Presbyterians in McClellanville founded New Wappetaw Presbyterian Church on August 23, 1872. Wappetaw means Sweet Water in the Seewee Indian language. It’s challenging to find—everything is McClellanville is hard to find--but it helps to remember that McClellanville is a village with strong ties to the past
McClellanville was founded in the late 1860s when local Santee Delta plantation owners sought relief from swamp fever, a deadly fever that they didn’t know at the time was malaria. The village became a social and economic center for producers of rice, timber, cotton, naval stores and seafood, but mostly the village is known for its shrimping fleet.
The village is eight-feet above sea level. Fewer than a thousand people live there and there are probably as many boats as there are people.
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