Strawberry Chapel and Childsbury Town Site
National Register Listing
Street Address:
SE of Moncks Corner on CR 44, N of the Tee of the Cooper River (Berkeley County)
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817708023
Description and Narrative:
Childsbury, one of the early towns to be laid out in South Carolina (1707), is significant as an important archaeological site. Englishman James Child started a ferry here as it was the only practical ferry site across the Cooper River within a reasonable distance. Property was designated for a college, a free school, a house for the schoolmaster, a place of worship, and a market square. To the inhabitants of Childsbury, Child gave 600 acres to farm and pasture. He also gave them the 100-acre hill by the river to build upon as a citadel to protect the town in times of war. Due mainly to the rise of the new and growing plantations, Childsbury began a rapid decline and the town site eventually became part of a plantation. Strawberry Chapel is the only visible remains of the town of Childsbury. Architecturally the chapel displays the simple, yet dignified and impressive lifestyle of an Episcopalian Chapel of Ease. This one story rectangular brick building has an unadorned hipped gable roof. The double three paneled door of the façade, surmounted by flush fanlight is symmetrically situated between two shuttered windows of the same three panel design. These chapels were built to serve the people for whom the regular parish church was inaccessible. Strawberry Chapel became unique as a Chapel of Ease in that it is operated as a full parish church. Usually these chapels were denied some of the privileges of a parish church. A small cemetery is adjacent to the chapel. Listed in the National Register April 26, 1972.
Period of Significance:
1707;1725;18th century
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Education;Agriculture;Architecture;Military;Religion;Transportation
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
April 26 1972
