Location: US 29/74 (Andrew Jackson Highway) at Hawley Street in Belmont
County: Gaston
Original Date Cast: 2014
By the 1760s many Scots-Irish immigrants, most of whom were Presbyterians, had moved into the North Carolina backcountry. In 1764 the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia send representatives to the colony to organize churches and establish boundaries of influence. The men, Alexander McWhorter and Elihu Spencer, are credited with setting up Goshen Presbyterian Church in what is now Gaston County. Oral tradition holds that there was already a log structure in use by locals for educational and religious purposes. All early records of Goshen have been lost, so the first official record of the church is from the minutes of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia in 1767 when the congregation at “Goshen in the fords of the Catawba” requested a preacher.
The first minister to accept Goshen’s call was Humphrey Hunter, who arrived in 1796 and split his time evenly with nearby Unity Presbyterian Church, established in what is now Lincoln County in the same year as Goshen. The congregation built a frame church in 1839. A white frame building was constructed later in North Belmont across the street from the present site. Finally, the present structure, a modest brick church was built in 1956.
Goshen Presbyterian is the parent church of six congregations that serve surrounding communities, as follows: New Hope Presbyterian, Dallas Presbyterian, Belmont Presbyterian, Mount Holly Presbyterian, Stanley Presbyterian, and Castanea Presbyterian. It is the oldest active church in Gaston County.
References:
Robert Allison Ragan, The History of Gastonia and Gaston County (2010)
Rita Wehunt-Black, Gaston County, North Carolina: A Brief History (2008)
Goshen Presbyterian Church website: http://www.goshenpca.com/