Location: US 70 at Third Creek Church Road in Cleveland
County: Rowan
Original Date Cast: 1948
The origins of Third Creek Presbyterian Church date to 1751, when itinerant Presbyterian preacher John Thomson began administering to the Scots-Irish communities of Rowan County. Thomson established a “preaching station” near the present site of Third Creek, as well as providing services at Fourth Creek Meeting House and Centre Church. During the 1760s and 1770s services were continued at the site under the patronage of Presbyterian ministers Hugh McAden and Elihu Spencer.
The exact date of Third Creek Presbyterian Church’s official establishment is unknown. The first official record of the church dates to minutes in 1789 which list Samuel E. McCorkle as the pastor of Thyatira and Third Creek churches. McCorkle pastored until 1792, when he was replaced by Joseph D. Kilpatrick.
Under Kilpatrick’s care, the church joined the Concord Presbytery after its break from the Orange Presbytery in 1795. In 1797 the Concord Presbytery held its annual conference at Third Creek. Kilpatrick remained at the church until his death in 1832. The church remained leaderless for three years, until the appointment of Andrew Y. Lockbridge. Lockbridge organized the construction of the brick church and sanctuary presently standing, replacing the frame building that had stood for nearly fifty years.
Buried in Third Creek Church’s cemetery is an individual believed by many to have been one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s most trusted lieutenants, Marshal Michel Ney. Peter Stewart Ney, as he was known to his Rowan County neighbors, was a local schoolmaster for most of his life. According to many Rowan County natives, he spoke fluent French, had wounds resembling those of the real Ney, who had been executed in 1815, and in his later years often claimed to have been Ney. At least three books written by North Carolinians argued that he was indeed the Marshall, who had apparently escaped or faked his execution and fled to the United States. However, research gathered by William Henry Hoyt established that it was almost impossible, that the real Ney had been killed, and that, therefore, Peter Stewart Ney was an impostor. Most academic historians who have analyzed the evidence agree that Peter Stewart Ney was not the marshal.
References:
John Fleming, History of Third Creek Presbyterian Church (1968)
David Foard Hood, The Architecture of Rowan County (1983)
William S. Powell, ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina (2006)
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, IV, 368-369--sketch by George V. Taylor
William Henry Hoyt Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina: http://webcat.lib.unc.edu/search~S1?/ahoyt+william+henry/ahoyt+william+…