Wood used by freed slaves stolen from SC church

WALTERBORO, S.C. --?

Wood that was used by freed slaves to build a schoolhouse in Clarendon County more than 130 years ago has been stolen.

The pine boards had been salvaged from the Saint James the Greater Catholic Mission after the congregation spent a decade trying to raise enough money to renovate the schoolhouse, church pastor Father Jeffrey Kendall told The Post and Courier of Charleston (http://bit.ly/12dcQgA).

Irish plantation owners founded the church in 1833, but slaves and their descendants became the lifeblood, especially after a fire destroyed it in 1856. Members couldn't immediately rebuild, but prayed together and kept meeting all the way through the Civil War before deciding to build the schoolhouse in the 1870s, Kendall said.

"The freed slaves who built that school house, their sweat and their blood is in that wood. The members of the church are descendants of those slaves," Kendall said. "It has such tremendous meaning for us. That is why it's so heartbreaking for us."

The wood was inside a trailer that was stolen from the church on June 29. Colleton County deputies haven't found the wood or the person who stole the trailer.

"I'm pretty angry. Either they don't know the value of the wood and dumped it somewhere or they know the value of the wood and they're going to try to use it themselves," Kendall said.

Church members planned to use the special wood to make a new alter, podium and baptismal font in the restored building, the pastor said.

Church member Geraldine Jenkins hopes the wood is still out there and will make it back to the church she joined 35 years ago after marrying into the family who kept it going for more than a century.

"They stole a part of our life. They didn't destroy it," she said. "We've come too far to be destroyed. But they took a part of our heritage away and we would truly like to have it back."

Source: http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2013/07/07/2805848/wood-used-by-freed-slaves-stolen.html

space shuttle discovery spacex tupac hologram tupac back tax deadline death race buffet rule