South Carolina Department of Archives and History
National Register Properties in South Carolina

Spann Methodist Church and Cemetery, Saluda County (150 Church St., Ward)
Spann01 Spann02 Spann03 Spann04 Spann05
Facade Left Oblique Right Oblique Right Rear Elevation Panaled Pillars
and Pilaster
Spann06 Spann07 Spann08 Spann09 Spann10
Window Deatil Interior
Altar
Interior
Detail of Altar
Interior
Main Entrance
Cemetery
Facing Northeast
Spann11 Spann12 Spann13 Spann14 Spann15
Cemetery-Monuments to
Clinton Ward,
Martha Lott Ward,
and Jospehine Vaas Ward
Cemetery-Detail of
Josephine Vaas Ward
Monument
Cemetery
Satcher Monument
Cemetery
Watson Family
Monuments
Cemetery
Deer Statue at
cemetery gate
Spann16        
View of Church
and Cemetery
Facing Southwest

Spann Methodist Church, constructed in 1873, is architecturally significant as a remarkably intact example of a vernacular meeting house that illustrates provincial faithfulness to the Greek Revival while alluding to the Romanesque Revival. The two-bay wide by six-bay long temple-form frame building features an engaged tetrastyle portico with a pedimented gable roof on the façade and an open bed pediment at the rear. Pilasters at the front corner of the building reflect the portico’s square tapered wooden pillars with recessed panels. The round arched windows and doors and the louvered lunette in the pediment, both allusions to the Romanesque Revival movement of the late nineteenth century, soften the austere lines of the building and distinguish it from other vernacular meeting houses in rural South Carolina. The cemetery includes a significant collection of funerary art from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of the grave markers reflect the Victorian sentimentality and preoccupation with the rites of death. They include popular motifs and forms such as weeping willows, lambs, tree stumps, obelisks, and a draped urn. The oldest marked grave dates to 1842. Spann Methodist Church and its cemetery are also important for their association with the early development of the town of Ward and its founder, Clinton Ward. The church and its pastoral setting are remarkably intact. Listed in the National Register October 18, 2003.

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