Mother
Church
Sandy Crcch
Sandy Creek in Ran¬
dolph wax first off Sepa¬
rate Baptist churches in
North Carolina.
IUj RUBY K. MARSH
Sandy Crock is recognized as being
the first Separate Baptist Church in
North Carolina. It was founded be¬
fore the American Revolution in 1755
with a membership of 16, in Randolph
County, between Randleman and Lib¬
erty.
It is the mother church, nay a grand¬
mother and a great-grandmother of
all the Separate Baptists in North Caro¬
lina — eastward to the sea, westward
towards the great river Mississippi,
northward to Virginia and southward
to South Carolina and Georgia.
Shubal Stearns, founder of the
church, hearing of the religious desti¬
tution in North Carolina, became a
Baptist in 1751 in Connecticut.
Stearns moved from Virginia to Sandy
Creek in 1755, joined by his wife,
Daniel Marshall, and a dozen others.
The group immediately formed a
church with Stearns as pastor and Mar¬
shall and Joseph Breed as assistants.
They built a small house of worship
which they abandoned in 1762 for a
larger one.
Abbott’s Creek station. 30 miles
away, resulted in less than a year.
This soon became an independent
church with Marshall as pastor, proba¬
bly in 1756. In three years, when a
station at Deep Creek became inde¬
pendent. the total membership of the
three churches was 900. A phenome¬
nal growth in the sparsely settled coun¬
try.
In 17 years — 42 churches had
been formed and 125 ministers, many
of them ordained, had joined the
movement. Among them were Dutton
Lane, who became pastor of the first
Separate church in Virginia, and
Samuel Harris Marshall who moved
southward in 1760, first to South Caro¬
lina and then to Georgia, where he
helped lay the foundation of Separate
work. By 1770, he. Philip Mulkey,
Breed and others had established seven
other churches.
Sandy Creek Association is also the
oldest association in North Carolina,
and fourth oldest in the United States.
It was formed by Stearns at Sandy
Creek. Abbott’s Creek and Deep River
in 1758, and later included churches
over North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Virginia. These results grew out
of the evangelistic impulse of the
Sandy Creek Church.
Stearns died Nov. 20, 1771, a few
months after Tryon had repulsed the
Regulators at Alamance and had
marched through the Sandy Creek
area. Writing in 1772, Morgan Ed-
Stated Well
“A splendid storehouse of integrity
and freedom has been bequeathed
to us by our forefathers. In this day of
confusion, of peril to liberty, our high
duty is to sec that this storehouse is
not robbed of its contents." — Her-
bert Hoover.
wards explained the waning of the
Sandy Creek Church:
"After this time Sandy Creek
Church began to wane and soon had
only 14 souls as compared to 606
before the Battle of Alamance.
"The cause of this dispersion was
the abuse of power which too much
prevailed in the province. They de¬
spaired of seeing better times, and
therefore quitted the province. It is
said 1,500 families departed since the
battle of Alamance, and. to my knowl¬
edge. a great many more are only
waiting to dispose of their plantations,
in order to follow them."
This dispersion caused a great
spread of the Separate Doctrine, caus¬
ing many churches to be founded in
pioneer territory.
Today Sandy Creek is still an active
church where missions are still taught.
A monument has been placed in front
of the church commemorating the
memory of Stearns and this pioneer
church. Also a walk and a lovely ce¬
ment stairway, leading up the em¬
bankment by the roadside into the
old cemetery has been added. Shrub¬
bery has been planted making a pleas¬
ing picture beside the lonely country
road where Sandy Creek is located.
Sunday services are held there, with
under 75 in the membership — but
Sandy Creek still holds the heritage
of being the Mother Church of Bap¬
tists Separate Movement.
THE STATE. NOVEMBER 1. 1966
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