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Low's Lutheran Church
NC-61, Kimesville,
NC,
USA
Latitude & Longitude:
35° 57' 37.224",
-79° 31' 48.6768"
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North Carolina State
Historical Marker |
Marker Text: "Congregation organized ca. 1771; fourth church erected in 1971 on site of original log structure." German immigrants moved into Piedmont North Carolina in large numbers throughout the 1740s and 1750s. Many of the immigrants followed the Great Wagon Road southward from Pennsylvania and many settled in the section of modern day Guilford County formed from Orange County. Bringing their religious practices with them, the immigrants worshipped in homes until communities were developed that could construct a meeting house. Travelers remarked that the concentration of Germans in the region was so strong that rarely a person who spoke English could be found.
Low’s Lutheran Church derived from the work of two early German congregations to form a community church. Members worshipped as both the German Reformeds and as Lutherans and, although the two groups had differing opinions on worship, they put aside the differences to worship communally. The earliest records do not survive but church historians believe that the combined congregation was formed well before the first record of the church in 1771 when Samuel Suther of the Reformed Church ministered to the congregation. The Low’s congregation constructed their first house of worship out of logs. The first building stood near where the present Low’s church stands. As the congregation grew and tensions over potential war with England grew, a split occurred within the congregation over the rights of colonists. The Reformed members left with Suther to create another congregation and construct their own building, now known as Brick Church. The first Lutheran minister to make regular visits to Low’s was Adolph Nussmann from 1773 until around 1789.
The remaining members of Low’s continued to worship together and constructed a new frame church in 1841 which served until 1889 when a larger church was built. The 1889 building was replaced in 1971 by a larger church that preserved some early elements. The church is still active and is near an old cemetery that has graves dating to the eighteenth century.
References:
Jacob L. Morgan, History of the Lutheran Church in North Carolina (1953)
Hugh Lefler and Paul Wager, eds., Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953)
Lutheran Church website: http://www.elca.org/ScriptLib/OS/Congregations/cdsDetail.asp?congrno=04123
Churches of Old Orange County website: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~lrnoah/NCOrange/otherch.htm
Brick Church website: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~lrnoah/BrickCH/
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Low's Lutheran Church Historical Marker Location Map, Kimesville, North Carolina
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