After a rainy cold morning, the sun came out on my second day in Beaufort and it warmed up beautifully and the sky was the deepest blue imaginable. Just in time for my visit to the Chapel of Ease!
Look at all the dappppplllllledddd light from the shadows of the trees. I love dapple. It’s also fun to say isn’t it? Ahem, anyhoo…
Built in the 1740s from tabby* the original chapel served plantation families who lived too far from the main parish church in Beaufort. It was abandoned during the Civil War, and the Union used it as a sanctuary and school for Methodist freedmen.
In 1886 it was destroyed by a fire and never rebuilt or repaired. Only the cemetery and the tabby* structures still remain.
*Ok, what is tabby you might ask? It is a concrete made from burned oyster shells, lime, water and sand, and is found primarily on the coastal islands, marshes or abutting mainland of the Carolinas, Georgia and parts of Florida. Tabby was developed in the 13th and 14th centuries on the North African coast. It was introduced to the states by Spanish settlers in the late 1500s, with later widespread use by English settlers for houses, forts, lighthouses and plantations and, even rarer, gravestones and mausoleums, from the 1730s onward until the use dwindled in the 1850s. There are not a lot of these structures left in the coastal regions but the Beaufort area seems especially rich with them.
Who’s buried here? Mainly the three families – Fripp, Chaplin and Pope – connected to the area’s plantations. You can find the list here.
Local lore: Fripp Island is just down the way and there is a legend that revolves around one Captain Johannes Fripp, a relation to those buried here, knew the location where one Edward Teach aka the pirate known as Blackbeard had buried some of his substantial treasures.
And as with any area with a long history, there are other local legends that claim that this particular site is haunted.
One story involves Union soldiers breaking into the Fripp vault (above) during their stay at the Church. Workers who tried to seal the vault with bricks reportedly returned the next day to find those bricks removed and neatly stacked outside the entrance by an unseen force. This vault is still unsealed to this day!
Other stories involve ghosts in 18th-century attire and the “Lady in White” who is seen cradling a child as she drifts through the headstones.
The chapel itself is said to hold the sound of old prayers and singing. And the nearby woods? Folks have heard names being called out from the rustling bushes.
During my visit there were only the sounds of birds and no spectres were spotted. I did discover that every single grave hand a handful of stark white stones placed on a corner. This type of ritual is considered historically rooted in Judaism but it is also seen outside of that faith with general gravegoods meanings. Considering the chapel and grounds history of Methodism, the meaning is most likely a simple way of letting people know that someone stopped by to say hello.
17 Lands End Road
St. Helena Island, SC 29920
Accessible 24 hours
