The third oldest church in historic #Charleston is not one of the grand, towering s structures so commonly shown in images of the city, but a small, simple wooden structure tucked away almost unnoticed on Calhoun Street. Construction on Old Bethel Methodist Church was begun in 1797, by a small congregation located near what was the northern boundary of the city. With only a few dozen congregants that included free blacks and slaves, the tiny wooden structure did not have the same architectural grandeur as other famous houses of worship the city. nor did its membership have any great influence on the issues and politics of the day. it served simply as a house of worship for a sect whose principles were simple in purpose and ritual – charity and service for all with faith in the Gospel. By 1852, he old wooden structure was, in the words of its pastor Rev. C.H. Pritchard, “in a very dilapidated condition, in which our congregations can scarcely worship from its leaky state”, and funds were raised to build a new masonry church in its place. But rather than condemn the older church, the congregation paid for it to be rolled on logs across Calhoun Street to its current location, and donated to the black members of the congregation who, for the first time could freely use the pews throughout the church. In the antebellum slavery era, blacks were not allowed to sit in the pews downstairs, but on crowded benches in upstairs galleries where there was often not enough room. Today, the little wooden frame of Old Bethel is still struggling to stay open with a small congregation, but stands very large as one of the oldest and most cherished churches in our historic city. <img.src=”Charleston Landmarks
” alt=”Old Bethel Methodist Church”