Learn about Flat Rock History

Tour St. John in the Wilderness this Summer and Fall

FLAT ROCK, N.C. – Exploring local history continues in one of oldest churches in Western North Carolina. The Episcopal Church of St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock offers guided tours of the 175-year-old church and churchyard.

Held on the third Saturdays of the month through December, tours start inside the Church at 11 a.m. and last about an hour. Additional tours are offered on the first Saturday of the month in August and September. There are no rain dates and participants are encouraged to wear comfortable shoes.

The church docent tours are free but advance reservations must be made online through the church’s website, www.stjohnflatrock.org/tours. Space is limited for each tour.

“We are so fortunate to be able to share the story of this beautiful holy place with visitors. Our history has its roots in both the mountain community of Flat Rock and in coastal South Carolina, the home of our founders and early congregants,” said lead docent Polly Morrice.

The historically significant churchyard contains graves of notable historic figures and local citizens as well as those of unnamed 19th-century enslaved persons.

After the tour ends, participants may choose to explore the recently opened Trails of St. John, located behind the Parish Hall complex, directly across Rutledge Drive from the church.

“Our aim as docents is to convey what has shaped us, both the painful and the good, ranging from Civil War bushwhackers to Carl Sandburg’s memorial service,” Morrice reflected. “We do stress that St. John is not a museum, but a vibrant, welcoming church. We welcome all who would like to make more history with us.”

The church is located at 1895 Greenville Highway. For more information call the church office at 828-693-9783 or visit www.stjohnflatrock.org.

St. John in the Wilderness History

In 1827, Charles Baring, a member of the Baring banking family of England, built a home in Flat Rock. He and his wife, Susan, wanted a summer place to escape the oppressive heat, humidity, and malaria of the South Carolina Lowcountry where they lived.

At the behest of Susan, a devout Anglican, Charles built a chapel on the property of Mountain Lodge, their newly constructed home. The small wooden structure soon burned down in a woods fire. In 1833, work began on a second church built of handmade brick.

In August 1836, the Barings deeded their chapel to the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, and 20 members of the Flat Rock summer colony of Lowcountry planters and merchants formed an Episcopal parish. In the 1890s, St. John in the Wilderness became part of the Diocese of Western North Carolina; it is the oldest parish in that diocese.

With almost all its congregation traveling home to the Lowcountry at summer’s end, the church operated mainly during that season for its first 120 years. The Flat Rock summer community grew so rapidly during the 1830s and 1840s, however, that the parish membership outgrew the small chapel. In the early 1850s, the church vestry, or governing body, made the decision to rebuild the church, doubling its size. The English chapel-style structure that stands today is, with only a few minor modifications, the church that was completed in 1852.