The History of Stoney Creek Original Free Will Baptist Church
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 h tt ps ://arch i ve . o rg/d etai I s/h i sto ryofsto n eycOOd The History of Stoney Creek Original Free Will Baptist Church Written by Mrs. Dorothy Futrell Sullivan 1 Stoney Creek Free Will Baptist Church, 752 Stoney Creek Church Road, Goldsboro, North Carolina, is located four miles northeast of Goldsboro, North Carolina, at the intersection of NC 1 1 North and Stoney Creek Church Road. The date of the organization of Stoney Hill Free Will Baptist Church, as it was formerly known, is not known, because we have no records before 1908. The earliest church deed we had was 1884. We had always taken it for granted that this was how old our church was, but older residents have said they know it was prior to 1860. Elliott Futrell found records from a study of religious leaders recorded at the Craven County Courthouse in North Carolina showing a Baptist Church on the hill at Stoney Creek in 1747, a branch off the Presbyterian Church of England. Could that have been our English General Baptist heritage? The "Story of Kinston and Lenoir," written by Talmage C. Johnson and Charles R. Holloman, copyright 1954, gives these interesting facts on page 144. The first Baptist Church in Dobbs County area, which was then a part of old Johnston County, was built in 1756 at Stoney Creek about four miles north of Modern Goldsboro, North Carolina. The land upon which the Stoney Creek Church was built was conveyed to the Baptist Society by David Clark. Footnotes, Johnson-Dobbs-Lenoir Index show it was entered in Book 4, page 88, of Johnston County Deeds which were destroyed by fire. It also was shown by index as entered in Book 1 0, page 5 1 2 of the Dobbs County Records also destroyed by fire. The church still stands (Stoney Creek Free Will Baptist Church) not more than 400 yards from the original site, and a part of the present building appears to have some of the original timbers in the original structure as part of it is put together with wooden pegs, this being the old sanctuary we use today. Prior to the Revolutionary War the word "church" was only applied to the Church of England. Other churches were known only as Societies, the buildings were called meeting houses. In early days worshipers met in homes, barns or brush arbors. I have been asked to explain what a brush arbor is. This was the primitive way to make a shade without much cost. They were known as an open air shelter that would last through the whole summer. Small trees about eight inches in diameter were cut for posts around nine feet tall after one end was buried in the ground causing it to stand straight up. Enough posts were used to form a rectangular shelter. Split rails from trees were used to lay on the top of the posts where a v-shaped notch was cut to cradle the rail secure. This made a frame to lay more rails on about three feet apart where they piled limbs that were full of green leaves, making a comfortable shade. Benches were also made from small trees cut for the purpose. You know they could not be very comfortable, but they were not used to a plush way of life. During the depression of the early nineteen thirties, I had the privilege of attending a revival held under a brush arbor. Our neighbor living on the west end of the Daw-Pate Road near Patetown hitched his mules to a two-horse wagon and took a load of the neighboring families to the Sunday afternoon services about two and a half miles away. The arbor was built where the old Novel Hill Public School once stood near Belfast on what older people called the Novel Hill Road. It is now called Tommy's Road and it must have been the first road we have a record of. It was said to be built in 1 784 being about a mile west of Stoney Creek. To build a church of any denomination required the permission of the Court from the County in which the building was to be erected. Since the courts were usually dominated by persons affiliated with the Church of England, who at that time were trying to destroy the Baptists, it was difficult for any group to get permission to build. Our first church building was known as a meeting house on the banks of the eastern side of Stoney Creek. In those early days there were no facilities for getting an education, particularly in the county. There were some paid private schools and occasionally a free public school was taught for two or three 2 months in the winter. The districts were large and the children had to walk as far as four miles to attend. Our first church building was used for this purpose. Worship services were held on weekends and school during the week. There was just one teacher, and everyone was in one room. Some of the older students would help with the younger children. Around 1880, due to the growth in membership, a larger place for worship was needed. Across the road on the opposite hill from the Grumpier Cemetery stood a vacant larger church, the Ironside Baptist. Elder Elias Holland was pastor but services lasted only a short while. This building was secured and the framing was moved to a strip of land given by Exum and Martha Howell, where our old sanctuary now stands. It was joined to our building making a larger sanctuary for worship services. Kerosene reflector lights were installed enabling night services. This information was given to Lillie Mae Sasser in 1955, by Mrs. Sallie Montague who was 95 years old at the time. When the first English settlers came to North America, they found Indians living in tepees in the Carolinas. These Indians, like most other primitive people, were deeply religious. They had developed a system of religious practices and beliefs in many gods, all in human shape. They would assemble together for worship of prayer, songs, and giving of offerings to their gods. They believed in immortality of the soul. Then when death came the soul would depart from the body and go to a place of perpetual bliss, or descend into a hole of fire to burn forever. While interesting within itself, this religious practiced by the Indians has no historical significance as far as the English settlers were concerned. Sources of travel were very slow at this time-they walked the Indian trails or rode horses. Some trails were wide enough to travel with wagons. There were no roads. The first road was built in 1784 about a mile to the west of the church and about a mile to the east was an Indian trail—the Occanceehii, where most of our forefathers traveled. The Indians and those early settlers from England chose to establish their homes near a river or creek because water was another means of travel—by boats or canoes and even by floating logs. These ways of travel were very important to the settlers. The rivers and creeks that were used for travel were not filled with debris as they are today. This debris that has been allowed to accumulate has caused a wide swampy area with a small flow of water trickling down the middle. They knew this was their main means of travel so they kept the fallen trees and limbs cleared away from the main water ways. Beavers were not as plentiful as they are today cutting down trees and using them to dam up the streams. These dams stop the water from running, causing flooding in the area around and trees to drown. A good water supply was a must in the homes for their personal needs such as bathing, cooking, and washing clothes as well as water for their livestock. They were blessed if they could find a spout of water springing up through the earth because most of these springs were known for the purity and coolness of the water. On a farm where my family lived in 1925 there was a spring where the men plowing in the fields away from the house would go for a drink of water when they took a break. It was on the side of the hill where a hole had been dug out under the flow of water coming out of the ground. They used a dipper made from a long necked gourd made for the purpose. It was left there hanging on a post or a broken down sapling for the next person to get a drink. The bowl of the long necked gourd would hold between a pint and a quart of water. They would cut a round hole in the bowl of the gourd and remove the seeds, then use it as a dipper to drink from. A good water supply was needed to run their saw mills for sawing the timbers into lumber that was used to build bridges, homes and out buildings to protect their livestock. Water was needed to run 3 / the grist mills that ground the grain that was used for feeding the animals. Corn was used for meal and wheat for flour that they made into bread for the family to eat. Most of their food supply was home grown. Hunting wild animals and fishing were enjoyable sports as well as a good food supply.