St. James Church
Goose Creek, SC

King Charles II did not know anything about Goose Creek, South Carolina; however, he did know that he needed some influential men to handle all the land, which would include this area near Charleston. After all, it reached from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. It embraced what is present-day North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, parts of Missouri, most of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and the southern half of California, the southern tip of Nevada, the north part of Florida and a slice of northern Mexico.

What better men could he select than the turncoat Puritan, Edward Hyde, the Earl of Claredon; George Monck,the Duke of Albemarle, who began plans for South Carolina in Whitehall Palace; William, Lord Craven; Lord John Berkeley, Baron of Stratton, who served as president of the Council for Foreign Plantations;

Lord Anthony Cooper Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury, who directed Philosopher John Locke in writing South Carolina's Fundamental Constitutions, underscored religious freedom and authored the Habeas Corpus Act, which specifies an accused person cannot be held indefinitely in prison without a trial; Sir George Carteret; Sir William Berkeley, who requested Charles II to become "King of Virginia"; and Sir John Colleton, who was involved with the Royal African Company, an organization that introduced slavery into the British possessions in North America?

They were the Lord Proprietors. They would finance this project and reap the profits; they would rule, with whatever and whomever they chose to help them in local affairs. The only one above them in this endeavor was King Charles II. These eight men would direct the affairs for the British during those early days of colonization.

In Goose Creek, another group had arisen in opposition to the Lord Proprietors' rule. These radicals were, perhaps sarcastically, named the "Goose Creek Men," a political faction led by Barbadian planters, who had come to South Carolina from their vast sugar plantations on Barbados with a strong knowledge of plantation management but with a very cautious outlook on slavery since they had witnessed the horrors that had occurred in the Caribbean.

Originally called "Los Barbados," meaning "the bearded ones," a name derived from the fig trees with the long aerial roots, this island had been claimed for England, and it was early recognized as a perfect location for growing tobacco and cotton.

Soon, however, the planters realized that it would be sugar cane that would make them rich. But, in order to meet the demands for such large crops, they had to add more slaves to their already high numbers. The estates of these former English gentry became "immensely profitable," and they were recognized as wealthy men. But the unhappiness of the Africans brought mostly by force and deception indicated that Barbados was far from paradise.

It would be these wealthy men who would eventually move to South Carolina's Goose Creek and all along the Santee River to escape the insurrection that would surely occur. Joining the "Goose Creek Men" was a missionary named Francis LeJau.

Rev. LeJau, who represented the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, had been sent to the parish of St. James' Goose Creek, a short distance out of Charleston. A Huguenot from La Rochelle, France, he, along wiith his family, had escaped this French village when the Edict of Nantes, the law that protected Protestants, was revoked in 1685. After studying in Dublin's Trinity College and mastering six languages, he, then, became a canon at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. But instead of aiming for that high position in the English church, he chose the mission field and soon found himself in the Caribbean.

It was October, 1706, that this missionary arrived in Goose Creek. The Church Act, which would be passed in November, established ten parishes, with Goose Creek being one and Rev. LeJau its rector. He would write, "(With)Gentility, politeness and a handsome way of Living this Colony exceeds what I have seen.... For this is the finest Climate I ever saw, the Soil produces everything without much trouble, and at this time the weather is finer than in Aprill (sic) with you in England."

The "Goose Creek Men," described as "tough, experienced and driven," subscribed to getting what they desired --no matter how. They would engage in the illicit Indian slave trade or make deals with the pirates that came into the coastal regions. The Goose Creek planters, for the most part, had found their wealth in sugar cane while living on their Caribbean island, and these "fortunate landowners" made sure Rev. LeJau had what he needed to make the building they would have as their church an "unusually beautiful and ornate parish church in the baroque style."

It is thought that LeJau probably made many suggestions for the construction of this edifice since he probably was most familiar with Sir Christopher Wren's architectural plan for St. Paul's. This cathedral was being constructed in London while the minister was a canon there. And LeJau knew two facts well: the building had to be appropriate as a House of God, and it had to be suited to the expensive tastes of those wealthy Goose Creek planters.

On Easter Monday, April 14, 1707, on the land Benjamin Godin had donated, the original wooden church was built. The enlarged brick structure that stands today in that wooded section of Goose Creek was completed in 1719, after work was delayed by the Yemassee War, reports Editor Mary Moore Jacoby in "The Churches of Charleston and the Lowcountry." Fifty feet long and forty feet wide, St. James Goose Creek Episcopal Church features one main entrance with two side doors and thirteen windows. A slate roof and rough-cast walls add the charm of another century to this antique structure.

"Above the main entrance to the church is a copy of a model of a pelican feeding her young. The image was the symbol for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, an organization that sent missionaries to the Goose Creek area," writes Ms. Jacoby. Not only is it the symbol for that long-ago society, but also it honors the man who came as the first missionary to this small chapel in the deep woods. LeJau, who also recorded many events of the time, died in 1717 at age 52 after a long illness. He never saw the completed church that was set apart from all temporal use since, at that time, there was no bishop in America.

The Lord Proprietors found that, by 1719, their ability to govern had dwindled so much that the Crown decided a more direct rule was needed for this bickering South Carolina colony. The Barbadians of Goose Creek and all along the Santee River, remembering the horror of the slave rebellions in Barbados, held to their Church of England beliefs and resisted the influx of other religious groups in their midst, but they, too, became ineffective as events built up to the Revolutionary War.

All that seemed to remain the same was that small St. James Episcopal Church in Goose Creek, well protected behind its stone wall and cared for with dedication by those living near the small sanctuary.