HIBERNIAN HALL, _105 Meeting Street_: Says the bronze tablet at the
gateway: “Founded March 17, 1801. Met in Corbett’s Tavern until
construction of this hall. Dedicated 1841. Long a center of civic life
in disasters as in prosperity. Its presidents alternate Catholic and
Protestant. Hibernian Society.” Prominent among its founders was Judge
Aedanus Burke, of whom many merry stories survive. Through many years
the St. Cecilia Society gave its balls in this hall. At the St.
Patrick’s Day banquets of the Hibernian Society men of lustrous national
and international reputation have spoken.
THE ENSTON HOME, _720 King Street_: “To make old age comfortable,”
William Enston, native of Canterbury, England, left his estate, after
life tenures, for an institution for old and infirm persons. In 1882, in
the life-time of the widow, arrangements for constructing the Enston
Home were begun and in February, 1899, the memorial hall, a chapel and
meeting place was formally dedicated. Cottages occupy about a half of
the property. The Board of Trustees is watchful of the conditions
warranting further growth. The Enston Home is an exemplary practical
charity.
BETHEL METHODIST CHURCH, _Calhoun and Pitt Streets_: Elsewhere is
reference made to the visits of John and Charles Wesley to Charleston in
1736 and 1737. John Wesley preached in St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in
1737. It was in 1785 that Bishop Asbury and his associates came to
Charleston. Bethel, one of the strongholds of Methodism in South
Carolina, dates to 1850. The church building was dedicated in 1853. It
stands on the site where Wesley once preached and the pulpit from which
he preached is still in use. The Sunday school building was erected in
1912. The earlier Bethel, known as Old Bethel, moved from the site, is
used by a negro congregation at 222 Calhoun Street.
ST. LUKE’S CHURCH, _20 Elizabeth Street_: For the convenience of
Episcopalians in the northeastern section of Charleston, St. Luke’s
Church was founded in December, 1857. The corner stone of the present
building was laid in 1859 and the church, though partly completed, used
in February, 1862. During the War for Southern Independence Union
soldiers sacked the building and a negro female school was held in it.
In the fall of 1865 it was repossessed by the vestry. In 1880 the
congregation of St. Stephen’s chapel, Anson Street, united with St.
Luke’s. For a time after 1900 the church was closed, but reopened by a
section of the congregation of St. Paul’s.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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