It has been described as "one of the best preserved and most interesting churches in the United States." St. James Church in Goose Creek, one of the early English churches in America, is a National Historic Landmark and an architectural treasure.
Completed in 1719, the church had 70 white and 8 black communicants in its early days. For
lack of parishioners regular services were finally discontinued in the 19th century. St. James Episcopal Church bears the Royal Arms of Great Britian over the chancel. For this reason, British soldiers spared the church during the American Revolution.
In 1844, a $500 donation from a Charleston church helped
to repair the badly overgrown and neglected St. James. A second renovation followed the earthquake of 1886. Services in this splendidly preserved church are held once a year. Its adjacent cemetery has 27 graves dating back to the mid-eighteenth century. It sits on the banks of Goose Creek across from what was once Otranto Plantation on Vestry Lane which is located off Old State Road in Goose Creek.
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