July 25th, 2015 - Nikki Finkelstein-Blair

In 2019, they put a fence around 

the Old Sheldon Church,

(est. 1753).

The barrier now prevents visitors touching 

the staggered bricks, walking the weedy aisle, 

approaching the crumbled altar to pause

at the grave of the pre-Revolution

governor who named his plantation 

in sweltering green South Carolina 

“Sheldon Hall” after the family estate 

in pleasant green Warwickshire.

The king’s man laid out the city of Savannah

and wrote legal codes to deal with runaway slaves

a hundred years before the state seceded.

Before the right to secede,

the right to decide who had rights.

Before even the dream of states. 

The ruined church that bears the name 

gets great reviews.

Despite, or maybe because of, finally

keeping visitors at long distance,

the Old Sheldon Church stands.

Actually, it remains (a better word, 

remains; more honest, corporeal).

Snaggled brick columns and windowless 

arched bays should hold up a roof 

but there is no roof.

Four hundred headstones tilt

in a vine-snarled graveyard 

under moss and live oak. Some ruins 

long remain places of worship. 

This one rests 4.8 miles east of Pocotaligo 

on US 21, Garden’s Corner,

Beaufort County, South Carolina.

Given name: Prince William’s Parish Church.

Burned down by the British, 1779. 

Rebuilt.

On July 25, 2015, the only fence keeps out 

nothing, barely separates the church 

and the graves from visitors like us.

Its bent and rusted wrought iron curves, twists, 

weaves, meets and parts under floral curlicues.

We enter the churchyard easily around it,

inhibited by love bug and sand gnat,

cautious of poison ivy and cottonmouth.

We teach the kids to edge around 

imagined rectangles, tell them: 

we don’t walk across graves. 

We don’t say, but hope they understand:

we who are left behind must

tread lightly around the shapes of death.

Prayers for red-coated and gray-clad soldiers

once rose from the Sheldon Church.

We don’t say: They all thought they were coming home.

Instead, we walk inside. Look at this church, we tell the kids.

Can you see where the windows used to be?

can you imagine how big the doors, how high the roof? 

And this is where the preacher stood, and this is where 

the people sat and where they knelt. Maybe they 

sang the same songs we do. In the absence of Scripture, 

we read a plaque affixed to ragged brick:

Friends who have come into our church yard,

Please treat these sacred ruins, the graves 

and grounds that surround them, 

with the respectful reverence they deserve.

Let us leave feeling Old Sheldon

is not worse, but better for our presence.

Burned by Sherman’s 15^th Corps 

under General John Logan, January 14, 1865. 

Not rebuilt.

Let us leave feeling everywhere

is not worse, but better for our presence.

In ten years, we have had a litany of hometowns:

Beaufort, Virginia Beach, Bethesda, Saint Louis.

Each temporary resting place changed us 

permanently, and we want to believe we changed it. 

We tell ourselves we are better for our presence. 

We taught the kids to respect 

all the lives people live, everywhere different 

but the same, and to regard with suspicion 

all doctrines that refuse to die. 

Different, but always the same.

We taught them: be here for now, do good, move on.

We all learned: leave well.

Burned by the Yankees, they say. (Or: 

When in doubt, blame Sherman.)

History is a story game. Instead of

“Once upon a time,” it begins “They say.”They say Sherman’s troops destroyed the

Sheldon Church the second time and for good:

scorched earth, scorched brick, scorched altar

and headstone. But a letter of 3 February 1866

says it was not burned down but stripped for parts

by locals repairing their broken lives with

consecrated brick and hallowed oak.

Memory is a story game. We believe

what they tell us to remember.

We believe our own story that we built for good, 

we believe we can leave the past

even if that means burning it all down.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places, 

22 October 1970. Sheldon Church, Garden’s Corner.

On the form, a scrawling hand adds: vicinity.

In the vicinity of central cities, capitals, coastlines

we built our life of the salvaged parts

we never could leave behind. 

We tried to make it holy.

They couldn’t keep out redcoats

or Yankees or neighbors in need of

quality building materials

but they finally put a sturdy fence 

around the old Sheldon Church to 

keep out the vandals, influencers,

ghost hunters, treasure seekers. 

To protect the crumbling story from those who 

only want to make their mark, take a pic,

commune with the past, score a souvenir.

Maybe that was me all along.

---

Nikki Finkelstein-Blair is an editor and writer of church curricula. In her creative writing, she often explores ideas and expressions of faith even when she doesn’t mean to. She and her family have had nine hometowns in the past 25 years, so she also can’t help writing about being new, saying goodbye, and seeking her place. She holds a BA in journalism from Samford University and an MDiv from Central Seminary and is pursuing an MFA in writing at Lindenwood University. She blogs at amovingyarn.com.