MYSTERY PHOTO: Warm, afternoon light

You can feel the warmth on this building on a cool fall day as the sun started to set.  But what and where is it? [Several photos lately have been hard, so here’s a holiday “gimme!”]  Send your guess to: editor@charlestoncurrents.com. And don’t forget to include your name and the town in which you live.

Our previous Mystery Photo

Our Dec. 9 mystery, “An old place,” is the Old Sheldon Church ruins near Yemassee.  If you look closely, you’ll see a new look with manicured rock paths, even though they are blocked these days by a fence that surrounds the historic church.

Hats of to George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Cynthia Bledsoe, Kristina Wheeler and Stephen Yetman, all of Charleston; Benjamin Comer and Archie Burkel, both of James Island; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Bill Segars of Hartsville, Marnie Huger of Richmond, Va.; and Jay Altman of Columbia.

Segars said Prince William Parish Church, commonly known as Sheldon, is outside Gardens Corner in Beaufort County.  “This Anglican parish was established in 1736 and Sheldon was built in 1755. The building was named Sheldon after S.C. Colonial Governor William Bull’s plantation Sheldon Hall.  It was burned during the American Revolution in May of 1779. The wood work was restored in 1824 and the church was reused only to fall into disrepair during and after the War Between the States and never was repaired after that.  For many years Sheldon was thought to have been burned by Sherman’s troops, but a recently-found letter details how Sheldon looked after the War Between the States.”

Peel added a little more information:   “There is some debate as to what actually happened to the original structure during its long history. … A dispute to this background [that Sherman ordered the burning of the church] arose in 2000 when the University of South Carolina Press released a book entitled “The Leverett Letters: Correspondence of a South Carolina Family, 1851-1868.” 

“The Rev. Charles Edward Leverett was the owner of Canaan (a prominent plantation in Beaufort County) while  serving as pastor for a small congregation of the Sheldon Church from 1846-1858. The Leverett Letters features 230 letters written by Leverett’s nine children during their excursions away from home to attend college, post-graduate studies, European travels and service in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. In one of these letters, written in February 1866, Leverett’s son Milton revealed to his mother that Sherman and the Union troops had not been responsible for the church’s destruction.  In the letter, Milton wrote:

‘Sheldon Church is not burnt down.  It has been torn up inside somewhat but it could be repaired. A good many Beaufort people are living in Beaufort in any vacant house or story they can get, and I am surprised to see them so cheerful . . . Beaufort is not in near so bad a condition as we supposed.’

“From this narrative it has been concluded by some that Milton believed that the inside of the Sheldon Church had not been burned by the Union troops, but rather, had been gutted by the local residents who needed materials to rebuild their homes that were burned by Sherman’s army.”

Great insight, Allan. Thanks!

Send us a mystery:  If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!)   Send it along to editor@charlestoncurrents.com.