St. Peters Parish, South Carolina

United States South Carolina  St. Peter's Parish

History
St. Peter's Parish has served historic Granville County and Beaufort District, which includes modern-day Beaufort County.

Before the American Revolution, the state church of South Carolina was the Church of England (the Anglican Church, or Protestant Episcopal Church). Besides keeping parish registers, the church kept many records of a civil nature in their vestry books. The Vestry was as much a political body as a religious one. The wardens and commissioners were responsible for the roads, education, the poor and orphans, voting and collecting taxes in addition to their church duties.

Founded
St. Peter's Parish (Purrysburg, Jasper, SC) was created 17 Feb 1746/1747 from the southwest part of St. Helena's Parish.

Boundary

 * Borders St. Luke's and St. Matthew's parishes and Georgia border. For a map, see: Early parishes in South Carolina. An overlay of districts is available at Carolana.com.

Modern equivalents: The original parish covered part of what is present-day Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, and Allendale counties.

Parish History

 * Rowland, Lawrence S. "'Alone on the River:' The Rise and Fall of the Savannah River Rice Plantations of St. Peter's Parish, South Carolina," The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Jul. 1987):121-150. Digital version at JSTOR ($).

For an early history of the parish, see Chapter 24, St. Peter's Parish, pages 385-386, in:


 * Dalcho, Frederick. An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina from the First Settlement of the Province, to the War of the Revolution; with Notices of the Present State of the Church in Each Parish and Some Account of the Early Civil History of Carolina, Never Before Published. Charleston: E. Thayer, 1820. ; digital versions at Google Books; Internet Archive.