Plantation coming to this place to sit and think. Thomas Lynch, Jr. of Hopseewee Planation, signer of the Declaration of Independence, scratched his initials into one of the pews, during what must have been a long and boring service.
St. James-Santee Parish Episcopal Church
The Brick Church at Wambaw – 1768
Old Georgetown Road, McClellanville, South Carolina
Detailed Directions – Note that the location is very close to Hampton Plantation, must do both!
Blog Post specific to a prior visit to St James – more about my dog friend…
Excerpted from the application to the US Department of the Interior-National Park Service- National Register of Historic Places Registration form, much of Old Georgetown Road is a Nationally Protected Road: This 6.6 mil section of the Old Georgetown Road is one of the last and longest continuously unpaved public portions of the 1,300 mile pre-Revolutionary road that connected Charleston to Boston….Originally, this portion of the road was an Indian trading path, known as the Sewee Broad Path…The trading path became a stage road, became part of the National Post Route, and was traveled by President George Washington in 1791.
St James Santee Episcopal Chapel of Ease – McClellanville
Google Maps address:
St James Santee Episcopal Chapel of Ease
205 Oak St, McClellanville, SC 29458
St James Official page – History
Not entirely off-topic – I had read a fantasy series, authored by Alex Bledsoe, known as the Tufa Tales. One of the books was titled Chapel of Ease, so I knew what it was.
A chapel of ease is a church building, other than the parish church, built within the parish for the attendance of those who can’t get to the parish church. In this case, the planters who lived at the shore in summer would have worshipped here at that time, and at the Brick Church in the winter, when they were back at the plantation houses.