Tabernacle Church was formed by black members of Beaufort Baptist Church after other members evacuated the area because of Federal occupation in 1861, and its lecture room was used for services during the war. In 1867 the black congregation bought this property from Beaufort Baptist Church, and its present building was dedicated in 1894. Many new churches have grown from the Tabernacle. Born a slave in Beaufort in 1839, Robert Smalls later served as a Congressman of the United States. In 1862 he commandeered and delivered to Union forces the Confederate gunboat "Planter," on which he was a crewman. As a freedman, he served as a delegate to the 1868 and 1895 State Constitutional Conventions, was elected to the S.C. House and Senate, served 9 years in Congress, and died in 1915; he is buried here.