Berkeley County aims to protect and preserve Cainhoy’s Old Ruins Cemetery

It has been MaeRe Chandler Skinner’s dream for decades to see her beloved Cainhoy Meeting House and Old Ruins Cemetery protected and preserved in perpetuity.

 

Now it is one step closer to becoming a reality. 

 

The historic Cainhoy Peninsula burial ground, also known as McDowell Cemetery, has been approved as a new project of the Berkeley County Preservation and Greenbelt Commission. The group voted unanimously at its July 15 meeting to accept the parcel as a donation. It now will move to an operations subcommittee of Berkeley County Council before heading to the full council for consideration in late August.

 

If approval is granted, Berkeley County would take over maintenance and care of the property moving forward. 

 

A native of Cainhoy, Skinner serves as chair of the nonprofit corporation that currently owns and oversees the cemetery, which dates back to the late 1600s. She has been helping to care for this sacred place for as long as she can remember, first with her father during his lifetime and later taking over the reins herself upon his death in 2006.

 

Several generations of Skinner’s family members are buried there, including her fifth great-grandfather, Lt. Thomas Wagner Chandler, adjutant and member of General Francis Marion’s Brigade in the Revolutionary War.

 

“I am so grateful to the Berkeley County Preservation and Greenbelt Commission for considering this site and for recognizing the value in protecting it for generations to come,” Skinner said.

 

Noted during the BCPG Commission meeting earlier this month was the site’s use as a field hospital during the Revolutionary War, which is documented in the papers of General William Moultrie. There are also a number of Revolutionary-era graves in the cemetery. The oldest visible tombstone dates back to the 1760s. 

 

When asked about the project, Tory Sullivan, a BCPG commissioner who also serves on the Daniel Island Historical Society board, called the site “an absolute gem” with layers of history hidden behind a development along Clements Ferry Road.

 

“Some of the most important religious figures in early America preached from one of the oldest religious sites in the region, incredibly important Revolutionary War patriots fought all around it, and were undoubtedly buried there after care at the field hospital,” Sullivan said.

 

“Throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction, this site played a role. It’s also in one of the most intensely developing areas in Berkeley County, so finding any space that’s this important and beautiful for preservation and recreation was critical for our commission.”

 

The Daniel Island Historical Society commissioned historian and author Christina Butler to document the significance of the cemetery, which includes the foundational remains of the original Cainhoy Meeting House, built at the location in 1699 by dissenters from Massachusetts fleeing religious intolerance. 

 

“The parcel has an important legacy for its use during the Revolution as a temporary field hospital, for its religious history, and its longstanding use as a burial ground for Cainhoy residents of white and African American descent, speaking to the area’s historic use as a plantation landscape with a majority enslaved population before emancipation,” noted Butler in her finished report.

 

“I am thrilled to finally have a historically-referenced, thoroughly-documented report on this hallowed ground,” Skinner added. “It opens amazing details on Cainhoy, the Wando River, Daniel Island, and Berkeley County’s importance from the time the Cainhoy Meeting House was established throughout our great American Revolution and beyond. My eternal gratitude to Christina Butler and all involved in this project for all their support and hard work over the years in its preservation.”

 

Katherine Pemberton, chief of education and outreach for the South Carolina American Revolution Sestercentennial Commission, or SC250, said the importance of the cemetery and ruins cannot be understated. 

 

“The McDowell cemetery with the ruin of the old Presbyterian Meeting House is a place where an important aspect of our local Revolutionary War story can be preserved and shared,” she said.

 

“Historically, Cainhoy Village on the Wando and this area along Clements Ferry Road were occupied by both British and American forces. These were the sites of skirmishes, and for the American forces, Cainhoy was the site of an important supply depot and a field hospital within the meeting house.”

 

Skinner and Pemberton, along with the Daniel Island Historical Society and Berkeley 250, are hoping there will be opportunities to provide educational displays at the cemetery to illuminate its history.

 

In the meantime, those involved with the project believe more study is needed, such as a full archaeological excavation of the Meeting House ruins and other exploratory measures.

 

“While there are numerous sites of the Revolutionary era near Moncks Corner and around the Cooper River, this seems to be one of the most important sites in the southern portion of Berkeley County,” Pemberton said. “It is even more important to preserve and highlight this history as the area is undergoing rapid development. Staff with SC250 are very excited to learn more about this site through ground-penetrating radar and possibly future archaeological investigations. We hope the site can be fully investigated, preserved, and made available to the public.”