Motivated by strong disagreements with the Anglican Church, Puritan Pilgrims left England in 1620 for the New World. By 1697, Puritan descendants from Dorchester, Massachusetts, founded a new Dorchester, just inland from Charleston, South Carolina. These new settlers, known as Congregationalists, were surprised when the Carolina colony declared Anglicanism as their official church. Adding more cause for anger, these religious dissenters were taxed to support the St. George's Anglican Church raised in the center of their town in 1717.
   Today, all that remains of Colonial Dorchester is the bell tower of St. George's Church, the tabby walls that once surrounded a brick powder magazine and a small number of headstones in the Colonial Dorchester churchyard. Ongoing archaeological digs at this state historic site continued to recover remnants of this once prosperous village.
   Fearing a French attack in the mid 1700s, the Colonial legislators authorized construction of a second powder magazine on the Ashley River at Dorchester. Completed in 1760, thick walls of tabby surrounded the brick storage facility. This defensive structure was soon utilized by both the British Redcoats and American Patriots during the Revolutionary War.

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