A detailed account of the 1850 building of, the 1861 burning of, the 1886 toppling of, and the 1890 rebuilding of The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Charleston, SC.
The first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, Bishop John England (of County Cork, Ireland), purchased the site of a garden in Charleston called New Vauxhall. A house was on the lot, and on December 30, 1821, Bishop England blessed it as a temporary chapel and named it in honor of St. Finbar, the Irish patron saint of Cork. He then went about planning and raising funds for a cathedral. In 1850, construction began of the first Roman Catholic Church in Charleston, The Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar.
On the night of Dec. 11, 1861, Gen. Robert E. Lee, having just completed a tour of Charleston’s defense installations, was eating dinner at the Mills House when fire bells in the city began ringing loudly. There were those in the North who called it the Lord’s retribution for the proud old city’s role in unleashing the dogs of war in America. Some in Charleston thought it the work of Yankee saboteurs. Others said disaffected slaves were to blame. History records it as the Great Fire of 1861. The following excerpt is from The Charleston Mercury, dated Dec. 12, 1861.
“Toward midnight the fire had assumed proportions of appalling magnitude. From the precincts of Market, East Bay, and State streets, the conflagration had now reached Meeting and Queen-streets, The terror of the families (in many cases without their usual protectors, owing to the military exigencies of the times) was contagious, and much farther up into the city the work of packing up valuables and getting ready to desert their homesteads became general.” (believing the cathedral’s brownstone construction made it fire safe, congregants and neighbors filled the cathedral with their valuables hoping in vain to protect them from the fire.)
Twelve o’clock – Meeting-street, from Market to Queen, is one mass of flame. The Circular Church and Institute Hall are burning. The Mills House is thought in imminent danger, while the fire seems stretching its red arms around the Charleston Hotel.
Three o’clock – The steeple of the Circular Church has just toppled and fallen with a heavy crash. In the lower part of the city the fire has done its work in thorough style. Its path is now burned out, and nothing now remains to mark where it has passed, save smoldering piles of cinders and gaunt and smoking walls and chimneys.
Four o’clock – A change in the wind has bent the course of the fire toward Broad-street. The Cathedral seems now in exceeding danger. The buildings on the west side of Friend-street, near the corner of Queen, are burning fiercely. Quarter-past five o’clock – As the clock of St. Michael’s tolls the quarter, the Cathedral steeple has fallen, with a tremendous crash. The Cathedral is burning furiously.
Great indeed, has been the calamity which has fallen upon our noble old city. But let us, with unfailing hope and courage, bestir ourselves at once to amend the losses we have sustained, and to relieve, each one according to his means, the great suffering which the fire must entail upon its poor victims.”
The fire burned over 540 acres, 575 homes, numerous businesses, five churches, the diocese seminary, the first Catholic free school for girls, the diocese 17,000-volume library, and countless church documents. A week prior to the 1861 destruction by fire, the Cathedral’s insurance policy was allowed to lapse. This lack of insurance coverage combined with the realities of the Civil War in Charleston caused the Cathedral ruins to stand for decades unaddressed. No federal aid would support Charleston’s rebuilding when the war ended.
It would take many years, many heartbreaks and much sacrifice to restore the damage done by the Great Fire. The ruins stood until 1886, when a 7.3 magnitude intraplate earthquake caused the remains of the cathedral tower to collapse. Within the city almost all of the buildings sustained damage and most had to be torn down and rebuilt. Wires were cut and the railroad tracks were torn apart, cutting residents off from the outside world and vice versa.
Fund-raising for a new cathedral continued for the next 45 years, and finally the cornerstone for the present Cathedral of St. John the Baptist was laid in January of 1890. The Gothic architecture called for a spire, but due to lack of funds, it was never built. The present church was built on the foundation of the 1854 cathedral. Noted for its Franz Mayer & Co. stained glass, carved Flemish oak pews, hand–painted Stations of the Cross, and neo-gothic architecture. The lower church includes a crypt where Bishop England (with his sister, Joanna) and four other Charleston bishops are buried. The church was finally completed on March 25, 2010, with the addition of the long-awaited steeple and bells.
