Free previewStop 6 of Haunted Charleston Walking Tour
A Graveyard Meant for the Living
You're on Archdale Street, standing at the gate of the Unitarian Church graveyard. Look past the iron and the weathered headstones to the church itself, and find the square tower at its front. It's one of the first things anyone built here, and this churchyard grew up around it.
This church claims two distinctions: it's the oldest Unitarian church in the South, and the second oldest church building on the Charleston peninsula. Its brick walls went up starting in 1772, as an overflow meeting house for the congregation you just visited at Circular Congregational. In 1817 that congregation split over theology, and the group that left made this building its own.
In 1819 the new church hired a Harvard graduate named Samuel Gilman as its minister. Here's a small, true oddity: Samuel Gilman wrote "Fair Harvard," the university's alma mater, so a Charleston preacher gave Massachusetts its school song.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 6 of Haunted Charleston Walking Tour (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
