First Presbyterian Church
Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
First Presbyterian Church. Organized 1816. Site of Constitutional Convention of 1835. State Supreme Court met here, 1831-40, after Capitol fire. This building completed 1900.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
Organized in 1816, this Raleigh congregation became a stage for the young state's public life. It hosted the Constitutional Convention of 1835, a landmark gathering that reshaped North Carolina's charter, and sheltered the State Supreme Court from 1831 to 1840 after fire gutted the Capitol. The present building was completed in 1900 on the same historic ground.
Why it matters
When statehouses failed, churches often doubled as America's civic halls, and this sanctuary's role in a constitutional convention ties a house of worship directly to the making of state government.
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Related events
- · Constitutional Convention of 1835
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
North Carolina Bar Association
Raleigh, NC
On February 10, 1899, lawyers gathered in a room then used by the state Supreme Court to organize the North Carolina Bar Association, choosing Platt Walker of Charlotte as its first president. The founding reflected a national, turn-of-the-century push to make law a self-governing profession with shared standards and ethics. From that single room grew an institution shaping the state's legal life.
North Carolina Dental Society
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In 1856, dentists gathered at the Guion Hotel that once stood on this site to organize the North Carolina Dental Society, choosing Dr. W. F. Bason of Haw River as its first president. It was among the early efforts in America to bring formal standards and professional identity to dentistry. The hotel is long gone, but the founding endured.
Medical Society of North Carolina
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The Medical Society of North Carolina took its lasting form here in 1849, succeeding an earlier body founded in 1799, with Dr. Edmund Strudwick as its first president. Its creation reflected a growing push to organize and elevate the practice of medicine in the antebellum state. It remains one of the nation's older state medical organizations.
John S. Ravenscroft
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John Stark Ravenscroft became the first Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina in 1823, leading a revival of the church across the state until his death in 1830. His forceful preaching helped rebuild a denomination that had faltered after the Revolution. He is interred in the church just south of this marker.