St. James the Greater Catholic Mission

While Catholicism was present in what would become South Carolina since the 18th century, the Catholic Church in the state wasn't founded until 1820 when the Diocese of Charleston was established. The diocese was led by Bishop John England, who opened a school for African American children in Charleston in the 1830s and founded two Catholic religious orders. However, not everyone in the city welcomed the Catholic presence in Charleston (and in the South, in general). Nativists and others were against immigrants, Catholics, the Irish (many immigrants arriving America at the time were from Ireland and mostly Catholic), were pro-slavery, and often subjected Catholic churches and schools to discrimination and violence. As a result, Irish Catholics left Charleston to establish communities in rural areas.

This is how St. James Mission was established. The first church building, a wooden structure, was erected in 1833. The congregation grew in the coming years due two factors. One is that some local white families, who were Episcopalian (and plantation owners), converted to Catholicism. The other is that many slaves of these families converted as well (sometimes there were large baptisms of slaves; during one ceremony, apparently 60 slaves were baptized). As a result, by 1835, St. James became a mostly African American congregation. Another interesting fact is that some of the white families taught their slaves how to read and write. While this was against state law, it prepared the African Americans congregants when they were emancipated and enabled them to run the parish after the Civil War. One of these literate individuals was former slave Vincent de Paul Davis, who taught Catholicism to his fellow parishioners.

Unfortunately, a field fire burned down the first church building 1856. Remarkably, however, African Americans built homes and stores on and near the church site. They managed to maintain their community and the parish despite not having a church, diocesan financial support, a priest, or access to a railroad (a railroad did arrive in 1887) for many years.

Around 1890, a priest from Charleston by the name of Fr. Daniel Berberich "discovered" St. James parish (other accounts state that the discovery was made by a group of priests or Catholics from Charleston who were out for a picnic in the country). Berberich was appointed the parish priest in 1892 and two years later the second church building was erected. A new church was built in 1909 but a tornado destroyed it in the early 1930s; the present church building was erected in 1935 as a result. As noted above, the school was built in 1901. Over the course of the next several decades, more than 100 African Americans students of every religious denomination were educated here. It closed in 1960 when schools were integrated. In the graveyard, the oldest gravestone that is legible dates to 1835.

Garnett, Diana. "St. James the Greater Catholic Mission." National Park Service - National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. September 29, 2015. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/4df63554-e865-4932-b743-16460f5863fd.

"Living stones: Black Catholics in America." Catholic News Herald. November 8, 2017. Last Updated April 6, 2021. http://www.catholicnewsherald.com/news/88-news/fp/2394-living-stones-Black-catholics-in-america.

"St. James the Greater Catholic Mission." SC Picture Project. Accessed May 27, 2021. https://www.scpictureproject.org/colleton-county/st-james-the-greater-catholic-church.html.