The original church was log, built in 1828 and serviced by a circuit-riding preacher who took care of seven or eight other congregations as well.
A school was located near the church and a little rural community flourished around it until the Civil War when it was abandoned for lack of members.
The church reopened in 1878 and went through several faith identities in the next 100 years, including Baptist, Presbyterian, and finally Pentecostal Holiness.
In 1941 the current building replaced the old and services continued into the 1970s.
All of the interior furnishings and the floor have fallen through to the ground below and someone has placed a fading bouquet of plastic flowers on the window sill.
A single jessamine vine leans against an exterior wall, a brave touch of cheerful yellow in the spring.
The Halfway Creek Church would have been the site of milestone events in the lives of its members over the years, their most important, life-altering occasions — the weddings and christenings, the baptisms and funerals.
All are long forgotten now. Like so many churches of the rural South, this one’s history isn’t important anymore, not even to the descendants of those who lived and died nearby. I could find almost no information about it whatsoever.
No one left to care for it, it slowly is returning to the Earth, like the bones in its graveyard nearby.
This small church is carrying the history from past.Very mesmerizing.
ReplyDeleteAre the churches there still segregated by colour? It always seems to me to be the most paradoxical thing of all that congregations all worshipping God practice de facto segregation.
ReplyDeleteChurches in the South are not legally segregated but by tradition they are. In the largest cities it’s probably not true but certainly in rural areas and small towns like ours it still is. I would be stared at if I entered an African American church on a Sunday morning and there are few to no blacks at the white churches either. In slave times they were not allowed to have their own churches and had to attend white churches, entering by a seperate door and seated in a seperate area. Sermons were tailored to keeping them in their place. After the war they were proud to have their own churches and that tradition has continued.
DeleteNice to see those authentique old churchess, still standing there. Hope somebody will renovate them once.
ReplyDeleteThe cemetery looks like it's still in use. Sad about the church.
ReplyDeleteSad to see a building with so many stories be neglected and slowly turn to ruins.
ReplyDeleteIt just looks as though it is melting back into the ground from whence it came.
ReplyDeleteA strange scene, with the abandoned doll. I can almost hear the wind whistling through, and the quiet.
ReplyDeleteAll rather sad, though from the method of construction used it doesn't look as though it was intended to last very long.
ReplyDeleteObviously built for very few parishioners to attend.
ReplyDeleteWhat in heavens name are " Pentecostal Holiness" ???????????
I doubt it this mob is here in Australia - I certainly have never
heard of them. I bet 'fire and brimstone" comes forth from this mob.
Certainly and interesting historical post, well done as always and now
Cynthia ALWAYS expected from you.
Cheers
Colin
It looks like it should be in a movie! Obviously no worries with Health & Safety then!
ReplyDeleteWren x
Why the churches of there like this? What are the reasons?
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine what it used to look like:(
ReplyDelete