The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Feb. 27, 1889 – “Mr. J. Buice has commenced getting timbers for the bridge at Thompson’s Mill. He and Mr. Leroy McArthur have the contract to build it for $1,300.” (Johnathan Buice of Hickory Grove, S.C.)
The YV Enquirer reported on Oct. 9, 1889 – “A new roof is being put on Salem Church. The old one has been there for upwards of thirty years.”
City Directories and History: Salem Presbyterian Church found on the edge of Cherokee County, S.C. near the Salem-Irene Bridge crossing into York County is one of the area’s oldest and most important community and religious sites. It was heavily attended by members from both sides of the Broad River and many early York County citizens are buried here.
The original congregation began meeting prior to the American Revolution, organized formally in 1840, and continued thriving until the early 20th century. Little is known of the earliest church building but the second frame structure was built in 1832 and heavily remodeled in 1932 to resemble a Queen Anne style meeting house with a front tower and foyer. This replaced the traditional double door front entrance and simple frame construction.
In the late 1950’s when the original church was being demolished, members, decedents of former members, and others purchase materials from the church to use in their homes. My father, F.S. Fairey (husband of Martha Wilkerson Buice), purchased a number of the old pine pews and other board to have made into beds and over-mantel pieces in his new Rock Hill home. These items were important to is wife’s family who had worshiped here for decades prior to moving their membership to Mount Vernon Methodist in Hickory Grove, S.C.
REV. JOSEPH ALEXANDER, D. D. By Jerry L. West, Part 2 (A portion of…..)
Shortly after his arrival at Bullock’s Creek, Alexander established another church on the west side of Broad River, called Thickety Creek—this congregation later came to be known as Salem. It is here that Rev. William Tenent II of Charleston met Alexander. Tenent was the son of Gilbert Tenent and the grandson of Rev. William Tenent who fanned revival fires among the the New Jersey Presbyterians during the Great Awakening of the 1770s. William Tenent II was born in New Jersey and was educated at the Log College (Princeton) which had been founded by his grandfather and later became pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church in Charleston in 1772. He died at the age of thirty-seven. Reverend Tenent was a member of the provincial Congress of South Carolina and was commissioned by the Council of Safety to go into the upcountry and “… explain to the people at large the nature of the disputes between Great Britain and the American Colonies.” He found little sympathy for a war with Great Britain which led to the state taking a drastic step in an attempt to coerce the upcountry into resistance. This all but led to a bloody battle between the people and the government of South Carolina. Tenent’s journal records his visit to Thickety Creek: “… rode thirteen miles, crossed ‘ Broad River at Smith’s Ford to a meeting house of Mr. Alexander’s on Thickety Creek where I found him preaching to a crowd of people
assembled to meet me. When he had done, I mounted the pulpit and spoke near two hours”. The lack of roads made traveling difficult and in one of Tenent’s letters he wrote, “I have forsook my chaise and ride on horseback from day to day, meeting with the people.” When he mounted this back-country pulpit, he was well prepared to preach against the tyranny of the British throne. He, like all Presbyterian ministers, was considered by the Crown to be a ring leader in the Revolution. Reverend Russell described the peril of the Pastor, “His unfaltering and spirited hostility to British tyranny and oppression, and to Tory butchery, arson and plunder, procured for him a prominence that frequently periled his property, his person, and the regular exercise of his professional functions. . . so fierce and threatening was the storm that raged around the partisan preacher, and so deep was his hold upon the affections of his people that the few men and lads of Bullock’s Creek not out at the time in the public service, habitually repaired to church on the Sabbath morning with their rifles in their hands, and, stationing themselves around what the next generation called ‘The Old Log Meeting House,’ guarded the minister and the worshipping congregation while he preached the Gospel to them.”
At one point in the war, Alexander had to flee his home and seek refuge in other quarters. It was said that if the British could have caught him they would have roasted him alive! In 1787, Reverend Alexander established his famous academy near his home, a little over a mile southwest of the church. This academy was the first classical school of the South Carolina upcountry. Alexander’s school was not only instrumental in preparing clergymen for the local Presbyterian church, but physicians, jurists and statesmen as well; Governor Johnson of Union District was one of his most distinguished pupils. In 1797, a College of Pinckneyville was chartered and given the noble name, “Alexandria College” in honor of Reverend Alexander. The trustees were: Joseph Alyard, James Templeton, John Simpson, Francis Cummins, Robert McCulloch, James White Simpson, John Brown, Robert Wilson, Abraham Nott, Andrew Love, Alexander Moore, Thomas Brandon, William Bratton and Samuel Dunlap. Regrettably, this institution was never established. By the 1790s Reverend Alexander was curtailing his traveling and giving his charges over to younger ministers. On June 24, 1801, he requested the Presbytery to give him release of his pastorate at Bullock’s Creek. The reasons for his request were because of the reduction in members, a small number of communicants, the people’s diminished interest in public worship and business of the church, the inattention to the collections and the lost of interest in his ministry. Although he placed the blame on the congregation, they, too, had a few complaints against him. By this time, he was an aged man and was extremely feeble in body. His mind had somewhat weakened and his speech was so bad from weakness and loss of teeth that it was difficult for the congregation to understand him. The last mental picture we have of the old Revolutionary is one of a small, toothless and feeble old man who walks with a limp and wears a white, linen skull cap to cover his aged head–no longer the fearless and fiery preacher of the past. In 1807, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the College of South Carolina; two years later Dr. Alexander died on July 30, 1809, at the age of seventy-four.
His wife had preceded him in death six years earlier. They are buried in the Bullock’s Creek Cemetery, near to the then existing meeting house. On the 24th of August 1809 the following notice appeared in the Raleigh Register. “On the 29th ____ in York District, South Carolina the Reverend Joseph Alexander, DD, minister of the Presbyterian Church, approaching to 80 years of age, died. He was a native of Pennsylvania, graduated at Princeton College in 1760. He came to Carolina soon after the Peace of 1763, and was eminently instrumental in planting Churches both in North and South Carolina, at the early period of the settlement of the back country, when both states were in very destitute condition with respect to fathers of learning in the Western Woods of Carolina.” On October 16, 1890, the congregation erected a monument at the grave; the inscription reads: “Erected October 16, 1890 by a grateful people, who desire to perpetuate the memory of this fearless patriot, distinguished teacher and faithful minister of Christ.” (Information courtesy of and from: YCGHS – The Quarterly Magazine)
SALEM CHURCH HISTORY by J.L. West – …….Upon his arrival, Rev. James immediately approached the Church about it’s dilapidated meeting house; more than suggesting that they construct a new building. The Church doubted it’s ability to handle the finances and resisted his urging. Within a matter or weeks of his arrival, a violent windstorm arose and brought down a large, pine tree, totally demolishing “Old Salem.” The Independent Church, who was worshiping in the old building, invited the Standard Church to use their meeting house. Old animosities were forgotten as the two congregations fellow shipped together. Rev. James seized the opportunity and proposed a permanent union of the two churches, which the congregations agreed upon. At a meeting of the Presbytery in Unionville, Rev. James offered a resolution that a committee be appointed to meet with the Independents in their annual convention and propose a merger. The resolution was adopted and Rev. James and J. Starr Moore of Yorkville were appointed. They met with the Independents at Olivet Church and after being warmly received, steps were taken to make the union.
The Independents, at the time, had only four ministers: Rev. Robert Y. Russell, Rev. W. Washington Carothers, Rev. J. Starkes Bailey and Rev. W. W. Ratchford. Their fifteen churches were added to the Bethel Presbytery, “ALL PRAISE TO THE LOFTY PINE TREE AND THE PROVIDENCE THAT DIRECTED THE STORM.”
In 1854, United Congregation of Salem began to build a new meeting house. Not wishing to tangle with another pine tree, the Church agreed with Mr. Henry Thompson to exchange the lot of land where the Independent Church stood for an adjoining lot in a field. Here the new building was constructed and the members planted shade trees around the church. Rev. Arnold W. Miller, D.D., Pastor of Fishing Creek Church dedicated the meeting house, using Psalms 84:1 as his text: “HOW AMIABLE ARE THY TABERNACLES, OH LORD OF HOSTS.”
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