Photographing old and sometimes forgotten churches
I can’t remember how Apalachee Baptist Church came to my attention, but it was on my list as I drove south towards Athens, Georgia. Organized shortly before the Civil War, the history of the church has been hard to find online so far.
Dry Pond Methodist is in Jackson County, Georgia. The first church was a log building from when the church was established sometime around 1825. The second building completed a few years after the Civil War was used until this third version replaced it in 1903.
Maysville, Georgia is another railroad town established in the late 1800s which, by the 1920s, had already started on a decline. The Methodist Church building shown here was built just before the turn of the century. It’s part of the town’s application for the National Register of Historic Places (file below), but not specifically mentioned on the history detail.
Passing through the small town of Homer, Georgia, I stopped at what once was Homer Baptist Church (now known as Alliance Church). Completed in the 1890s, it’s part of the town’s historic district listing on the National Register (application included below). One of Homer’s claims to fame was once holding the world record for largest Easter egg hunt in 1985. Unfortunately they no longer hold that record.
I stopped by a couple of churches while passing through Mt. Airy, Georgia in the northeast corner of the state. Mt. Airy Presbyterian (above) was built in 1907 when the town was a resort spot in the early twentieth century. The railroad helped create the town when in the late 1800s a station was added at the highest elevation point between New York and New Orleans (1,545 feet).
Nearby, Ebenezer Baptist Church (below) was established in 1890 as the First Missionary Colored Baptist Church. There’s a newer building located next door.
Built in 1884, this Presbyterian church is in Westminster, South Carolina, a small town not far from the Georgia border. Other than it being the oldest church in town, I haven’t found anything on its history.
St. John’s Lutheran Church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is located in the small town of Walhalla, South Carolina. Constructed around 1860, it served the German immigrants settling in the region. There’s also a small cemetery behind the church. A very detailed description of both the architectural elements and the church’s history is included in the application document below so I’ll avoid repeating all of that here.
Considered the “father of Greenville”, South Carolina, Vardry McBee provided the funds for this little chapel that was built in 1841. This church is just a few seconds away from Reedy River Presbyterian. The design is an eight-sided brick building with an octagonal cupola. Octagonal architecture was apparently popular in the couple of decades leading into the Civil War. More information on the chapel is on the sign below as well as the church’s application for the National Register included below.
Built in 1889, Reedy River Presbyterian is in Greenville, South Carolina. I haven’t found more information yet on this church.
This past week I took a short trip through parts of northern Georgia and South Carolina and added at least a couple dozen more churches to the collection. The first stop was this old Gothic Revival style wooden church known as Mulberry Chapel, located a few miles north of Pacolet, South Carolina. It was a Methodist church built around 1880. The church exterior is showing some weakness and there is some bowing of the frame which was noted on the National Register application from 2012, so I’m not sure how much preservation has been completed since then. The church is one of the dwindling number of South Carolina churches used by former slaves in the years following the Civil War. There’s also a small cemetery with about twenty marked graves nearby.
