St. Helena Parish Chapel of Ease Ruins
Built around 1740 of tabby by enslaved laborers as a chapel of ease for planters who struggled to reach the parish church in Beaufort, this Anglican chapel was abandoned after Union troops invaded in 1861 and was gutted by a forest fire in 1886. Only its tabby walls and graveyard survive, added to the National Register in 1988. The most retold legend centers on the 1852 mausoleum of plantation owner Edgar Fripp. After the war, treasure-seekers tore the door from the vault chasing rumors of buried gold; the Union commander is said to have ordered the entrance bricked up. Workmen sealed it, only to return the next morning to find the bricks removed and neatly stacked beside the tomb. Convinced something supernatural was at work, they abandoned the job. Visitors to the moss-draped ruins also report a lady in white carrying a child through the graveyard and the faint sound of whispered prayers and singing.
📍 17 Lands End Road, St. Helena Island (Frogmore), SC 29920, Beaufort, SC · Get directions