Old Sheldon Church

    The Old Sheldon Church is a ghost. Originally called Prince William's Parish Church, it was first built in the Greek Revival style between 1745 and 1753. The poor church was then burned down by the British in 1779 during the Revolutionary War, rebuilt, and finally burned down again by General Sherman in 1865 during the Civil War. The insides of Old Sheldon Church were then gutted by locals whose own homes had been burned by Sherman’s army. Today, only the scarred brick skeleton of the church remains. The forgotten white marble graves lay scattered around it, all crooked like broken teeth and sinking steadily into the ground. Glistening ferns claw their way between the red bricks on the inner walls. And when the rain falls, which here in the Lowcountry is often and without mercy, the church seems even lonelier. But the ruins have found a peaceful rest here, amid the Southern thunderstorms and bony emerald live oaks and dripping Spanish moss. At times like these, the Old Sheldon Church seems have been born to be a ghost.