Bethel Presbyterian Church
National Register Listing
Street Address:
SC 557, Clover, SC; York County
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817746013
Description and Narrative:
Bethel Presbyterian Church, located near the town of Clover, was built in the spring and summer of 1873. The church, a local interpretation of a colonial meeting house, is set on the second level of a hill near a spring. It is the fourth house of worship to occupy this site and is architecturally significant as an example of style and construction methods of a much earlier period. The heavy post and beam, hand-hewn, wooden pegged construction is unusual for so late in the century, especially when lighter, more rapid assembled methods were in common use. The king post truss used in Bethel’s roof structure is an ancient design found in some of America’s earliest churches. Bethel represents an architectural achievement during a time of political and social upheaval and economic adversity that marked the Reconstruction era. Bethel’s congregation constructed a commodious house of worship under severely reduced circumstances, doing so without incurring debt. Bethel was the “mother church” to two other Presbyterian churches formed in the area. A large well-tended cemetery covers three acres of a ridge on the property’s east side. Enclosed by a stone wall, it contained some three to four thousand graves in 1887, the earliest marker dated 1774. Many Revolutionary soldiers of the Battle of Kings Mountain are buried here. Listed in the National Register December 10, 1980.
Period of Significance:
1873
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Social History;Architecture
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
December 10 1980
