Religious Life in Swain County

First Baptist Church in Bryson City, North Carolina by

Frank E. Fry (1877-1939)

Christmas Tree Baptist Church Bryson City Times January 4, 1895

First Baptist Church in Bryson City

This photo, taken by Frank E. Fry, shows part of the town of Bryson City along with the Tuckasegee River. The Baptist Church is in the middle.

Frank Emmett Fry, a Methodist, and Mattie Pender, an Episcopalian, were married at the Bryson City First Baptist Church on March 14, 1900 by Methodist minister Rev. W.L. Nicholson. 

The First Baptist Church of Bryson City was organized in December 1877 when Bryson City was called Charleston. At the time, services were held n the Old Court House which also served as school, church, and jail. By 1882, the Baptists and Methodists were sharing the building for services once a month. The denominations joined for the Union Sunday School. In 1887, the Rev. George H. Church held a revival meeting and was called to be pastor of the church. It was completed in 1890 and stood for more than sixty years. It was torn down in 1954 and the present building constructed in 1953-1954. Cost of construction was $125,000.

Sources
Jean Sandlin Douthit, "Frank Emmett and Martha Emerelda Pender Fry," http://www.friendsofthebccemetery.org/files/biographical/Fry_%20Family_History.pdf

The Heritage of Swain County, edited by Hazel C. Jenkins and Ora Lee Sossamon, Swain County Historical and Genealogical Society, 1988.

Brush Creek Baptist Church Needmore Road Swain County. Photo by John Burgess at https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/46972/brush-creek-baptist-church-cemetery

Brushy Creek Baptist Church Needmore

Brush Creek Baptist Church is one of the oldest churches in Western NC. It was organized in December 1832 with 13 charter members including "Hanah a black woman." Brush Creek Church is the mother church of and the grandmother of the Tennessee River Association as the oldest in the association. Members established the first church building  on the east side of the Tennessee River a short distance downstream from Needmore. At the time, the road near the building was the main route from Bryson City to Franklin. The second cburch building was erected in the early 1900s on a high ridge above the original site. It was also used as a school building by the Swain County Board of Education. In a church history written in 1932, Rev. J. M. Woodard wrote: "No human hand can write the record that is written in heaven concerning the life and work of this church. Like Hannah of old our mothers and grandmothers have come to this sacred altar with quivering lips and yearning hearts to plead in mother's prayer to God for the salvation of their children. It was here that great stout men who's [sic] hearts were touched by spiritual fire in so much that they trembled and sobbed like a helpless child until they felt the touch of a saving hand and heard his voice as he said peace be still, then with renewed hope and a life to live and a race to run they have gone out to bless the world. These are real values, but none can write them but God."

Vinnie M. and Lambert Marr. The Heritage of Swain County, edited by Hazel C. Jenkins and Ora Lee Sossamon, Swain County Historical and Genealogical Society, 1988.

In the Smoky Mountain news 12/12/12, George Ellison published an article about the community of Needmore and Brush Creek Baptist Church, using various printed sources and interviews with Dorothy Breedlove Burnett and her mother-in-law Esther DeHart Burnett Lawter, Needmore's last postmasters. He writes that members living in communities on the far side of the river would cross for services via a long swinging bridge over the Little Tennessee. The current bridge was built in the 1950s. Residents on both sides also used rowboats to ferry across people and goods via a ford located in the area. 

Ellison's article can be read here

Directions to the church and cemetery can be found here

Proctor Church

Proctor Church

Proctor Church represents many churches which had to be abandoned when Fontana Dam was built in 1945. In fact, fourteen churches from the Tennessee Association were lost from the rolls at this time. Also lost were Bone Valley, Cable Branch, Bushnell, Chambers Creek, Fontana, Epps Springs, Forney's Creek, Fontana Mines, Judson, Powells Branch, Rhymer's, Tennessee River, and Almond, which was rebuilt. Many of these churches had cemeteries. Some of these cemeteries were relocated, and some remain in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. 

Willa Mae Hall Trull writes in The Heritage of Swain County that the first church at Proctor was a log building in "Franklin Town," built about 1880. It was also the first school. The second church was built about 1910 of lumber from the Ritter Lumber Company, located in Proctor. The third and last church was built by Ritter in 1915. The church was torn down when Fontana Dam was built. Ms. Trull remembers singing school teachers and the "Odd Fellows Lodge" also located here.

Willa Mae Hall Trull. The Heritage of Swain County, edited by Hazel C. Jenkins and Ora Lee Sossamon, Swain County Historical and Genealogical Society, 1988.

Bryson City First United Methodist Church

Methodist Church Christmas Tree Bryson City Times January 4, 1895

Protracted Meeting at Methodist Church Bryson City Times March 15, 1895

Bryson City United Methodist Church

Heritage of Swain County notes that at the beginning of 1871 there were fewer than a dozen families living along the banks of the Tuckasegee River in a community called Charleston Township. That same years, the NC Legislature created a new county from Jackson and Macon Counties and named it in honor David Swain, a former governor. Charleston was later renamed Bryson City for Colonel Thadeus Dillard Bryson, an early settler. The first public building was constructed in 1872 in the center of the present town square and the first church services in the county were held here. Pastors from different denominations took turns preaching once a month. The Methodist Episcopal Church South had divided western NC counties into three conferences with Swain County located in Holston Conference headquartered in Bristol, Tennessee.

In 1879, the first Methodist minister, C. F. Sensebaugh, moved from Bristol with his family into the only available house, a small one-room log cabin. He rode horseback over the entire county to hold church meetings. The one-room Methodist Church, the first church bulding in Swain County, was built in 1888. Church records indicate that the pastor's salry in 1903 was $300.00 per year. A parsonage and further additions were made in subsequent years until the current church building was completed in 1961. A church history can be seen here.

Mildred P. Wood. The Heritage of Swain County, edited by Hazel C. Jenkins and Ora Lee Sossamon, Swain County Historical and Genealogical Society, 1988.