Petigru, eminent South Carolina lawyer, an opponent of Nullification in the 1830’s and of Secession in 1860; however, when his state had seceded, Mr. Petigru cast his fortune with the Confederacy. The incumbent Bishop of South Carolina, the Right Reverend Albert S. Thomas was rector of St. Michael’s when he was elected to this high office. CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, _122 Broad Street_: John Morica England, first Bishop of Charleston, arrived in Charleston December 30, 1820, and the Cathedral of St. Finbar was dedicated by him a year later. It was a plain frame structure. Thirty years it stood. Then it was razed for the building of the St. John and St. Finbar Cathedral, burned in 1861; it was similar in design to the present Cathedral of St. John the Baptist on the same site, the northeast corner of Broad and Legare Streets. This handsome Gothic edifice of brown stone was begun late in 1888 by the Right Reverend Henry Pinckney Northrop, Bishop of Charleston. April 14, 1907, it was consecrated, Cardinal Gibbons being one of the celebrants. The site is that of the Vauxhall Gardens. Between December, 1861, and the occupancy of the new cathedral, the congregation worshipped in the pro-cathedral in Queen Street, built by the Right Reverend Patrick Nielsen Lynch, then Bishop of Charleston. St. John the Baptist’s is 200 feet long from the entrance to the rear of the vestry, the nave being 150 feet long by eighty feet wide; from the floor to the top of clerestory is sixty feet. The interior is beautifully decorated and contains fine paintings and stained-glass windows. To the north of the Cathedral is the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy. Graves of bishops are under the cathedral. The edifice is one of Charleston’s cardinal show places.