Mount Carmel Methodist

Bartow County
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Org 1847
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Photography by Tom Reed

According to a church history written in 1955, the people of “Rockdodger – Halls Station – Linwood” organized the Mount Carmel Methodist Church in 1847. Many of the early members came from the Kingston Church located near by. The original church was a log house, but in 1856 Robert Nelson Kerr donated some land and the first frame structure was built “between the present drive and the cemetery. In the rear a place of this church a place was reserved for the slaves who came regularly with their masters to learn of God. After the Civil War, the Negroes who would not leave their masters still came to worship with their white folk. Services were held on Saturdays and Sundays. Some ladies came riding side saddle, holding their babies in front of them; while the father had other members of the family riding behind him on his horse. Other families came in ox carts”. Many of the original families are resting in the cemetery.

The courthouse at Cassville was burned during the war and all the records were lost, including the original donation to the church by Robert Kerr in 1856. In 1891, J.C. Kerr deeded to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the two acres of land his father had originally donated….consisting of two acres “for and in consideration of the love I bear for the Cause of Christ and from an earnest desire to promote his heritage on earth – for the use and benefit of place of worship and burial ground”.

The church prospered after the war and a new church, the present one, was built in 1903. “Church members gave the timber for the framing, and the men went to the woods, cut the logs, hauled the lumber to the church yard. The dressed lumber – ceiling, weather-boarding, and flooring – was shipped from Dalton, Georgia , by railway freight. The windows, doors, and blinds were hauled in wagons from Rome, Georgia…..in 1947 electricity was made available and three light fixtures were installed”.