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“S” is for St. James Goose Creek Parish

South Carolina A to Z
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“S” is for St. James Goose Creek Parish. A long rectangle extending northwestward from the Cooper River through modern Charleston, Berkeley, and Orangeburg Counties, St. James Goose Creek was one of the ten original parishes created by the Church Act of 1706. By 1672 a group of settlers from Barbados had settled with their enslaved property on Goose Creek, a meandering tributary of the Cooper River. The “Goose Creek Men” were experienced colonists and accomplished planters and they quickly came to dominate the colony both politically and economically. Colonial Goose Creek was the most prosperous and populous community outside Charleston, attributes that are reflected in its ornate parish church that was completed in 1719. With the abolition of the parish system in 1865, St. James Goose Creek Parish became a part of Berkeley County.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.