Tabernacle Baptist Church Steeple - Beaufort, SC
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 32° 25.962 W 080° 40.342
17S E 530800 N 3588446
Founded and ran by the Famous Hero Robert Smalls. Their Facebook page states the church is ALWAYS open.
Waymark Code: WMZNBY
Location: South Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 12/07/2018
Views: 0
County of Church: Beaufort County
Location of church: Craven St., middle of block between Charles St. & West St., N. side, Beaufort
Phone:
(843) 524-0376
Marker Erected by: Beaufort County Council
Architectural Style: Gothic Revival
"Twenty-two buildings were noted in the 1998 survey as being examples of late nineteenth
to early-twentieth century revival styles. These styles typically incorporated elements
of earlier period architecture. Examples are located throughout the district. ... The Gothic
Revival style is represented by Tabernacle Baptist Church (911 Craven Street, 1840s, remodelled [sic]
circa 1893, site #1026)...
"Craven St. 911 - Church: Tabernacle Baptist Church - 1840, 18 - 2-story frame church - Block 69 - site # 1026
"June Harris bought lot A in block #12, which had formerly belonged to William Fripp Senior, at the
auction of January, 1864. Biographical information about June Harris is very limited, but the United
States Census records that he was born in South Carolina circa 1815. During 1870 he is described as a
black farmer, living with his wife Phoebe and a thirteen-year old person called Cudjo somewhere in
Beaufort Town. Ten years later, a son named William is mentioned whose occupation is given as
"sailor." Harris was the first among five deacons of "Tabernacle Colored Baptist Church" who
purchased title to lot F of block #69 from the Baptist Church of Beaufort. This was the site of the
Tabernacle, a structure built during the 1840s which became the center for a group of blacks who left
the main church and founded their own community in 1863.
"After the war, Beaufort's African-American community established a number of additional churches
many of which retain active congregations to the present day. Tabernacle Baptist Church (911 Craven
Street, site #1026), originally built in 1811 by Beaufort Baptist Church as a meeting and lecture room,
was purchased by five hundred African Americans at the end of the Civil War. ...
"Beaufort's most elaborate Gothic Revival style building is Tabernacle
Baptist Church at 911 Craven Street (site #1026). Originally constructed in the 1840s and
rededicated for an African-American congregation in 1865, the building was damaged in the 1893
hurricane and substantially remodeled to its present form. The building's south facade has a four stage
tower and steeple, the lowest level of which is supported on four columns forming an entrance.
The second stage is flared at base and has a traceried window and the third and fourth
stages have three grouped lancet windows. A tall pyramidal steeple surmounts the tower. Paneled
buttress at are located at each corner and have corner finials above the eaves." ~ NRHP Nomination Form, PDF pages 31, 44, 102, 122, 156