Sandy Creek Baptist Church, located in Liberty North Carolina, is the oldest organized church and the oldest surviving religious structure in Randolph County. Over two-hundred and fifty years old, Sandy Creek has been designated a Local Historical Landmark. The church was founded by Shubal Stearns in 1755, a Separate Congregational Minister who moved with his family from Massachusetts. Stearns established the church with his sixteen family members and in two years his congregation had increased to six hundred members. People would come from all around the area, some as far as forty miles away, to hear the Reverend Stearns preach. In 1758 due to the continued growth of the church, Stearns formed the Sandy Creek Association, which was one of the earliest Baptist Associations in North Carolina and the third oldest in America . While serving the Sandy Creek congregation, Stearns traveled great distances in order to fulfill his mission of establishing other Baptist churches. So the association not only included the churches in the piedmont and coastal areas of North Carolina but also South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia. Before his death in 1771, forty-two churches and one hundred and twenty-five ministries had branched from the Sandy Creek Church. The historical marker at the church states that “Sandy Creek is the Mother of Separate Baptist Churches in the South”. Henry S. Stroupe, a historian at Wake Forest University, stated the founding of Sandy Creek as “the most significant landmark in North Carolina Baptist History in the 18th Century”. Before the first meeting place was built, the congregation held services outside under a brush arbor. In 1762, the first meeting house was built and around 1785 it burned. The second meeting house was constructed across the street from the present structure and was blown down during a storm. The third and present building was constructed in 1802 and has the original pulpit and some of the original benches. Many of the congregation of Sandy Creek joined with the Quakers to participate in the Regulator Movement, which protested the increased taxes that Governor William Tryon was trying to enforce on the state. The end of the movement came in May of 1771 at the Battle of Alamance. Fearing for their lives many families left the area, and with the death of Shubal Stearns in November of that year the congregation decreased from over six hundred to fifteen. In 1902 the membership decreased to “one” so from 1904-1909 services were not held. But the “one” member came faithfully at each meeting time to sit on the porch and sang hymns. In 1905, next to the log building, the present Sandy Creek Primitive Baptist Church was built. Services began again in1926 and in 1929 the church was reorganized and services continue on today. |
