Name/Title
63 Society Street (St. Paul's Catholic Church [German] a/k/a American Legion Palmetto Post 112)Entry/Object ID
SOCIETY.063-65.1Scope and Content
Constructed ca. 1840; renovated as a Catholic Church 1861; altered late 1940s. First constructed as a rectangular building to house a lecture room for the Second Presbyterian Church (replacing an earlier lecture room destroyed in the fire), the current edifice was subsequently acquired by the Philharmonic Society and then by the Diocese of Charleston, serving the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy as the locus for a free school. With the desire for a new parish to serve German Catholics in the area, Bishop Lynch appointed the Reverend William Beerschneider as priest. After the raising of funds, the architect Louis Barbot was chosen to convert the lecture room into a church and his additions of Romanesque style details and steeple were complete by 1861. After the war, dissension over the use of the German language and the shrinking of the congregation resulted in closure of St. Paul's in 1869. In the 1880s some of the congregation moved to a new church on Wentworth Street (now the site of St. Katherine's convent, a modern building at 36 Wentworth Street) and the old St. Paul's was again used as St. Mary's School. Acquired by the Palmetto Post of the American Legion in 1947, the building was altered extensively on the ground floor, the windows of the sanctuary were filled in, and the openings of the remaining portion of the steeple were blocked. (Buildings of Charleston, Poston.)
File contains newspaper article (Evening Post, 1990); Rosen and Associates (engineers) inspection report (1995).Collection
Historic Charleston Foundation Property RecordsAcquisition
Accession
SOCIETY.063-65.Source or Donor
63-65 Society Street (St. Paul's Catholic Church)Acquisition Method
Collected by StaffLexicon
Search Terms
Society Street, Ansonborough, Ansonborough Rehabilitation Project (ARP), Historic buildings--South Carolina--Charleston, Church buildings--South Carolina--CharlestonArchive Details
Archive Size/Extent
1 File FolderArchive Notes
Finding Aids: Index to Property Files.
Level of Description: FolderLocation
Location
Shelf
Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentDate
February 7, 2023Location
Container
PF Box 95Shelf
Prop File Shelves, Property File ShelvesRoom
Margaretta P. Childs ArchivesBuilding
Missroon HouseCategory
PermanentRelationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
Barbot, Louis J.Related Entries
Notes
SOCIETY.063-65.2a-b
Related Units of Description: "Ansonborough" document box, Preservation Topics shelvesRelated Publications
Notes
Buildings of Charleston (see Abstract), pg. 469Created By
admin@catalogit.appCreate Date
March 19, 2012Updated By
admin@catalogit.appUpdate Date
February 16, 2023