Mike’s Creek Missionary Baptist Church, a black congregation, begins this month in Gaffney, South Carolina in the form of informal worship services. It is one of many autonomous black churches established this summer in South Carolina.
The church is formally organized in 1866 by the Rev. Peter Humphries, the Rev. Joe Sarratt, and two deacons — Richard Ellis and John Turner — from nearby Providence Baptist Church.
As is often the case with black Baptist congregations formed in the rural South during the months following the war, the church’s first structure is a brush arbor. Another brush arbor follows after the original burns, then a log house, a 20×30 wood frame building, and in 1891 an A-frame sanctuary that is used for more than three decades.
The Mike’s Creek congregation exists to the present day.
Source: “Mikes Creek Celebrates 148 Years,” Shelby Star, October 31, 2013 (link)
