QUAKER CEMETERY

On this site stood two successive meeting houses and the burial groud of the Society of Friends or Quakers. The site was deeded to the Quakers circa 1681 by South Carolina Governor John Archdale, a prominent Charleston Quaker and owner of a large section of the Grand Modell known as Archdale Square. The original meeting house, constructed circa 1696, was destroyed to prevent the spread of fire in 1838. It was replaced in 1856 with a brick building which burned in the fire of 1861. Charleston County purchased the property in the mid 1960's and relocated the burial remains to 2 Courhouse Square. The surviving section of Gothic style cast iron fence was constructed circa 1858.

Among those believed to have been buried here were Daniel Latham and Mary Fisher Bayley Crosse. Latham, a Charleston merchant and shipwright, supposedly carried the news of the 1775 victory at Fort Moultrie to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Mary Fisher Bayley Crosse, a native of England, was flogged at Cambridge University for her Quaker beliefs. Crosse, who traveled alone to the Ottoman Empire in 1660 and witnessed to Sultan Mahomet, became celebrated as "she who spake to the great Turk." In 1680 she settled in Charleston with her three children and second husband John Crosse.

Placed by THE PRESERVTION SOCIETY OF CHARLESTON 1998

Located in downtown Charleston on King street now stands a parking garage where the Quaker Cemetery once was. This surviving section of Gothic style cast iron fence was constructed circa 1858.