These days, churches and their congregations are fairly stable entities, occupying structures that have been around for years, decades, and even centuries. But in earlier days, when congregations were first being established, church services outgrew their small buildings and moved to bigger places.
And sometimes, the building moved, too.
That’s what local historian Mark Pace discovered when he went on a field trip to Stovall to check out Grassy Creek Presbyterian Church. Pace, who is the North Carolina Room Specialist at Richard Thornton Library in Oxford, said he had presumed that it was the congregation that pulled up stakes and moved to Stovall. But as he poked around during a renovation project, he saw pegs – not nails – and two-toned timbers that “looked like they’d been moved and replaced.”
He suspects that at least part of the existing church dates back to the 1750’s or 1760’s.
Grassy Creek Presbyterian is the Mother Church of other Presbyterian churches in the area, he said, having been established in 1757.
That’s pretty old – more than a decade older than historic St. John’s, Williamsboro, the oldest frame church in North Carolina, built in 1772.
But it’s not enough that parts, not all, of the church are old, Pace said.
There are plenty of congregations that have been in existence in the area for many years, but the structure in which they worship has either been renovated, torn down and rebuilt or has been lost to fire.
Take Liberty Christian Church in Epsom, for example. Pace’s own relative, Benjamin Franklin Ayscue was one of the church’s founders back in 1859. The church once stood where the Epsom Fire Department is now, and it was called Liberty Hill. The current church was built in 1904.
Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Warrenton was built in 1824 by Thomas Bragg, who also was the chief contractor for the State Capitol in Raleigh.
Brassfield Baptist in Granville County was built in the 1840’s and nearby Banks Methodist started out as an Episcopal Church in 1790; the current building was built in 1911.
Hester Baptist and Mountain Creek Baptist were built by the same contractor; their sanctuaries look the same, but Hester got shortchanged during construction and is 10 feet narrower than Mountain Creek, Pace said.
Tabbs Creek Baptist is celebrating its 250th anniversary, having been established in 1775. But the current church building is 20th century vintage.
Old Granville County was somewhat of a melting pot, and it’s not surprising that immigrants brought their religions with them. St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ridgeway was established in the 1870’s to serve the area’s German population.
In 1923, the first Catholic Church was built at the corner of Montgomery and College streets in Henderson, largely to serve people who moved to the area for the textile industry, Pace said.
A larger church was built on Oxford Road to accommodate the growing Catholic population. That site is now a funeral home.
Not to be outdone, Oxford got its own Catholic church in 1955 when St. Catherine’s of Siena was built. It stands empty today, but recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Pace said its unique Mission-style architecture, interior artwork and windows by a liturgical artist Ade Bethune are special features of this building.
Granville County boasts of a most unusual spot to host a church service – a railroad car.
“In 1892, the Catholic Church built two identical chapel cars, St. Peter and St. Paul,” Pace said. “In 1942, with the creation of Camp Butner, there was a need for a Catholic Church,” he continued. So one of those chapel cars was parked on a spur line off Spring Street and from 1942 to 1954, Catholics held mass there.
The Henderson and Oxford congregations merged when St. James Catholic Church was built on U.S. 158.
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