Saint Andrew's Parish Church is located in Charleston, South Carolina, along the west side of the Ashley River.

[12][13] The new St. Andrew's Parish consisted of today's West Ashley and James Island and operated as a governmental jurisdiction until 1865 when it became part of the Charleston District.

His thirty-two-year tenure was one of the longest in the church's history and was even more remarkable in an age where frequent clergy turnover from illness, death, or transfer was the norm.

[28][29][30][31][32][33] He began the parish's first register, the official repository of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths, when churches and not government agencies maintained vital statistics.

Features of the 1723 expansion that visitors see today include the chancel and transept at the east end, compass-headed windows recessed into the walls, the barrel-vaulted ceiling over the crossing of the aisles, and three equal-size doors.

[44] The expanded St. Andrew's "reflected many of the essential design features that characterized eighteenth-century church architecture in South Carolina.

British General Alexander Leslie directed Hessian Captain Johann Ewald to take a detachment of men across the creek and silence the rebels.

[72][73] They later proceeded north to Drayton Hall and Magnolia Gardens, where they crossed the Ashley River, marched down the peninsula and captured the city of Charles Town.

The parish church was "much Injured and pulled to pieces by the British Army,"[76][77] the parsonage was burned,[76][77] and the chapel on James Island destroyed.

Thomas Mills had sailed to Charleston, fleeing his homeland after his staunch support of American independence left him with little opportunity there.

[80] Prewar prosperity was followed by economic stagnation, with a significant decline in rice cultivation and low-quality indigo becoming noncompetitive in world markets.

St. Andrew's, as with other rural parishes, continued to heavily rely on African American slave labor, with 90 percent of the population enslaved.

[81] As one observer noted in the 1840s, "for a long time the Ashley river plantations were the most highly appreciated & productive lands in the colony.

Dr. Jasper Adams (1835–38), former president of the College of Charleston, who likely used his time at St. Andrew's to complete his only book, Elements of Moral Philosophy.

[78][88] In the first half of the century, a white marble tablet memorializing Jonathan Fitch (J. F.) and Thomas Rose (T. R.), the 1706 church building supervisors, was placed over the south exterior door.

[95][96] Soon after he arrived, Hanckel began a regular ministry to the enslaved, the first focused attempt at St. Andrew's to reach out to African Americans on parish plantations.

[92] The antebellum parish register, begun by Paul Trapier in 1830, included many slave baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and burials during Hanckel's tenure.

[101] Drayton, a wealthy plantation owner, renowned horticulturalist, and dedicated Episcopal priest, served St. Andrew's for forty years (1851–91), the longest tenure in the church's history.

[105] Confederate forces had surrendered and had left the city and its environs unprotected from invading Union troops and freed slaves who accompanied them.

Every residence but one [Drayton Hall], on the west bank of Ashley River was burnt simultaneously with the evacuation of Charleston, by the besieging forces of James Island.

'"[118] During this time Drayton, now in his sixties and living with tuberculosis, was walking sixteen-to-eighteen miles from his home in Charleston to the chapels on Sunday, "eating my dinner from my pocket".

[123] Funding for needed repairs likely came from income from land sales for phosphate mining along the Ashley River, which brought a short-lived economic boom to the area.

[136] In 1937 the Hanahans of Millbrook plantation installed the cherub and decorative grapevines over the reredos at the east end as a gift commemorating a family wedding.

[137] In 1940 Old St. Andrew's was documented and photographed, and elements of the church were illustrated as part of the federal government's Historic American Buildings Survey.

[138] With Old St. Andrew's closed, Episcopalians had organized a new church, All Saints' Mission, closer to where they lived, near the Ashley River along the Savannah Highway/Folly Road area.

[141] An eighteenth-century red tile commemorating Fitch and Rose was likely removed to make room for the flue along the north transept wall.

These enterprising women began bringing sandwiches, coffee, and desserts and served visitors out of their cars, then on picnic tables, then in the parish house once it was built.

[152][153] A simple, concrete block parish house was built in 1953, then expanded twice (1956 and 1962) to accommodate an ever-growing number of parishioners and Sunday school students.

[162] When the revised book took effect in 1979 a number of dissatisfied parishioners left and founded St. Timothy's Anglican Catholic Church nearby.

[201] After a seven-week period of discernment in early 2013, parishioners of Old St. Andrew's voted three-to-one to align with the diocese and leave the national church.