CARMEL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH CEMETERY (1820), Pickens County, SC Version 2.3, 11-Aug-2006, P026.TXT, P26 **************************************************************** REPRODUCING NOTICE: ------------------- These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, or presentation by any other organization, or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Paul M Kankula Pickens County SC GenWeb Coordinator Pickens County SC GenWeb Homestead http://www.rootsweb.com/~scpicke2/ **************************************************************** DATAFILE INPUT . : Paul M. Kankula at (visit above website) in May-2003 DATAFILE LAYOUT : Paul M. Kankula at (visit above website) in May-2003 G.P.S. MAPPING . : ____________ at ____________ in _______ HISTORY WRITE-UP : ____________ at ____________ in _______ IMAGES ......... : ____________ at ____________ in _______ LOCATION WRITE-UP: Paul Kankula at (visit above website) in May-2003 TRANSCRIPTION .. : ____________ at ____________ in _______ **************************************************************** CEMETERY LOCATION: ------------------ Locate intersection of Highways 8 and 135 in downtown Easley. Drive (N) on Highway 135 (N Pendleton Rd). In 3.5 miles turn left (NW) onto SR S3 9-94 (Holly Bush Rd). In 0.4 miles turn left (SW) onto Cedar Rock Church Rd. Drive 0.9 miles to church. Latitude N 34 52.317e x Longitude W 82 36.800e CHURCH/CEMETERY HISTORY: ------------------------ One of the earliest churches to be formed in Pickens County, SC was Carmel. After the Treaty of Hopewell was signed the up-country of South Carolina was opened for settlement, and the Scots-Irish Presbyterians from Pennsylvania and Virginia arrived. Although Carmel was organized in 1787, there was Presbyterian activity earlier, according to an earlier settler named J.P. Smith. He cited two "preaching places, or mission stations". The first was located three miles east of Carmel. It was called Twenty-three Mile Creek, or Pickens Church. The second was located three miles south of Carmel, and was called Richmond. Both locations were supplied with preachers. In 1792, Dr. Thomas Reese became pastor of the Carmel Church. It was he who placed the date of 1787 as the year of organization. Even so, the name "Carmel" appears only in the year 1793 when it is found in the Minutes of the Presbytery, and the names of Twenty-three Mile Creek and Richmond are no longer seen. From this, it has been presumed that the two stations became one, and out of this union came Carmel. The first building was located about three miles east of the present building. The old cemetery is still there, however, a Methodist Church was built on the spot where the old Carmel was first located in the late 1800's. Carmel was moved to the current location about 1814, but it is now a Baptist Church. The church still exists and is located at SC 135 and Carmel Church Road not far from the Pickens-Anderson County line. The early ministers, in the order which they served, were, Revs. Rob't Hall, W.C. Davis, ___ Hunter, Thos. Reese, D. D. J. Simpson, J. Gilliland, A. Brown, B. Montgomery, Mas. McElhenny, ___ Murphy, James Hillhouse, and W. W. Ross, from its organization until 1836. Later, ministers were Revs. J.L. Kennedy, J.B. Adger, D.D., Hugh McLees, A.P. Nicholson and J.R. Riley (1889). The first elders of the church were: Thomas Hamilton (a Revolutionary soldier), John Hamilton, James Watson, John Wilson, and Robert McCann, Wm. McMurray, Robert Lemon, John Dickson, Alexander Oliver, Michael Dickson, Wm. Walker, Col. David K. Hamilton, Thomas G. Boggs, John Templeton, Wm. Mullikin, Thos. H. McCann, R. Brown, A.M. Hamilton, W.W. Knight, T.H. Russell, G.D. Barr, D. Grice, J.C. Boggs, J.P. Glenn, W.K. Boggs, D.H. Russell, H.T. Martin and S.D. Stewart. The first deacons about known are: Esq. Henderson, James Smith, FM. Glenn, Wm. Boggs, J.M. Smith, Col. T.H. Boggs, Wm. Ford, G.L. McWhorter, Benjamin Mullikin, S.D. Stewart, W.B.F. Taylor, John W. Glenn, J.P. Smith, Dr. W.R. Hollingsworth, L.G. Boggs. The ministers sent out from Carmel up until 1889 were: Rev. George W. Boggs; J. C. Kennedy; D.C. Boggs, Arkansas; John M. Robinson, Texas; A. R. Kennedy, D. D., Arkansas; W.L. Boggs, South Carolina; W.K. Boggs, South Carolina. Carmel is considered the mother of the Presbyterian churches in the Pickens County area, as well as one in Anderson County. Other Presbyterian churches which were later formed in the area are: Mt. Pleasant, Central, Liberty, Easley and Slabtown. Many early members are probably buried at the original site of the church which is now known as Pickens Chapel. That cemetery claims about 20 Revolutionary War soldiers. by: Martha Barnes at crb17@swbell.net in Sep-1999 o----------o Few cemeteries in Upstate South Carolina hold the remains of a score, or more, veterans of the War Independence. But the graves of at least twenty- eight Revolutionary soldiers can be found in a single burial ground situated in a rural section of northern Anderson County. That old necropolis is known as the Pickens Cemetery, but many members of families with other surnames were also buried there. The graveyard is situated near the waters of Three and Twenty Creek and in a secluded, wooded area behind Pickens Chapel, which is practically on the same site once occupied by an early Presbyterian meetinghouse first known as Richmond-Carmel and later as Carmel. (Presumably, the church was named for Mount Carmel of biblical Palestine). The predecessors of Carmel Presbyterian Church were the first organized groups of Christian worshipers in the so-called Indian Land, which was a large portion of Cherokee tribal territory ceded to South Carolina in 1777. That Cherokee land concession was later appended to Ninety-Six District, but it was officially renamed Pendleton District on March 7, 1789. Scotch-Irish immigrants and their descendants founded what eventually became known as Carmel Presbyterian Church in Pendleton District several years after the end of the War of Independence. In the 1700's those settlers had migrated to the southern colonies from Pennsylvania and additional areas to avoid scalping raids and other attacks by hostile Native Americans on the western frontiers of several mid-Atlantic colonies. Throughout the War of Independence, many of these Scotch-Irish settlers helped to defeat British troops. They certainly supported the Americans in their struggle for independence from Great Britain. As David Duncan Wallace noted in The History of South Carolina they "made good the long tradition of a people characterized by the grim defense of their liberties" (p 298). Thus after the armed conflict, some of the Scotch-Irish received land grants in the Carolina backcountry as bounty for their military service. At first, these pioneers existed under harsh, hard scrabble conditions in a virtual wilderness. They built crude log cabins for shelter, then they cleared rocky farmland of trees and thick vegetation and planted crops in virgin soil. As time progressed, their farms yielded not only adequate food for the table but also such cash crops as wheat, corn, oats and tobacco. As the decades advanced and receded, all the Revolutionary veterans eventually died out. Quite a number of them were laid to rest in Pickens Cemetery, which was used by Carmel Presbyterian Church as its initial graveyard until another one was established many years later at the present-day site of the church in southern Pickens County. Additional soldiers of the Revolution were buried at nearby Hopewell (Keowee) Presbyterian Church, which was established near Pendleton in about 1788-89 (shortly after Carmel's founding) and is known today as the Old Stone Church. Although it has long been an inactive church, the sturdy old fieldstone meetinghouse is still standing between Pendleton and Clemson, and it has been carefully preserved as a major historical relic of Pendleton District. Andrew Pickens (1739-l8l7), who was born to Scotch-Irish parents and was a hero of the Battle of Cowpens during the War of Independence, was one of the founders and first elders of Hopewell (Keowee). The bodies of General Pickens and his wife, Rebecca Calhoun (1745-1814), were buried in the churchyard of the Old Stone Church. Situated today about seven miles south of Easley and three miles southeast of Liberty in southern Pickens County---and only a short distance north of the Anderson County line---Carmel Presbyterian Church was the first house of worship of any Christian denomination established in the former Indian Land that became a part of the old Ninety-Six District of South Carolina. Based on available evidence, Carmel's roots appear to have extended back to about 1785, when Scotch-Irish settlers on waters of Twenty Three Mile Creek established two small Presbyterian congregations, namely Twenty Three Mile and Richmond. Jeptha P. Smith (1 Apr 1853 - 17 Nov 1911), son of James Monroe Smith (1 Jul 1808 - 11 Jun 1890) and Hester Ann Watkins Smith (9 Mar 1827 - 4 Oct 1902), prepared an historical sketch containing some details about the organization of Carmel Presbyterian Church in the nineteenth century. That sketch was found among papers which had remained intact in the cornerstone of Pickens County's second courthouse. The old building in which law courts were held for many years was demolished in the late 1950s to make room for the construction of a new courthouse. Because Smith's historical sketch surrounding Carmel's founding, a section of that document is provided below. At first, there seem to have been two preaching places, or mission stations; one situated about three miles east of this place (Carmel) and known as Twenty-three Mile Creek, or Pickens Church, and the other about three miles south of this place and called Richmond. In the minutes of the Presbytery, we find both these places petitioning to be supplied with preaching. We do not think there was a regular organization at these places, but we learn that ministers were appointed to preach at both places. Dr. Thomas Reese, who became pastor of the Carmel Church in the year 1792, says that Carmel was organized in 1787. But the name Carmel does not appear (says Dr. Howe) till around 1793 when it appears in the Minutes of the Presbytery, the names of Twenty-three Mile Creek and Richmond disappear, so it seems very probably that the two congregations, or preaching stations spoken of, merged into one, or unite and form one organization and take the name of Carmel. The first Carmel church building was about three miles east of the present building, and the old graveyard, where some of the founders of the church are buried, is still preserved, and recently a new Methodist Church has been built on this very spot where old Carmel first stood. The church was removed to this place about 75 years ago (about 1814). According to oral tradition, Andrew Pickens the Revolutionary War partisan leader of the Carolina frontier, attended meetings with these Presbyterians and even suggested the name Richmond for the congregation from which Carmel Church became a spin-off. In 1789, Hopewell (Keowee) Presbyterian Church was established about ten miles southwest of Carmel and near present-day Pendleton and Clemson. Then, Andrew Pickens became a faithful member and elder there. Unlike Carmel Church, Hopewell (Keowee) is no longer active, but its sturdy, old building, constructed of fieldstone, stands today (i.e., in 2001) between Pendleton and Clemson. It is now known as the Old Stone Church. At first, the early religious congregations that predated Carmel's founding held prayer meetings and Bible studies in the homes of various local citizens who were Presbyterians. Later, religious services were conducted outdoors in brush arbors, weather permitting. Carmel Presbyterian Church evolved out of these meetings in 1787, and its members constructed a small log meetinghouse on the farm of Robert Pickens (1747-1830), a War of Independence veteran who served as a captain under his first cousin, Colonel Andrew Pickens. In 1784, one year after the end of the War of Independence, Robert Pickens had been granted land on waters of Twenty Three Mile Creek (now on both sides of the Anderson-Pickens line). He moved his family there from the Long Canes settlement and brought along his aged, feeble and almost blind father, Robert Pike Pickens (1697-1793), a native of Northern Ireland, a son of William Pickens and an uncle of the aforementioned Andrew Pickens. Robert Pike Pickens was granted 250 acres of land on December 3, 1763, in what today is Abbeville County, South Carolina. The elder Pickens died at the age of about ninety-six in 1793, and his burial on the Pickens farm was the first one to have taken place in the family's cemetery. His will is dated January 20, 1783, and probated June 1, 1793 (Pendleton District Will Book C, page 15). Later, Pickens cemetery would also be used as an early burial ground for both Presbyterians and Methodists, as well as for other residents of the surrounding community, including the many veterans of the War of Independence who were eventually laid to rest there. But the quiet, wooded graveyard would remain the property of Robert Pickens until his death in 1830. Since that time, one or another of his descendants has owned it. Today, Pickens Cemetery, which once also served as Carmel's initial burial ground, is situated about seven miles south of Easley and on Twenty Three Mile Road in Anderson County. It is surrounded by a wooded area located behind a white frame church building once known as Wesley Methodist Chapel and now known as Pickens Chapel. Richmond-Carmel's first log meetinghouse once stood between the Pickens Cemetery and present-day Pickens Chapel. One of the early Presbyterian ministers who served at Carmel was Thomas Reese, D.D. (1742-1796), a son of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, a veteran of the War of Independence and a graduate of Princeton College in New Jersey. Dr. Reese accepted a joint pastorate at Carmel and Hopewell (Keowee) in 1792, and he continued to preach at both churches until his untimely death in 1796. In 1792, when Dr. Thomas Reese received his joint appointment, Carmel was the meetinghouse where about sixty Presbyterian families worshiped. On the other hand, members of about forty Presbyterian families attended Hopewell (Keowee), Carmel's sister church. In a written report to the Presbytery of South Carolina, Dr. Reese described his two Presbyterian flocks as follows: In general, the people of these two churches are remarkable for their great simplicity of dress and manners. Living two hundred and fifty miles from Charleston, they are strangers to luxury and refinement. Blessed with a healthy climate, brought up in habits of labor and industry, they are for the most part clothed in homespun, and nourished by the produce of their own farms. There are few slaves among them and these are treated with great kindness and humanity. In George Howe's History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, the following comparison is made between members of the Hopewell (Keowee) congregation and those of Carmel: They were not so numerous as the people of Carmel, but better united, more catholic in their principles, and dispositions, and liberal in their sentiments. A few of their numbers are wealthy and very forward to support the Gospel; among whom are General Pickens and Colonel Robert Anderson, both men of great influence in the State of South Carolina. From 1800 until 1803, English-born Francis Asbury (1745-1816), the self-proclaimed and somewhat domineering bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, came to Pendleton District and surrounding communities. Methodists are members of a Protestant religions denomination organized under the evangelical teaching of John Wesley (1703-1791) and his brother Charles (1707-1788). Bishop Asbury's mission was to spread the evangelical teachings of Methodism and to ordain circuit-riding preachers to fill pulpits of local churches. (Between 1808 and 1852, one of the earliest Methodist itinerate preachers who served churches in the Keowee and Pendleton circuits was the Rev. William Scott.) Since 1771, when he arrived in the American colonies, Asbury had traveled widely on horseback, (an estimated 300,000 miles), and the ranks of the Methodists increased rapidly because of the frail bachelor's untiring proselytism. While making his rounds in the Carolina backcountry, Bishop Asbury visited the homes of a number of local residents, including Samuel Burdine at Burdine Springs near present-day Easley; John Wilson, Sr. on Twenty Three Mile Creek; Solomon James in the George's Creek community; Andrew Pickens at both the Cherry's Crossing home on the Seneca River and the Red House at Tamasse; in present-day Oconee County; and John Douthit near Table Rock Mountain. Bishop Asbury often delivered stirring sermons to groups of interested or curious people who had assembled at some of the homes he visited. Many converts to Methodism occurred at those meetings. Robert Pickens and his family, as well as a group of additional members of Carmel Presbyterian Church, also embraced the more impassioned evangelism of the Methodists. Thus the Presbyterian congregation at Carmel was torn apart. The converts then pulled away from the Presbyterians and built a log Methodist church at another location on Robert Pickens' farm. Between the years 1808-1852, one of the earliest itinerate Methodist preachers who served in what was known first as the Keowee circuit (and later the Pendleton circuit) was the Rev. William Scott. A modern-day account of the schism at Carmel, written by Dr. A. L. Pickens, is provided below: At old Carmel the Methodists had drawn off a large part of the congregation, establishing a new church just far enough away for the shouting and book-board thumping not to worry the more staid Presbyterians. Captain Robert's family was invaded by the schism, and tolerantly he contributed more land, both churches using the same cemetery for years. He saw that it was one of the best kept anywhere near, and hence a little company of eighteen-odd Revolutionary soldiers with the captains and majors among them for good measure lie there. In about 1802, the Presbyterians residents of the Twenty Three Mile Creek area who had remained loyal to their faith decided to remove their log meetinghouse from the farm of Robert Pickens, who had recently converted to Methodism. They dismantled the rustic Richmond-Carmel house of worship, loaded it on wagons and moved it a distance of about three miles to the Indian Creek farm of Ezekiel Pilgrim, an early settler of the area who had received a 300-acre land grant there in 1784. The log structure was then reconstructed near what today is known as the Flat Rock community of southern Pickens County. Twenty years after that move, Ezekiel Pilgrim sold 3.9 acres of land to Carmel Presbyterian Church for only nine dollars. Carmel's meetinghouse was already standing there. The official deed was dated May 7, 1820, and it conveyed the church property to the following ruling elders: Michael Dickson, Robert McCann, William Walker, Thomas Hamilton, John Dickson, Alexander Oliver, William McMurray and Robert Lemons. Most of these church leaders were veterans of the American Revolution, and as the years passed, they were laid to rest in the Pickens Cemetery at Carmel's original site. Ezekiel Pilgrim did not want a graveyard established on the land that he sold as long as he or his heirs resided on the adjacent farm, and the deed for the church property contained that stipulation. Thus Carmel did not institute a cemetery at its second site until about 1845, by which time Ezekiel Pilgrim had long before passed away and his heirs no longer owned the old Pilgrim homestead. Before 1845, the bodies of deceased members of Carmel were still taken back to the old Pickens Cemetery. Eventually, a frame building replaced Carmel's rustic meetinghouse. Then, in about 1855---and after many years of use---that wooden structure was replaced by a small but substantial building constructed of handmade red brick. When the new brick church building was dedicated, the dedicatory sermon was preached by the Rev. Anthony W. Ross, a former pastor who had preached in the old frame building. The brick building stands today and is still used by an active Presbyterian congregation. When the brick church was constructed, an interior balcony was included to accommodate slaves who worshiped there. The balcony represented an early harbinger of the unfortunate separate but equal doctrine established in 1896 by the U. S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson and was in effect for sixty-two years, until racial segregation was declared unlawful in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In 1889, a memorial commemorating the life and service of the Reverend John Leland Kennedy (1801-1877) was placed outside the main entrance of the church by the Thalian Association, which was made up of former students of old Thalian Academy in nearby Slabtown. The Rev. Kennedy was undoubtedly the most distinguished and beloved early minister at Carmel, and he was also an eminent educator and headmaster of Thalian Academy. For more than a century, Carmel's rather austere house of worship remained essentially unchanged from the day when it was completed. But in 1959, an addition to the structure was built to house classrooms, a fellowship hall and a kitchen. Connected to the old historic church by a breezeway, the new building was constructed of concrete block and then veneered with brick so as to resemble the old sanctuary that had stood for more than one hundred years. by: Charles H. Busha o---------- Carmel Presbyterian Church According to the Rev. Doctor Thomas Reese writing in 1793, Richmond Church(later called Carmel) was built by 1787nearThreeandTwenty Creek in what is today Anderson County.(The church celebrated its centennial in 1889.) The church has been denoted as Three and Twenty Church, Richmond Church, and finally Carmel Church. According to available church records. one of the earliest ministers at Carmel was the Rev. Thomas Reese, who came in 1792 at the invitation of Carmel and of Hopewell (later known as the Old Stone Church near Pendleton). At the time Reese became pastor, Carmel consisted of about sixty families and Hopewell near forty. He served both churches until his death in 1796. Just after Reese's death, a united petition of the two churches asking for supplies was sent to South Carolina Presbytery. It was signed by Robert Anderson, John Wilson, Robert McCann, Robert Henderson, and Andrew Pickens. As Anderson and Pickens were elders of Hopewell, it is presumed that Henderson, Wilson, and McCann were elders of Carmel Church. The early members are unknown, though tradition claims the Pickens, Wilson, Hamilton, Henderson, McCann families and others of Scotch-Irish descent who came to South Carolina from Pennsylvania and Virginia. Tradition also has it that Robert Pickens, John Wilson and Thomas Hamilton were the first elders of Carmel Church. Robert McCann and Robert Henderson are said to have become elders a few years later. The bodies of Robert Pickens and John Wilson are resting in the Pickens Graveyard, the site of the first church building. The remains of Thomas Hamilton, who died in 1850 at age ninety-one, lies in Carmel Cemetery. After the death of Reese, Carmel Church and Old Stone were supplied by J. Simpson and J. Gilliland. These men along with A. Brown probably supplied the congregations until the close of the 18th century. For several years Carmel and Old Stone were supplied by Dickson, Mc Elhaney, Montgomery, Templeton,and J. Gilliland, Jr. About the year 1802, the log church, situated on Three and Twenty, was torn down and moved to near Indian Creek, the site of the present church. On September 12,1803, a call was presented by the two churches, Old Stone and Carmel, for the services of the James McElhaney and James Gilliland, Sr. Gilliland accepted the call, but McElhaney took it under consideration. A year passed, and McEihaney had not accepted the call; so Old Stone and Carmel jointly presented a call for the services of the Benjamin R. Montgomery. Montgomery accepted, and on April 4, 1805, became their ordained pastor at the Presbytery holding its spring session at Carmel Church. The ordination sermon was preached by Doctor Moses Waddell, and the charge was delivered by John Simpson, the moderator of the Presbytery. Montgomery was succeeded in 1807 by James McElhaney, who continued as pastor of the two churches. He was assisted after about 1809 by his son-in-law, J.D. Murphy. Both contracted fever and died--Murphy in September of 1812 and McElhaney in October. Until 1816, the churches were supplied at intervals by John B. Kennedy and Hugh Dickson. In the spring of 1816, Carmel and Hopewell petitioned the Presbytery for the services of James Hillhouse as supply until the next stated session, and their request was granted. At the next meeting of the Presbytery, Hillhouse was called as pastor of the two churches, with two- thirds of his time to be spent serving Hopewell. During his tenure, a frame structure for Carmel was erected. Hillhouse served as pastor until October 5,1822, when pastoral relations were terminated. After receiving lientiate supplies or several years, Carmel and Old Stone again petitioned Presbytery for supplies. About 1828, the congregation of Old Stone Church moved to a new church in the town of Pendleton, and Anthony W. Ross served as pastor of both Carmel and Pendleton. Ross continued as pastor of Carmel until 1837,when he retired. He was succeeded by John L. Kennedy, who supplied Carmel Church for the next thirty or more years, and was the principal of Thalian Academy, one of the most noted schools of the State during the period from 1840 and 1868. Although Carmel had only fifty-six members in 1825, the membership reached several hundred after it was supplied by Kennedy. The frame structure that was built about 1820 was moved back from the road in 1857, and a large and commodious brick structure was erected. A gallery for slaves, many of whom were members, was built in one end of the church. After Kennedy retired, Dr. John B. Adger supplied the church for a year, Hugh McLees was called as pastor and served from 1875 till 1878. He was succeeded by A.P. Nicholson. John. R. Riley was the next pastor and served until 1896 or 1897. After Dr. Riley retired, the church had grown numerically weak because many of the older members had died and other members had moved away. Other Presbyterian churches had been built at Slabtown, Liberty, Pickens, Mt. Pleasant, Easley and Central, all of which drew members from the old mother church. After Dr. J. R. Riley retired, the church was supplied by W. H. Workman for several years. He was succeeded by J.C. Bailey, who served as pastor for about six years--from 1913 to 1919. He was succeeded by H.A. Knox. Families who attended Carmel were: Boggs, Hamilton, McCann, Smith, Glenn, Ford, Stewart, McWhorter, Lay, Russell, Kennedy, Templeton, Walker, Knight, Robinson, Earle, Fowler, Fennell, Grice, Barr, and many others. Over the years of the church's existence, several members of Carmel became ministers. Among these were George W. Boggs, J.C. Kennedy, D.C. Boggs, John N. Robinson, probably supplied the congregations until the close of the eighteenth A.R. Kennedy, W.L. Boggs, and W.K. Boggs. In 1958, members of Carmel Church approved the construction of an educational building, and the structure was occupied the following year. (Source: C. T. Martin in the book The Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, 1850-1900by W. S. Bean.) Contributed by: Anne Sheriff TOMBSTONE TRANSCRIPTION NOTES: ------------------------------ a. = age at death b. = date-of-birth d. = date-of-death h. = husband m. = married p. = parents w. = wife >