680 Nazareth Church Road
City Directories and History: Nazareth Presbyterian Church was established in ca. 1772 and this current structure built in 1832 by Major Andrew Barry.
Nazareth Church was situated in the District of Spartanburg on the waters of Tyger River. Its foundation proceeded from eight or ten families who were organized into a society. (Ms. History of Second Presbytery of South Carolina, 1808-9.)
The settlers along this stretch of the Tyger River were Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania who according to the Rev. Robert H. Reid came here in 1765 and others of the same stock who came directly from Northern Ireland in 1767 or 1768. These God-fearing Presbyterians held grants of land from George III and no sooner had they established their homes than they began to set up a house of worship. The Nazareth congregation obtained supplies in 1766 and was organized soon after by the Rev. (later Dr.) Joseph Alexander. The name Nazareth was selected because the word signifies one who is consecrated. This information is based on the authority of a brief manuscript history prepared for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church under the direction of the Second Presbytery of South Carolina in 1808-09. The investigations of its pastor the Rev. Robert H. Reid fix the organization of the church to be in the spring of 1772.
The first house of worship was a small log structure with a pulpit built of clapboards and seats of the same material. At the organization of the church so great was the reverence of the was scarcely one among them fit to discharge its duties. Thus they had great difficulty in making a selection. The officiating minister who organized the church overruled their scruples: “If yere canna get hewn stones, yere must take donna (rough ones).” After the Revolution, between 1785-1790, the congregation of Nazareth erected a new house of worship.
Nazareth Presbyterian Church (1772) is the oldest church in the area. The first log meeting house (Tyger River Congregation) was built in 1765 near a spring, which is still there and appropriately still titled Meeting House Spring. The present Nazareth Church building was erected in 1832. For the church’s 1972 Bicentennial Celebration Mrs. Elmer H. Quinn wrote the detailed history. The church has one of oldest cemeteries in upper South Carolina; people from all over the country come to Nazareth to visit the resting place of their Revolutionary forebears.
(Information from: Names in South Carolina by C.H. Neuffer, Published by the S.C. Dept. of English, USC)
Also see PDF: GUIDE TO PRESBYTERIAN NAMES AND PLACES IN SC by J.B. Martin, III – 1989
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IMAGE GALLERY – Bill Segars, photographer.