Ruth Miller
A very ventured woman, with interesting facts and stories about topics relating to Charleston's history. Ruth Miller owned a tour guide business for over 30 years and this took her to many different places around the United States. Living in different areas she grew a passion for history.Ruth's Interest in Cemeteries
In society today and the past, death is feared and unknown. But after Miller visited with a group of morticians, she discovered that it's the opposite. We all know that death is inevitable and that we cannot escape it. After talking to the morticians she began to explore different cemeteries and acquire many facts about the people buried in them. Ruth wrote books about what she saw and learned at the different locations. The book is titled Touring the Tombstones -A Guide To Charleston’s Historic Graveyard.
In Ruth talk she says that "graveyards tell you who is important and who isn't". To give a little context to this quote, Miller was addressing the fact that Baptist churches didn't bury blacks in the church graveyards. Though both whites and blacks made up the church congregation, they were not treated as equals. For every one white person there would be four blacks. However, the graveyard was used for the whites while blacks were buried in separate burial grounds.
Charleston Graveyards and Cemeteries
Ruth discovered that the graveyards in Charleston are congregations of religious groups from all over the world. She said that "we had more religious freedom than any of the 13 colonies". She also states that "Charleston has more 18th centenery graveyards than any city in colonial America". Each graveyard was distinguished by religion and ruth was able to determine were people migrated from in the 1600s.
Immigrants of European descent were the primary occupants of the grave sites. Many different religions from Europe had their own church or meeting houses in Charleston. One example being the St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church. It is the oldest English speaking church in the Carolina's and Georgia.
More about St Mary's Roman Catholic Church...
Originated from the French after they fled from Haiti. The Roman Catholic church contains lots of iconography, because like some may not know, the Roman Catholics attending at that time couldn't read or write and much of the sermon was given in Latin, so they depended on such images to make correlations to biblical figures according to Miller.
Charleston's Religious Freedom
Ruth Miller talks about the colonial times, a time when religious freedom wasn't allowed. Charleston was the only city that allowed people their religious freedom. This became somewhat of a business deal for the city. It resulted in large groups of people with all kinds of religious backgrounds to pour into our city of Charleston.
A little about the Quakers(Anglicans)...
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| Newbold-White House: A Colonial Quaker Homestead Oldest known brick house in North Carolina that is open to the public |
The Quaker religion converted to the Anglican Church in the 18th century. The Quakers were given all of James Island. Fun fact: Quakers don't meet in churches they meet in meeting houses. According to Carolana.com, the Quaker's meetings were held in private homes until 1715, when a meeting house was finally built in Charleston. This meeting house is on Meeting Street, which is how meeting street got its name! Many of the early members were buried in the Friends Burying ground. By 1791, there were only fifteen members in Charleston.
