“P” is for Prince William’s Parish. In 1745, the Commons House of Assembly passed an act creating Prince William's Parish. The parish was named for William, Duke of Cumberland, the son of King George II, and encompassed the mainland region between the Combahee and Coosawhatchie Rivers. Previously part of St. Helena's the new parish was created because the increasingly prosperous rice planters in the region found travelling to the town of Beaufort on Port Royal Island to be too difficult. The parish church was completed near William Bull’s Sheldon plantation in 1753. The original church was burned in the Revolutionary War, rebuilt, and burned again during the Civil War, with the ruins of the second church surviving into the twenty-first century. The parish system was abolished in 1865, and Prince William's Parish was incorporated into Beaufort District.
“P” is for Prince William’s Parish
