Mount Carmel Presbyterian Church located on the Richmond-Montgomery County line in central North Carolina, was organized in 1776 by Reverend John Bethune. Reverend Bethune came with other immigrants from the Island of Skye in Scotland to settle in this area of North Carolina. Mount Carmel is eleventh on the list of the fifty oldest churches in the PCA. Reverend Bethune was minister there until 1779, when he was captured with other Highlanders in a skirmish with the Continental Army and was sent to a prison in Philadelphia. Eight months later he was released and after the end of the war he traveled to Canada to found new churches. In 1790 Reverend Colin Lindsey came from Scotland to North Carolina and served as Mount Carmel’s second minister from 1799 till 1812. From 1776 till the present, over two hundred ministers have served in the pulpit of Mount Carmel Church. The church was located on what was the east-west Pee Dee Road, a well traveled highway which put them in harms way during the Civil War. Other churches in the area sustained damaged from Sherman’s Army; the dome on the top of Ellerbe Springs church was full of bullet holes, messages were wrote on the walls and in the pulpit Bible of the Old Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church. Sherman’s Army did not damage Mount Carmel in any way. In fact the Bible, printed in1838 remained on the pulpit and is still in existence today. Repairs were made to Mount Carmel through the years and in 1944 the congregation elected a building committee to start construction on a new brick church approximately two hundred yards in front of the old wooden church where services are held today. Members began restoration on the original wooden church in 1981 and in 1984 the church was completely restored. Replicas of the original pulpit and pews were built and located in the same areas where they had been in the sanctuary. Boards were replaced, the floor strengthened, the entire building was painted, even the pot bellied stove was restored. The “old white church on the hill” has stood for well over two hundred years and is a testament to the faith and courage of those who were forced to leave their homeland to pursue freedom in a new land. |
