Calvary Episcopal Church

Front inscription

This church, located on Beaufain Street for 91 years, was organized in 1847 to give free blacks and slaves in antebellum Charleston a separate Episcopal congregation of their own. The Rev. Paul Trapier was its first minister, and the church met in the St. Philip’s Episcopal Church parsonage, then in Temperance Hall, before acquiring a lot at the corner of Beaufain and Wilson Streets.

Reverse inscription

A stuccoed brick church on Beaufain Street was completed and consecrated in 1849. In 1940 Charleston Housing Authority bought the historic church and lot to build the Robert Mills Manor housing project. The congregation bought this lot on Line Street from the city and dedicated this sanctuary in 1942. Three African-American cemeteries have been on this site: one “Colored,” one Baptist, and Calvary Episcopal.