Edisto Island Baptist Church

Front: This wood frame church was built in 1818 as Edisto Island Baptist Church. The church was founded primarily through the efforts of Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend (1780-1847), a white woman who sought to revive Baptist worship on Edisto Island after years of dormancy. In the antebellum era most who worshipped here were enslaved African Americans who worked on local plantations. Reverse: In 1860, Edisto Island Baptist Church had more than 450 Black members and a white minister. The congregation was part of the Charleston Association. After abolition, local freedpeople reorganized the church under Black leadership. It had more than 1,000 members after the Civil War. The original square-shaped section rests on a tabby foundation and was likely expanded around that time.