Old White Meeting House and Cemetery

Front: This church was established in 1696 by settlers from Dorchester, Mass., for which the town of Dorchester was named. This brick sanctuary, built ca. 1700, was occupied and then burned by British troops in 1781. The church was reorganized as "The United Independent Congregational Church of Dorchester and Beech Hill" in 1793 and the building rebuilt the next year. A summer church was built in nearby Summerville in 1831. Reverse: In 1859 members of the Dorchester congregation established the Summerville Presbyterian Church, which was then admitted into the Charleston Presbytery. The church at this site, often called "Old White Meeting House," was almost abandoned and was in disrepair in 1886 when the Charleston earthquake reduced it to ruins. The cemetery here includes graves dating from the eighteenth century to the present.