City Directories and History: Ruff’s Chapel was the first Methodist Church built in Ridgeway. It was built by a prominent Ridgeway merchant, David H. Ruff, who is buried in the small cemetery surrounding the church. Built about 1870, Ruff’s Chapel is a single-story, rectangular frame building, sheathed in weatherboard, with a front gabled roof. There are two sets of double doors on the façade, topped by four-light transoms and simple entablatures supported on scroll brackets. The roof is covered with embossed metal shingles. The square open belfry has a metal covered bellcast hip roof with a ball finial. According to tradition, Mr. Ruff threw sixty silver dollars into the metal when the bell was cast, to give it a silvery tone. The bell was removed for safekeeping after an attempt was made to steal it. Listed in the National Register November 26, 1980. [Courtesy of the SC Dept of Archives and History]

Images courtesy of photographer Bill Segars – 2006
Ruff Chapel, ca. 1873 was the first Methodist Church in Ridgeway. It was built on land given by Mr. David H. Ruff to the Methodist Episcopal Church South of the Southern Methodist Conference in September 1873. The first service was conducted by Rev. Samuel B. Jones, Presider of the Female College in Columbia (now Columbia College), assisted by Rev. Elwell and Rev. Jesse Clifton who was the first pastor appointed. Members of the first Board of Trustees were Joseph Lauhon, James A. Grigsby, John G. Gladden, W. Burwell Hogan and Samuel Lauhon. In 1986, the United Methodist Church of South Carolina deed the property title to The Ruff Chapel Methodist Church Cemetery Association of Ridgeway, S.C. It is listed on the National Historic Register. [Contributed by Jon Ward, 8.30.14]
Click on Classical Revival for additional architectural information. However, this chapel also shows signs of later Italianate influences as well.
*** Historian Harvey S. Teal’s South Carolina Postal History, 1989 states: the “Hallsville, later Oakville Post Office was operated from 1831 – 1833 by Postmaster Mr. David H. Ruff.”
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