City Directories and History: 1908 – Rev. C. E. McDonald (Presbyterian Minister), 1940 – Rev. Joseph L. Grier 1958 – Wrights Funeral Home, 1978 – Wrights Funeral Home. This was also the parsonage for the 1st APR Church of Chester, SC where during the period of 1922 – 1936 the family of Rev. Paul A. Pressly lived while he was their minister.
On May 4, 1887, Joseph Wylie, a successful Chester merchant, presented the house at 115 York Street as a gift to the Chester Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP), for use as its manse. At the time, the house was a two-story frame residence facing York Street, with Saluda Street to the rear. Wylie had acquired the house with the intention of making it as a gift to the church. For over sixty years, five ministers and their families lived in the manse. They were: Rev. James Strong Moffatt (1887-1906); Rev. Charles Edgar McDonald (1907-1909); Rev. David G. Phillips (1909-1922); Rev. Paul Adam Pressly (1922-1936); and Rev. Joseph Lee Grier (1936-1949). In 1950, the church sold this manse and purchased a lot at the northeast corner of York and Pine Streets, where a new manse was built.
The former manse was sold for $20,000. and the new one was completed in the spring of 1951.
“Elliott W. Wright was educated in the Fort Mill schools and moved to Chester in 1935 with his parents; he completed school and entered the United States Army, and upon discharge, obtained a job as a delivery man for the Railway Express Agency and later worked for Lowrance Funeral Home. He purchased the funeral home in 1947, which was located at that time on Gadsden Street and in 1953, purchased the Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church Parsonage at 115 York Street and converted into the now known Wrights Home For Funerals…”
(Information in part from: Chester County Heritage Book, Vol. I, Edt. by Collins – Knox, Published by the Chester Co Hist. Society – Jostens Printing, 1982)
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