FYSS: St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church
The church we chose to study is St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, located on 95 Hasell St in Charleston, SC. My group and I were drawn to explore this church because we were immediately infatuated by its modern beauty it relays on the outside. Furthermore we were especially captivated by the simultaneous historic depths it entails behind in the churchyard.
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| Above you can see cracks in the marble and the similar pattern reflecting the restored marble. |
Founded in 1788, St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church was the first established Roman Catholic Church in the Carolinas and Georgia. After Reverend John Caroll sent Reverend Matthew Ryan to Charleston from Ireland to start a parish, they began to worship in a methodist meeting house in August, 1789. The congregation’s second worship center was a brick sanctuary which was unfortunately a victim of the Charleston Fire in 1838. On June 9th, 1839 the present building held its first service, being the third landmark to serve its congregation. Despite the damage from the Civil War, the earthquake of 1886, Hurricane Hugo in 1989 along with other natural disasters, St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church is still an ongoing church and you can find their hours of operation on their website.
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| Click here to read about some of the people resting in this graveyard. |
The Church has undergone a few restorations over the years due to multiple disasters, for example a recent project found faux charcoal marbling beneath the white finish of exterior columns and the columns were restored in a similar pattern to reflect historic detail. The Church reflects classic Roman architecture, specifically Ionic Order which was a common style of Greek temples.
The interior of the church has paintings that date all the way back to 1814, one in particular was from the earlier brick church. This (painting of the Crucifixion) was able to be restored by its original Charleston artist, John, S. Cogdell after the fire in 1838. Other paintings in the church were painted in Rome before being installed in the church around 1896. Stained glass arched windows and the polished marble altar were gifts to the church and are considered masterpieces in the church. After Reverend Matthew Ryan came to Charleston, the board of trustees and many of the congregations first members were Irish immigrants. The church has its own graveyard where many of the church's earliest members rest, including many french refugees from the West Indies escaping the slave insurrection (1793) in Santo Domingo.
The church has a very large golden cross on the top, as well as four large columns which have a tie-dye aesthetic to them. The church also has three gates in the center of the front of the church, which they close after hours. The graveyard was relatively small, but has about 550 headstones, making very good use of its space. The graveyard consisted of mainly upright headstones with very few flat headstones. The night we went, the graveyard was open to the public, allowing us to walk through, observe, and take pictures. The last name “Lapenne” was a popular one that came up multiple times in the cemetery, as well as the last name “Riley”.
