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Colonial AmericaEarly Republic

Lower Marsh Creek Church

Highland Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Present building erected 1790 by a Presbyterian congregation dating from 1748. Later remodeled, its exterior preserves much of the old-style design.

Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission

The Story

This congregation gathered in 1748, when Scots-Irish Presbyterian families were settling the rolling country of what is now Adams County on the colonial frontier. The present meetinghouse rose in 1790, and though later remodeling altered it, the building still carries the plain, sturdy lines of its eighteenth-century origins. Churches like this anchored the social and spiritual life of frontier communities long before towns grew up around them.

Why it matters

As one of the region's earliest houses of worship, it embodies the Scots-Irish Presbyterian settlement that shaped the culture and communities of the Pennsylvania backcountry.

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