Edisto Island Baptist Church, Baptist church building at Edisto Island, South Carolina.
Edisto Island Baptist Church is a protestant church building on an island in South Carolina with a two-story design and finished wooden exterior walls. The gable roof sits atop the structure, and the front side is supported by four square posts that form a porch.
The building was completed in 1818, funded through donations gathered by Hepzibah Jenkins Townsend. After 1865, formerly enslaved people took ownership of the structure, renamed it, and enlarged it to serve their own community needs.
Edisto Island Baptist Church was built in 1818 and enlarged around 1865, when an addition doubled its size; a two-story pedimented portico followed in 1880. The congregation is African-American, and the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Visitors can read the 1818 and 1880 construction phases in the beaded weatherboard walls and the portico columns.
The structure sits on roughly one acre of land along South Carolina Highway 174 and retains many of its original features. Visitors should take time to view the woodwork details and roof construction from different angles around the property.
The 1818 building was doubled in size around 1865, and in 1880 a two-story pedimented portico was added to the front. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
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