Location: Green Street at Bow Street in Fayetteville
County: Cumberland
Original Date Cast: 1950
The First Presbyterian Church of Fayetteville, located in the northeast corner the intersection of Bow and Ann Streets, is on the National Register of Historic Places and is the oldest congregation in Cumberland County. Rebuilt from the ruins of a burned church in 1832, the church is also notable for its unique wooden lattice truss roof.
The original congregation was formed by a group of recently settled Highland Scots in 1800. The Reverend John Robinson, coming from his first pastorate duties in Duplin County, served as the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, which organized officially for the first time on September 6, 1801. By 1809 the congregation had begun plans for a church building and the first cornerstone was laid on April 21, 1816 by Reuben Loring, the architect of the church. The church was remarkable for its Federal architectural style new to the area.
Fayetteville’s “Great Fire” of May 29, 1831 destroyed the building. The compiler of the church minutes lamented, “Our town was visited with a most awful and unparalleled calamity . . . fire . . .consumed nearly the whole of our town, including our church and Session House!!!”
In the aftermath pastors and members of the church traveled north to raise funds to rebuild. Pastor Henry A. Rowland Jr. managed to bring back over $7,000. A. J. Davis, partner of architectural firm, Towne and Davis (later architects of the State Capitol), designed the new church at the behest of a friend and patron of the congregation. While the main design remained the same, reusing the charred walls of the church and maintaining the Federal look, Davis added Ithiel Towne’s patented truss roof. Davis’s designs for the church can be viewed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The building was rededicated on August 12, 1832. A steeple bell was added after the fire as a replacement and it still sits there reading, “I perished in the flames of the 29th of May 1831. I arose from the ashes through the generosity of friends in the Second Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York.”
The steeple of the church was replaced during restoration in 1887 and again in 1922. The church was placed on the National Register in 1976.
References:
John A. Oates, The Story of Fayetteville and the Upper Cape Fear (1950)
Roy Parker Jr., Cumberland County: A Brief History (1990)
Lucille Miller Johnson, Hometown Heritage: Fayetteville, North Carolina (1978)
North Carolina Office of Archives and History, National Historic Register Files
First Presbyterian Church (Fayetteville) website: http://www.firstprez.com/