Pon Pon Chapel, Colonial chapel ruins in Colleton County, United States
Pon Pon Chapel is a brick chapel ruin located on a two-acre property along Parker's Ferry Road near Jacksonboro in Colleton County. Two original brick walls remain standing, and the grounds contain a cemetery with graves spanning centuries of local history.
St. Bartholomew's Parish was founded in 1706, and the Pon Pon Chapel of Ease was approved in 1725 as its first church building, a wooden structure on Parker's Ferry Road. Storm damage led to a brick church in 1754; after a fire around 1801 it was known as Burnt Church and was renovated around 1822. It burned again in 1832 and has stood as a ruin since.
John Wesley, later a founder of Methodism, preached two sermons in the chapel on 24 April 1737 while travelling through the parish. The building was then the wooden Pon Pon Chapel of Ease, approved in 1725 as the first church in St. Bartholomew's Parish. The cemetery beside the ruins holds the graves of Aedanus Burke and O'Brien Smith, both congressmen.
The cemetery grounds are accessible during daylight hours, allowing visitors to walk among the historic graves on the property. The ruins currently require structural stabilization work, so visitors should exercise caution and maintain appropriate distance from any restoration areas.
The cemetery holds graves of notable figures from early American history, including a US Congressman among other regional leaders. These burial sites document the area's past from the colonial period forward across multiple generations.
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