“Men from the church at the direction of Archibald Whyte, tar and feather the Rev. Mr. Thomas Kendall in Fairfield County.”
City Directories and History: The history of Smyrna Associate Presbyterian Church, one of Chester’s early sites of religious meetings in the community. The location
of the church cemetery is in 2014, just off Pipeline Road, near Chester, S.C. The congregation ceased meeting after the Civil War due to being associated with the tar and feathering of the abolitionist minister, the Rev. Thomas Kendall.
This is most likely the location of the home of John Cockrell, the individual who gave the name to the White Oak community, which was often called Cockrell’s prior to the Civil War. He was connected to the tar and feathering of the Rev. Thomas Kendall. A Kendall descendant provided the following information: “Any history of Archibald Whyte should include why he left the Associate Presbyterian Church. Doing a current study of an ancestor Rev. Thomas Kendall I found information in a letter written by Thomas Kendall in 1840. He was recently returned to Ohio. He had been sent by the Synod to visit churches in the Carolinas and dispense ordinances from the church. A group of about 20 angry men denounced him as incendiary. Mr Kendall tried to defend himself, where someone in the crowd said,”We don’t want to hear from a — abolitionist.” It appeared that they were going to hang Mr. Kendall. After Mr. Kendall tried to explain he was following the Bible and the law of the United States they took him to the home of John Cockrell eight miles north of Winnsborough where he was locked for the night. The next day a group of thirty to forty men took him to a secluded area and tarred and feathered him. Some names from this group of people include John Cockrell, John L. Young, Thomas McClintick, Dwight, Debousk, Bell, and Sterling. Their striker ‘in Kendall’s words’ was Archibald Whyte, he was not in company with these ruffians but Kendall was shown a letter from Mr. Whyte alerting the men of Smyrna (Chester County area of SC), that Kendall was arriving preaching doctrines contrary to the laws of South Carolina and ought to be stopped.
Afterward, Mr. Kendall continued to preach against slavery.”
The church building remained standing in the early 20th century but has long ago disappeared. Click on the More Information link, found under the images column to read an article by historian Paul Gettys on Rev. Archibald Whyte, as well as additional articles concerning the church and the Rev. Kendall.
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