Reedy Creek Baptist Church
Introduction
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Zachariah Thompson, a Baptist minister based in North Carolina, founded a church here on Reedy Creek by 1772. This is the oldest continuing Baptist church in Brunswick County. Members later helped organize a number of other congregations in the region. Before the Civil War, many enslaved African Americans were accepted as members of Reedy Creek but worshiped from the balcony. A cemetery was established here early in the 20th century, and the present sanctuary opened in 1956. Remains of the original church exist on the property.
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Backstory and Context
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Sources
Lemuel Burkitt and Jesse Read, A Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo and Co., 1850).
“Minutes of the Kehukey Association,” James Sprunt Historical Monograph No. 5 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1904).
John Asplund, The Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination in North America to the First of November, 1790
Robert Baylor Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (Richmond, 1810).
Cushing Biggs Hassell, History of the Church of God from the Creation to A.D. 1885 (Middletown, NY: Gilbert Beebe’s Sons, 1885).
Darlene Herod, research notes, Virginia Baptist Historical Society, University of Richmond
Gay Neale, Brunswick County, Virginia, 1720-1975 (Brunswick County Bicentennial Committee, 1975).
“History of Reedy Creek, Concord Association, Brunswick County, Virginia” (provided by church)
Jewel Spangler “Baptists in Colonial Virginia,” Encyclopedia Virginia
Garnett Ryland, The Baptists of Virginia, 1699-1926 (Richmond: Virginia Baptist Board of Missions and Education, 1955).