Location: NC 73 at SR 1112 (Zion Church Road) northwest of Pee Dee
County: Montgomery
Original Date Cast: 1972
Settled by various immigrants from Scotland, Germany, and other parts of Europe, Montgomery County grew into an agriculturally rich rural county by the time of the Revolution. Following the upheaval of war, residents of the county settled down and began to plant firm roots for their communities, including organizing churches. One of the earliest was Zion United Methodist Church.
Reverend Hope Hull, a young minister from Maryland, was assigned to be a circuit rider in the Pee Dee Valley by the leaders of the Methodist Church when they created the Pee Dee Circuit in 1786. Hull and other ministers who followed established at least twenty-two meeting houses in the circuit, and served around 600 members in those churches. One of the churches which flourished was known as Scarborough’s Meeting House. By 1827, it was known as Zion. Zion’s congregation, by that time, had been hosting camp meetings annually for over forty years.
The first church building erected on the property was constructed of logs and was replaced by a frame structure in 1810. The present church building was constructed in 1854 on the same spot as the other churches and is near the cemetery where many past members and ministers are buried. The 1854 structure featured a slave gallery and freed members of the congregation later formed their own church, Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church. Zion Church closed for a brief period from 1928 until 1939 but the congregation was revived and became an active church again.
References:
Rev. R. E. Stackhouse, Methodism on the Pee Dee: An Address Delivered Before the Historical Society of the South Carolina Conference (1904)
Mable S. Lassiter, “Pattern of Timeless Moments”: A History of Montgomery County (1976)
W.L. Grissom, History of Methodism in North Carolina From 1772 to the Present Time (1905)
North Carolina Christian Advocate (July 1973)