MEMORIES OF OLD SPRINGS CHURCH,

MOTHER OF ST. PAUL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

By Julia Terrall Johnson May 4, 1984
In the late 1830s a group of farmers decided that it was time to have a Methodist Church in the TalathaHawthorne Community, a section of the then Barnwell District. The following trustees were chosen:
Joseph Eubanks, Glover Foreman, Jordin Heath, Robert Walker, and Darby Eubanks. Then the search for
land for a church was begun. On August 13, 1840, Jacob Widener, for the sum of one dollar and seventyfive cents, paid by the trustees, deeded to them approximately two and three quarter acres of land located
near the Springs.
The trustees were required by the deed to build or cause to be built a house or place of worship to be used
by members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
The first meetings at the Springs were held, as I was told, under a brush arbor. However, the enthusiastic
Methodists soon built a church and named it Springs Methodist Church because of the nearby springs.
No one could tell what the original building looked like, as it burned before the 1900s.
My first memories of Springs Church were in 1932 when I married and came to live in the community.
The first time I saw the little church I thought of the Little Brown Church in the Wildwood. Even
though painted white, it stood surrounded by tall pines and stately oak trees with Spanish moss so quiet
and peaceful you felt awed by the presence of God. I never changed my mind about the church,
whenever I was near or in the building, I felt that God was so very near.
The church was a one room building with a front porch with two entry doors. The wooden pews were on
either side of a central aisle. In the very center was a large pot belly stove to heat it in the winter. Four
beautiful brass kerosene lamps hung from the ceiling to give light at night.
In six months we moved to Beech Island, and I joined Capers Chapel Methodist Church. There I kept in
touch with Springs, for the pastor of Capers Chapel was a charge pastor, preaching at Springs,
Warrenville, and Vaucluse Methodist Churches, as well as Capers Chapel. The parsonage for the five
charge churches was in Warrenville, South Carolina.
However, originally there was a parsonage for the Springs pastor in the community. It was located on
what is now Highway 278 next to the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse is now a dwelling and the parsonage
burned. Billy Tooles house is located approximately where the parsonage was. Pastors lived there until
1910 or 1915. I believe Reverend Frazier was the last pastor to live there.
The Womens Missionary Society members kept the church spick-and-span. Every summer there was a
workday before the yearly revival. All of the families came that day with hoes, rakes, and shovels to
clean the cemetery and churchyards. That was a fun day as well as a workday with a picnic lunch laid out
on long tables by the springs.
During the Depression the pastors received very little cash, but a great deal of produce such as chickens,
turkeys, eggs, potatoes, home ground cornmeal, as well as vegetables in season.
Election Day was a big day in the thirties and forties as the magistrate for the community was elected in
each community. The church women sold barbeque dinners, lemonade and cake on that day. Each
candidate bought the dinners for the voters, hoping to win voters for themselves. We used the money for
repairs, new books and such things needed by the church.

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The ladies decided to put carpet in the church. They did not have enough money except for a down
payment. However, a firm in Augusta agreed to put the carpet down and let us pay for it in installments.
The firm glued it to the wooden floor. Someone laughed and said, they will have a hard time if we cant
pay for it, and they have to reclaim the carpet. However, the Lord was with us and we paid the debt off
in record time.
Reverend Harvey was our pastor in 1950 when in December the government announced that they were
going to build a hydrogen bomb plant in Aiken and Barnwell Counties very near to Springs Church. In
1951, the influx of construction workers arrived. Many of them were Methodist. Soon our little church
was bursting at the seams and we began to think of a new church. But where?
The trustees began to look around for a suitable place that would meet the requirements of our South
Carolina Methodist Conference. Finally, a location was found between Old Whiskey Road and Highway
19 which led directly into the Savannah River Plant area. A building committee was appointed, plans
drawn up and approved by the Conference and construction of the new church began. The congregation
moved from Old Springs Church into the new edifice in late 1953.

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He went to carry food to his sons, but brought home a load of sorrow.
Reprinted by permission of The Augusta Chronicle newspaper.
By Bill Calk
(This article appeared in The Augusta Chronicle Magazine on May 23, 1954.)
Joseph Eubanks whistled as he snapped the last trace chain to the double-tree of the wagon. The four
mules stood in place obediently as he threaded the guide lines and dropped them across the wide seat
board in front of the wagon.
He stood back and observed the load in the early morning light. Feed for the mules, kindling, rifle and
ammunition, tools, axle grease, bedding, and, he reassured himself, enough food to last the boys for
several days, provided they used it judiciously.
Joe pulled his greatcoat closer about him and surveyed the yard and outhouses in one final mental check
to determine if he was forgetting anything. Then, sure that he was ready for the long trip, he turned and
walked toward the house.
All ready, Mary, he said to his wife as he entered the kitchen. Breakfast is ready, Joe. Pull up a chair.
Well not wake the youngsters, his wife said, pulling a pan of biscuits from the oven.
Joe ate with gusto, the fact hed not sit to a home-cooked meal again for two weeks apparently everpresent in his mind. Itd take him at least 10 or 12 days, he figured, to make the round trip from Aiken
county to Port Royal.
Here, his wife said, as she drew a worn envelope from the pocket of her checkered apron and handed it
across the table. Youll want to read this again sos to be sure of the directions to the camp.
Holding a cup of steaming coffee in one hand, her husband unfolded the obviously much-read epistle with
the other and began to read. Mary Eubanks watched Joes eyes move back and forth across the written
lines. She knew the letter by heart, so many times had she paused at her work to read and study the
message the first news theyd received from their two Confederate soldier sons since Port Royal had
fallen to the Yankees two months ago, on November 7, 1861.
Marys minds eye focused on her two sons, Jason, 25, and looking every year of it. Jason the quiet,
reserved, serious and overly polite, almost apologetic Jason. He hadnt taken the war lightly. It had been
hard when he leaned from his saddle that morning and held his family, one by one, close to him in a final
embrace before riding away to the war.
Darley, 19, whose childish face denied his years. Darley the reckless, the prankster, the boy whose mind
had fought and won the war over and over again, even before his father, at last, had reluctantly agreed to
let him ride to battle with his older brother.
Following their enlistment at Charleston, they had been stationed at Fort Beauregard, one of the two forts
guarding Port Royal. Letters had come regularly until about six weeks ago. Mary Eubanks remembered
the anxious and sleepless nights she and her husband underwent when the letters stopped coming after
Fort Beauregard and Fort Walker, the other fort guarding the harbor, were captured by the Bluecoats last
November 7.

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She remembered the joy of finally receiving a letter from her two sons a week ago, saying that they had
survived the battle and were now stationed inland, not far from the Union-held forts. Their company was
conducting raids on enemy supply lines as the Yanks attempted to move north for an attack on Fort
Moultrie.
Mary then remembered other parts of the communication, those which plunged into her heart like thorns;
the parts in which they described their hardships; the parts which told of being hungry, of suffering from
malnutrition due to a severe food shortage.
Jason and Darley Eubanks had told of their new make-shift camp, had gone into detail with their
description. Though they had not flatly stated they wanted paw to bring them food, it took no genius to
read between the lines.
After first reading the letter, Joe Eubanks decided then and there to load the wagon with rations and make
the long trip to his boys camp.
Four days after leaving home, Joe Eubanks had reached a point well into the low country of South
Carolina, not more than a days ride from the location of the camp. The four days on deep-rutted,
sometimes muddy roads had been one long hardship, but he had averaged about 30 miles a day. The
bitter cold had been almost unbearable at times, his hands becoming so numb that the guide lines often
slipped from his grasp and fell beneath the wagon.
But the thought of seeing his sons again made up for the hardships. As he drove through the countryside,
he remembered clearly many incidents from the young lives of his two eldest children.
He pictured them as waist-high juveniles helping to hitch a buggy for a Saturday trip into Aiken; saw
them as teen-agers, their hair slicked down anxiously awaiting a look at the girls at Sunday school and
church; remembered how they had blossomed into young manhood, sturdy behind the plow stocks, their
handsome faces tanned by the summer sun.
The sun had climbed halfway across the heavens when Joseph Eubanks reined the mules to a halt in front
of a farmhouse somewhere near, or in, the area he thought the Confederate encampment to be located.
Spiraling columns of smoke in the distance and muffled rumbles of cannon fire told him he was nearing
the combat zone.
Pardon me, mam, he said to the stoutly-built, aproned woman who answered his knock at the door,
can you direct me to the camp being used by our soldiers who escaped Fort Beauregard?
The woman glanced at the wagon across the yard, then studied him briefly before answering.
If youre speaking bout Lieutenant Picketts men, their camp is a mile straight the way youre heading.
Youll know youre there when you see the guard in the road, she said in a voice so low that Joe strained
forward to catch the words. He tipped his hat again and turned to leave.
Better go careful, though. Theres been a lot of shooting going on over thataway this morning. She
threw the warning at him as she closed the door.
Joe climbed into the wagon, pulled his rifle within easy reach, then gently slapped the lines across the
rumps of the team.
The traveler watched the gray-clad soldier raise his rifle to the ready and walk cautiously toward him. He
had pulled the mules to a halt even before the soldiers command reached him. The soldier eyed him and

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the bulky, canvas-covered load briefly before firing a stream of questions, not waiting for one to be
answered before asking another:
Whats your name, sir? Whats under the canvas? Where you carrying this load?
The Eubanks name seemed to set ablaze a spark of recognition in the boys eyes, for he stepped back and
stopped Joe in the middle of his sentence and asked bluntly, and in a tone that seemed to almost forbid the
Aiken countian to answer in the affirmative:
Not the father of Jason and Darley Eubanks? Yes, Joe said, adding, and Ive come a long way to
bring them some victuals.
Joe waited for the solider to speak, waiting for the directions which would lead him to his boys, for he
knew that this young man knew their whereabouts. Hadnt he spoken their names? But the soldier stood
there, his eyes fixed upon Joe, his expression one of utter surprise and yet with a kind of warm, almost
pathetic glow.
After a few seconds, which seemed like an eternity to Joe, the guard dropped his head, turned and
motioned for him to follow down the road.
Joe thought he would never forget he camp into which he was led. Actually, it wasnt a camp at all, not
as he knew the word. He saw a few lean-tos, a poncho here and there supported by a framework of sticks,
the ragged soldiers, their uniforms dirty and torn, many with blood-soaked bandages on various parts of
their bodies. Curious, probing eyes followed him as he was guided to the units commanding officer,
housed in a large canvas tent at one end of the camp.
There heres Jason and Darley Eubanks father, the soldier said to the young officer. Says hes come
to bring food to his boys.
Lieutenant Pickett, a tall, gangling man in his early twenties, rose from the discarded box behind the
makeshift desk and slowly extended a hand, a troubled look crossing his forehead. Joe thought he heard
the commander swear softly as he moved from behind the desk and stood beside him.
The officer, his face covered with a months growth of whiskers, opened his mouth to speak, but no
words came. He tried again, but appeared to have difficulty forming the words. He just stood there, his
eyes looking deep into Joes.
Mr. Eubanks, he said at last, his voice strained, each word a separate burden on his tongue, it is with
the deepest sympathy that I must tell you that your sons, Jason and Darley, were killed this day, January
1, 1862, during a raid on Port Royal ferry.
The words fell with the weight of a hundred worlds on the ears of Joseph Eubanks. He stood as a
sleepwalker not yet awakened from a dream.
Jason and Darley dead? The question was one of total disbelief words from the subconscious mind
seeking to close the curtains to reality.
The rest of the story is quickly told. For hours Joseph Eubanks knelt beside the still bodies of his sons.
Finally, Lieutenant Picketts voice broke the silence:
Well be burying your sons along with the other dead in a few minutes. I know youll want to stay and
mark their resting places in your memory.

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But the grief-stricken father replied, If youll be so kind as to unload the food Ive brought and distribute
it among the soldiers. Ill take my sons and be on my way back home.
Back to Aiken county he went, bearing the bodies of his two sons to Springs Methodist Church cemetery,
for funeral services and burial. There they were laid to rest, side by side in a single grave, near the church
where they had first placed their lives in the hands of God. There, today, an upright marble slab marks
their resting place. On it are the words, Jason and Darley Eubanks, sons of Joseph and Mary Eubanks
the first named was born Dec. 12, 1837; the last named was born Feb. 12, 1843. They were killed in
battle at Port Royal Ferry Jan. 1, 1862.
Today, the town of New Ellenton is located on the site of the old Eubanks home place. Mrs. Blanche
Eubanks Smith of that town is a grand-daughter of Joseph Eubanks.
A final tribute to the two young Confederates is this verse on their tombstone:
Our sons have left this world of woe,
For regions of eternal love;
Twas God who called them from below,
To join in praising Him above.

(Editors Note: Mary Eubanks passed away in 1863. Joseph Eubanks joined the Confederate army, and
he was present at the Appomattox surrender.)

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