MacPherson Presbyterian Church

Last updated
MacPherson Presbyterian Church
Religion
Affiliation Presbyterian Church USA
Statusactive
Location
Location Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S.
USA North Carolina location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location in the state of North Carolina
Geographic coordinates 35°03′38.6″N78°56′44.1″W / 35.060722°N 78.945583°W / 35.060722; -78.945583
Website
www.macphersonchurch.com

MacPherson Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian church in Fayetteville, North Carolina. MacPherson Presbyterian Church is a historic church at Cliffdale Rd and McPherson Church Rd. in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was made part of the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program in 1939. Founded by early Scottish settlers and its cemetery contains the graves of Alexander MacPherson and T. H. Holmes, a Confederate general. [1]

Contents

History

MacPherson Presbyterian Church services began around 1793 at Blount's Creek (present-day Branson's Creek) in Cumberland County. It was formally established in the early 1800s by Scottish settlers in the area, and was named for Colin MacPherson, who donated the church's original lands. Rebuilt in the late 1860s, MacPherson Church is located on present-day Cliffdale Road in the Seventy-First Township.

In 1793 MacPherson's Meetinghouse members gathered informally under a shelter along the banks of Branson's Creek. The Reverend Angus McDiarmid, who also worked at other area Presbyterian churches including Barbecue and Bluff, preached irregularly at the gatherings. By 1800, the congregants appointed a committee to construct a permanent structure and to officially establish MacPherson Church.

The six-member committee decided to locate the permanent church building on five acres of land donated by Colin MacPherson, for whom the church was named. Eight elders were appointed to lead the new congregation, including Daniel Macrae, James Torry and Neill Buie, Sr. In 1801 a simple frame building was erected for the congregation. MacPherson Church continued to develop over the next few years, with guest preachers throughout the next fifty years. These included prominent Cumberland County figures like Reverend Colin McIver, a professor at Fayetteville Academy, and Reverend Simeon Colton, the first principal at Donaldson Academy.

In either 1852 or 1854, the Presbytery of North Carolina dissolved MacPherson Church, due to the lack of qualified preachers in Cumberland County. However, Sunday School was continued. In 1867, a petition with forty-three signatures was presented to the Presbytery for the reincorporation of MacPherson Church. Upon its reestablishment, Alexander MacPherson, who was made a deacon and who was eventually buried in the graveyard, donated seven acres of land to the church. In addition to MacPherson, Confederate Lieutenant General Theophilus Hunter Holmes, who served as commander of the Trans-Mississippi department for the Confederacy, is buried in the church's graveyard.

In the late 1860s a new sanctuary was constructed with bricks from the former Confederate Arsenal in Fayetteville. William T. Sherman and his army destroyed the arsenal during their march through the South in the spring of 1865. [2] MacPherson Church has remained active since, and now thrives as a popular suburban church with significant activities in local, national and international missions. In 1998, MacPherson Church, under the leadership of former pastor Rev. James S. Welch Jr., established a church to church partnership with a congregation in Oryol, Russia. [3] Two years later, in 2000, a MacPherson church family moved to Russia to become full-time missionaries working with church to church partnerships. Also in 2000, MacPherson celebrated its bicentennial with special events including the publishing of a church history, the building of a memorial cairn, and the purchase of a hospital van for Good Shepherd Hospital in the Republic of the Congo.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fayetteville, North Carolina</span> County seat of Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States

Fayetteville is a city in and the county seat of Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States. It is best known as the home of Fort Liberty, a major U.S. Army installation northwest of the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumberland Presbyterian Church</span> Presbyterian denomination

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination spawned by the Second Great Awakening. In 2019, it had 65,087 members and 673 congregations, of which 51 were located outside of the United States. The word Cumberland comes from the Cumberland River valley where the church was founded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland</span> Christian denomination

The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland was formed in 1893. The Church identifies itself as the spiritual descendant of the Scottish Reformation. The Church web-site states that it is 'the constitutional heir of the historic Church of Scotland'. Its adherents are occasionally referred to as Seceders or the Wee Wee Frees. Although small, the church has congregations on five continents.

Cumberland County Schools (CCS) is a school district encompassing the entirety of Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States.

Warrenton Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation located at 133 Watts Road near Abbeville in Abbeville County, South Carolina.

Rev. John Brown was the third president of the University of Georgia. He served in that capacity from 1811 until his resignation in 1816.

Kentucky Synod was a synod of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America established in the late 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free Church of Scotland (Continuing)</span>

The Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) (abbreviation: FC(C), Scottish Gaelic: An Eaglais Shaor Leantainneach) is a Scottish Presbyterian denomination which was formed in January 2000. It claims to be the true continuation of the Free Church of Scotland, hence its name.

Washington Presbytery, of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is the association of PCUSA churches in Washington and Greene counties in Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heritage Square (Fayetteville, North Carolina)</span> Historic house in North Carolina, United States

Heritage Square is a place in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Owned and maintained by The Woman's Club of Fayetteville, Heritage Square includes the Sandford House, built in 1797; the Oval Ballroom, a freestanding single room built in 1818; and the Baker-Haigh-Nimocks House, constructed in 1804. The buildings located on Heritage Square are listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the "Fayetteville Woman's Club and Oval Ballroom" and "Nimocks House."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Gloucester</span>

John Gloucester was the first African American to become an ordained Presbyterian minister in the United States, and the founder of The First African Presbyterian Church at Girard Avenue and 42nd Street in Philadelphia, which had 123 members by 1811.

Rev. James McGready (1763–1817) was a Presbyterian minister and a revivalist during the Second Great Awakening in the United States of America. He was one of the most important figures of the Second Great Awakening in the American frontier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Brick Church (Fairfield County, South Carolina)</span> Historic church in South Carolina, United States

Old Brick Church, which is also known as Ebenezer Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP) Church or First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church is a church built in 1788 about 4 mi (6 km) north of Jenkinsville on SC 213 in Fairfield County, South Carolina. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places on August 19, 1971. It is one of the few 18th-century churches surviving in the South Carolina midlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mingo Creek Presbyterian Church and Churchyard</span> Historic church in Pennsylvania, United States

Mingo Creek Presbyterian Church and Churchyard is a church and historic location in Washington County, Pennsylvania. It is located at the junction of Pennsylvania Route 88 and Mingo Church Road in Union Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, near Courtney, Pennsylvania. It is a member of the Washington Presbytery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Presbyterian Church (Washington, Pennsylvania)</span>

The First Presbyterian Church 1793, alternatively known as the First Presbyterian Church, is a Presbyterian church in Washington, Pennsylvania. It has been the de facto college church for Washington & Jefferson College since the early 19th century. It is under the Washington Presbytery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland</span> Scottish reformed church

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland is a small, Scottish, Presbyterian church denomination. Theologically they are similar to many other Presbyterian denominations in that their office-bearers subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith. In practice, they are more theologically conservative than most Scottish Presbyterians and maintain a very traditional form of worship. In 1690, after the Revolution, Alexander Shields joined the Church of Scotland, and was received along with two other ministers. These had previously ministered to a group of dissenters of the United Societies at a time when unlicensed meetings were outlawed. Unlike these ministers, some Presbyterians did not join the reconstituted Church of Scotland. From these roots the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland was formed. It grew until there were congregations in several countries. In 1876 the majority of Reformed Presbyterians, or RPs, joined the Free Church of Scotland, and thus the present-day church, which remained outside this union, is a continuing church. There are currently Scottish RP congregations in Airdrie, Stranraer, Stornoway, Glasgow, and North Edinburgh. Internationally they form part of the Reformed Presbyterian Communion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Henry Foote</span> American historian

William Henry Foote was an American Presbyterian minister in Virginia and North Carolina. He served as a Confederate chaplain during the American Civil War of 1861-1865. He wrote several books about the history of Presbyterians in the American South.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Hall (minister)</span> American colonial Presbyterian minister

Rev. James Hall, D.D. was a Presbyterian minister, chaplain in the Rowan County Regiment during the American Revolution, educator, and missionary in the Natchez area of the Mississippi Territory. He helped to found the Fourth Creek Congregation as its second minister. He was the first minister of Concord Presbyterian Church and Bethany Presbyterian Church in Iredell County, North Carolina on April 8, 1778.

Donald Macdonald was one of two ministers in the founding Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which separated in 1893 from the Free Church of Scotland (1843–1900) as the result of a Protest at the meeting of the General Assembly of the Free Church on 25 May 1893 by Donald Macfarlane against the Declaratory Act passed by the General Assembly in 1892 modifying the church's adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith, believing that it thereby 'altered and vitiated' the constitution of the Free Church in law.

References

  1. Additional Cemetery Information at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=641035
  2. "Marker: I-13".
  3. "MacPherson Presbyterian Church". Archived from the original on March 3, 2016.