Wheat Swamp Church
Lenoir County, Lenoir County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Wheat Swamp Church. Disciples of Christ since 1843. Organized about 1760 as Free Will Baptist. Part of present church built in 1858. One mile northwest.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
This congregation traces its roots to about 1760, when it was organized as a Free Will Baptist church on the eastern North Carolina frontier, and it has been affiliated with the Disciples of Christ since 1843. Part of the present church building dates to 1858. It stands about a mile northwest of the marker, a witness to more than two and a half centuries of rural worship.
Why it matters
Frontier congregations like Wheat Swamp were the social anchors of scattered settler communities, binding together families who had come to carve farms out of the colonial backcountry.
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