Trinity Episcopal Church flowers annually
Trinity Episcopal Church, built in 1834. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
From Staff Reports
This week, a long-closed church in Society Hill is scheduled to open again for its annual service.
Trinity Episcopal Church was organized in 1833 and built the next year. It’s known as the first Episcopal church in an area founded by Baptists. Trinity stopped holding weekly services in 1929, and became inactive in 1931.
The building was never wired for electricity or gas, and it’s been maintained much as it was in the 19th century. It still has the original box pews, as well as rough benches in the gallery above, once designated for slaves. It still holds a huge organ believed to have been installed in the 1870s.
It remains, observers say, in a “remarkable” state of preservation. And once a year – this year, it’s scheduled for April 24 – the church reopens for one service.
The church was founded by seven prominent families: Judge Josiah James Evans, Col. Nicholas Williams, John Dick Witherspoon, Maj. John Dewitt, Enoch Hanford, Edward Edwards and John McCullough.
Its structure is distinguished by a bell tower and Gothic Revival windows, which predate most significant Gothic Revival architecture in South Carolina by about a decade.