The Church of the Holy Cross was built in 1850. It was built on land donated earlier by American Revolutionary War General Thomas Sumter and was designed by Edward C. Jones. The church originally began in 1788, when worshipers from the chapel of ease started the first Episcopal church on this site, the Church of Claremont. Buried here is Joel Roberts Poinsett, a botanist, the first US Ambassador to Mexico, member of the US House of Representatives, co-founder of what is known today as the Smithsonian Institution, and the Poinsettia is named for him