By Peter F. Stevens

In the winter of 1695-96, a band of Dorchester residents cast their collective eyes to the south &emdash; the Deep South. Reverend Joseph Lord and a small, devout contingent of locals packed their belongings in December 1695 and headed to a pair of waiting barks at Boston's Town Dock. The travelers' intent was to found a "New Dorchester" where they could spread the gospel and the civic and community values of the town they were leaving behind.

As the missionaries stood at the small ships' gunwales and took their final &emdash; in most cases &emdash; glimpses of the town before the vessels raised anchor, the passengers could only wonder what awaited them in their destination, "the wilderness of South Carolina."

On October 22, 1695, Reverend Lord had taken the pulpit of Dorchester's Meeting House, "the usual lecture day at the church... devoted to the ordinance [of Mr. Lord]. Something unusual was in the works, for "all the neighboring towns sent to representatives to the ceremony." To the standing-room-only gathering, the zealous cleric unveiled his plan for a new Dorchester to be founded in the pine woods of South Carolina and urged locals to join him. His plan was seconded by the esteemed Reverend John Danforth."

The two ministers' exhortations lured only 9 hardy souls to follow Reverend Lord. Despite the meagre number, a historian wrote: "The enterprise promised well; and it was an enthusiastic party of nine which embarked after listening to a sermon from Rev. John Danforth. After bidding their friends farewell, they knelt down, 'mingling their supplications with every expression of Christian tenderness.'"

The records of Dorchester's First Church chronicle the progress and travails of the brave band:

"December 5th 1695. The Church for Carolina set saile from Boston . Dec. 14 that night the skiff was neer run underWater &emdash; Stormy Wind being so boisterous. They kept a day of prayer on board: & safely Landed at Carolina December 20th, other vessels had a Months Passage, this but about 14 days.

"Feb. 2nd There was the first Sacrament of the Lords Supper that ever was Celebrated in Carolina, Eight persons received besides. Such as were of the Church by virtue of Comunion of Churches, and there was Great Joy among the Good People of Carolina & many Thanksgivings to the Lord."

In a commemorative address delivered in Georgia over a century and a half later, Professor John B. Mallard lauded the Dorchester arrivals:

"The Macedonian cry of the pious in Carolina was heard in New England, and the religious sentiment of the Dorchester settlers was awakened. They had just planted the first church in Connecticut, and now they were ready to gather another to send to the far distant borders of the South.…On the 5th of December, thefirst missionaries that ever left the shores of New England were offering up their evening prayers from the decks of two small vessels on the bosom of the Atlantic. What an interesting company did these two frail barks contain Infancy, and not knowing whither it went; youth with all its joyousness; middle age with its conscious weight of responsibility: the old and the young; the strong and the weak; the protector and the protected.

"Landing on the shores of Carolina, they threaded their way to the Ashley River; and twenty miles from the abode of civilized man &emdash;in the midst of an unbroken forest, where wild beasts prowled &emdash; they fixed their habitation; and, February 2nd, 1606 under the boughs of a weather-beaten oak still standing and stretching its branches over the resting places of the dead, they took the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, renewed their vows, and gave public thanks to that Being who had led them on in safety."

The Dorchester expatriates erected rude wooden "lean-to's" for themselves and soon set about their chief task: the construction of a church in the wilderness. Of nearly equal importance to the settlers, they gave their new home and old and familiar name. "True to the town their birth," wrote a historian, "the new habitation was called 'Dorchester,' and the people did what they could, in a rude way, to make the town resemble its New England parent."

For the next 50 years, the people of "Dorchester South" carved out a life, attracting others in the region to settle with them to work hard and worship in the wilderness meeting house. Problems, however, slowly surfaced. The area's hot, sultry climate, a stark contrast to the New England winters that the original Dorchester band had known, bred "swamp fevers and contagions."

Along with the locals' realization that "the location had not proved as healthful as expected...the discovery was made that the neighborhood did not extend widely enough to answer the needs of the ever-increasing inhabitants."

A very few people who had made the dangerous voyage from Dorchester, Massachusetts, to South Carolina with the Reverend Lord were still alive; now, in 1751, they readied themslves for another trip.

(The second part of "Dorchester South" will appear in an upcoming issue. Peter F. Stevens's latest book, The Voyage of the Catalpa: A Perilous Voyage and Six Irish Rebels' Escape to Freedom, Carroll & Graf, is available at bookstores and at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com)