Ashley River Road
Springfield Baptist Church, SC

The Springfield Baptist Church is one of the first, if not the oldest, freely organized Black Baptist churches remaining in the area. Established as St. Andrew's Baptist Church in 1863, it was developed by African Americans freed from plantations along the Ashley River Road. Among them, for example, was Caesar Bowens from nearby Drayton Hall plantation. In 1871, Peter C. Gaillard, a local owner of Springfield Plantation, gave the two acres of land on which the church stands to the congregation, and the name was changed accordingly. The church’s establishment corresponds to the time during Reconstruction when newly freed slaves across the South were founding churches so they could worship freely – sometimes with the encouragement of northern missionary efforts and always through the inspiration and work of local individuals and communities. The establishment of Springfield Baptist Church was vital to the African American communities along the Ashley River Road and provided a crucial transition from slavery to freedom. Today this church serves as a living link to the legacy of earlier generations, many of whom are interred in the adjoining historical cemetery.

George McDaniel