MARION COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA

The Denominational Churches
1902

All denominations are tolerated here; there are however, only four denominations now obtaining in the county, to wit: the Methodist, the Baptist, the Presbyterian and Episcopal; their numerical strength are as in the above named order. The Methodist are the most numerous, and the Episcopalians are but few, only one church of that denomination in the county, the Church of the Advent, located at Marion, and that is weak.

The oldest church in the county is the "Old Neck" Methodist Church, twenty-three miles below Marion, built in 1735, by the first settlers in that region, as an Episcopal Church, or the Church of England. It has already been mentioned herein. It was used as an Episcopal Church until sometime after the Revolutionary War, when by some arrangement agreed upon, it was used by both the Episcopalians and Methodists together, and after a while it fell into the hands of the Methodists as sole owners, who have rebuilt it and used it ever since.

About the same time, 1735, the settlers at Sandy Bluff, on the Great Pee Dee, just above where the railroad crosses that river, built another Episcopal Church, of which Wm. Turbeville was the minister, as hereinbefore stated. No vestige of that church remains. According to the best information (traditional) the writer has been able to obtain.

The next church built in the county was the Tyrrel's Bay Baptist Church, I think, about 1750 to 1760; by whom or what particular persons, I have not been able to learn. I suppose the Rev. Daniel Snipes, the father of Captain Joe Snipes, who settled in that neighborhood, was one of its founders, and, perhaps, was its first pastor. This is only a conjecture. That church still subsists and is prominent among the churches of that denomination to this day.

Not long after Tyrrel's Bay was established, the Gapway Baptist Church was built; don't know by whom. Tyrrel's Bay and Gapway are, no doubt, the two oldest churches in the county, except the "Old Neck" Methodist Church, as hereinbefore stated. It will be remembered that at the time of the erection of Tyrrel's Bay and Gapway Baptist Churches, there was not a Methodist Church in America. There were no Methodist Churches in American until Bishop Asbury came here, in 1771, and none in South Carolina until after the Revolution, when Bishop Asbury (not a Bishop then) first visited the State, in 1783 or 1784. The first South Carolina Conference was held in Charleston, in 1785.

Bishop Asbury came from England to America in 1771, landed in New York, and from that time till the Revolution traveled only in the Eastern and Middle States, perhaps as low down as Baltimore. When the Revolution broke out, Asbury, fresh from England, was opposed to the Revolution, and he had to lie low, and, I think, part of the time in the latter part of the war, had to be in hiding for his personal safety. After the Revolution he extended his travels and came to South Carolina and to Georgia, and founded churches and schools wherever there was an opening, and continued to come through here as long as he lived. He died in Fredericksburg, Va., in 1816, on his way to a General Conference in Baltimore. I have not the "Life of Asbury" nor his journals before me, but have read them, and I make this statement from memory, and which, I think, is in the main correct. The first Methodist Church built in Marion County, according to tradition, was "Flowers Meeting House," already herein mentioned among the Flowers family; built of logs, as I suppose, on one of Asbury's trips through the country on his way to Charleston, after the Revolutionary War.

About the same time another Methodist Church was founded by Asbury, just above Little Rock, about half mile on the Rockingham Road. When Herod Stackhouse died in 1846, a class leader and steward of ship of that church, Liberty Chapel, had been in the Stackhouse family for sixty years-which would throw it back to 1786. This was stated in his obituary, which was written by the writer hereof. I suppose, Flower's Church and Liberty Chapel at that time, 1786, were the only Methodist Churches in the county.

Another church of olden time was the "Saw Mill" Baptist Church, located on the east side of what is now called Gaddy's Mill; don't know when it was built, but it was an old, rickety, dilapidated building in 1831 or '2. The writer attended an association there in one of those years, and there and then first saw Rev. Joel Allen and his brother, Thompson Allen, who vet survives, eighty-eight years old, and lives in the Brownsville community, in Marlborough. Thompson was the older, and then about grown; Joel, the younger, was a large lad. I remember how they were dressed, they each had on a well-made suit of grey jeans, tinged with red. No young man there on that occasion was better dressed than they were; their mother spun and wove the jeans. Our mothers, in that day, spun and wove and made all the clothing for her family, and the most of the mothers prided themselves and vied with each other as to who should make the nicest cloth, and especially jeans for dress or Sunday wear. This old church soon decayed, and was afterwards replaced by the present Baptist Church, "Piney Grove," located on the south side of Bear Swamp, near where Captain R. H. Rogers now lives. It was at that association that the writer saw old man "Zaw Ford," who lived nearby, and owned the mills there located. Old man "Zaw Ford" was the grand-father of the late Elias B. Ford, and, I suppose, was the son or grand-son of the James Ford mentioned by Dr. Ramsay, in his History of South Carolina (page 302), as dying about 1804, at the age of one hundred years. The Ford family in the county is very ancient-I suppose, coeval with its first settlement.

Bear Swamp Church (Baptist) is an old church, but cannot say when nor by whom it was founded. The Catfish Baptist Church is also an old church, founded, I think, about 1802, by old man Henry Berry uncle of Cross Roads Henry.

The Presbyterians, the third in point of numbers, are mostly half mile on the Rockingham Road. When Herod Stackhouse died, in 1846, a class leader and steward of the then Little Rock Church (Liberty Chapel), the writer was informed that the the Scotch and their descendants in the county. Their ancestors came here in the long past, and brought with them the ideas, doctrines and proclivities of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Sixty-five and seventy-five years ago, they had a church, then old and dilapidated, just across the Little Pee Dee, at Campbell's Bridge, which, I think, was then the only Presbyterian Church in what is now called Carmichael Township.

The old Carmichaels, Campbells and McIntyres were the chief men and worshipped there. Since that time other and more commodious church buildings have been located and constructed in the Scotch settlement and in other portions of the county, to wit: Pee Dee, Kintyre, Dumbarton, Little Rock, Reedy Creek, Carolina, Marion, Mullins, Latta and Dillon each with its minister.

The Presbyterians have no church in the county below Marion Court House and the Wilmington, Columbia and Augusta Railroad. Though the Presbyterians are not very numerous in the county, yet their membership is quite respectable, and include many of our best people.

As already stated, there were no Methodists or Methodist Churches in the county till after the Revolution. Bishop Asbury and Whatcoat planted the seeds of Methodism in the county-the seeds germinated, sprang up and grew rapidly, and as a church we are having the harvest. Methodist Churches now dot the whole county, there is scarcely a neighborhood in which there is not a Methodist Church. Not saying anything of its doctrines as contradistinguished from other denominations, the writer attributes its success to their Church polity, mainly its itinerancy. The Methodist Church is an aggressive Church, more so than any other denomination among us. It goes, as it were, into the highways and byways, everywhere carrying the gospel to all people, the high and the low, the rich and poor alike. Another cause of its success is the rotation of its ministers. Formerly two years was the limit of a preacher's pastorate of the same church, it has been latterly extended to four years, though they may be moved short of that period, and is very often the case. If a preacher is unacceptable, he is soon sent somewhere else, where he may be more acceptable, and consequently more successful. If a preacher is strong and acceptable at any particular church or circuit, it matters not how much so, he cannot remain on any particular work more than four years he is sent to some other work, that others may share somewhat in the benefits of his ministry, and thus do as much good as possible to others, to as many as possible, to extend his useful influence to the greater number. Another cardinal characteristic of the Methodist Church (though not written) is that the preacher goes, without question, to wherever he is sent, and the membership accepts whoever is sent to them. If a mistake is made in this, it is soon remedied by their rotatory system.

The Baptist, in the county, are strong, and though not so numerous as the Methodist, yet they are respectable in numbers; their churches are to be found in every section of the county Their church polity is not so cumbrous as that of the Methodist, they are more democratic. Every Baptist Church is independent of any other. There is no appeal from its decisions to a higher tribunal, it is final; not so with the Methodist and Presbyterian. They each have their higher courts. The Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians are liberal to each other, sometimes exchange pulpits, and sometimes hold union services, and manifest a true Christian spirit, though each holds to its distinctive views and doctrines. I will say, however, that the Constitution of the United States was a death-blow to a State denomination. The country is wide enough for all, and enough for all to do in their respective spheres, in restraining men from sin and in promoting the glory of God.


Source: A History of Marion County, South Carolina, by W. W. Sellers, Esq., Columbia, South Carolina, 1902.

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