Old White Meeting House Ruins and Cemetery
- Address: SC 642
- Vicinity: About 0.5 mi SE of jct with SC 165
The church at Dorchester on the northeast bank of the Ashley River was commenced to be built in 1696 by a colony from Dorchester, Massachusetts, which removed with their minister, the Rev. Mr. Lord, and left again (for the most part) in 1752 under the care of his successor... for Midway, Liberty County, Georgia, where they built a church thirty miles south of Savannah. The Revolution broke up and scattered the [Dorchester] congregation.... In 1790 the rebuilding of the Congregational Church or Meeting House (on the same foundation, and a part of the walls remaining in perfect strength) began to be agitated and subscriptions taken. Those who contributed to the noble work were of various denominations, and many residing at a distance.... They began in 1793 to cart bricks from the old parsonage at the Episcopal Church of Dorchester out to repair the Meeting House and in spring of 1796 the church was finished and the small congregation returned to their ancient but renovated moorings after an absence of forty three years. This was truly the centennial of their place of worship, just as it had at first been built in 1696. It had not been transformed into new or loftier proportions; it was simply repaired, the foundation and part of the walls have never been demolished. - Our Forefathers: Their Homes and Their Churches, Elizabeth Anne Poyas, 1860.