Members of the Circular Congregational Church are proud to be one of the oldest continually worshiping congregations in the South. The congregation was co-founded with Charles Towne, 1680–1685, by the English Congregationalists, Scottish Presbyterians, and French Huguenots of the original settlement. These "dissidents" erected a Meeting House in the north-west corner of the walled city. By 1804 it was time to replace the Meeting Street house with a more spacious building. Martha Laurens Ramsay proposed a circular shape, and Charleston's leading architect, Robert Mills, who also designed the Washington Monument in Washington, completed the plans. The church he designed was a Pantheon-type building 88 feet in diameter with seven large doors and 26 windows. It is said that on the main floor and in the gallery it welcomed 2,000 faithful. In 1838 the residents of the Circular Church, as it was now popularly called, erected a New England-style steeple that soared 182 feet above Meeting Street. The ancient Circular Church fell into ruinous conditions following the great fire of 1861 and the Civil War....