Planters, some of whom had arrived from
New England in 1696, started the mother church, best known today as
Old Wappetaw. They called their first minister, a Congregationalist,
in 1699, but throughout its long history, many of its ministers were
Presbyterian.
Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church was organized
by a handful of Civil War survivors who struggled to keep it alive
during some of the more difficult years in US history. The sanctuary
had been completed in 1854 as a branch of the Independent of
Congregational Church of Christ Church Parish, located about 13 miles
to the north. Several years after the Civil War began in 1861, the
building became a Confederate hospital. Before the war ended, possibly
during the confederate evacuation of the area in 1865, a Union
artillery shell burst overhead, raining small pieces of scrap iron
down through its roof.
The Wappetaw church building had been
badly abused by troops bivouacked on the grounds and would never again
serve a congregation. Most surviving members left the vicinity and
relocated, some to Mount Pleasant. On November 12, 1867, Wappetaw
trustees voted to seek connection of the Mount Pleasant branch with
Charleston Presbytery. The branch's six-member congregation, all men,
was finally accepted as a Presbytery mission church on October 15,
1870. Jonathan Ferguson, the Wappetaw treasurer, became its first
ruling elder.
Area Methodists and Lutherans held
services in the sanctuary until the early 1900's. Eventually, in 1908,
only 9 members remained, but soon a gradual and steady increase in
membership began. Evangelists and part-time ministers served the
church until 1948.
A major renovation and enlargement of
the sanctuary was completed in 1982. Included were reopening the
balconies, lengthening the sanctuary by 22 feet, a new choir loft
behind the pulpit, and installation of a rebuilt 1886 Roosevelt
tracker pipe organ. A plaque designating the sanctuary as a National
Historic Landmark was placed on the front of the sanctuary in February
1977.
A major building program, completed in
2000, included a large fellowship hall, increased administrative
facilities, and major renovations of both the sanctuary and the
Seabrook Building, which houses classrooms for the Learning Center.
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