The Church of Christ at Antioch was constituted on January 17, 1834, by Elders Jessie Moon and Guthridge Ivey with ten charter members, some of whom came from Bethlehem Baptist Church. David Curry and William May donated the land, located on the banks of Stephen’s Creek. Like many early rural churches, Antioch served as both a spiritual and community center for the scattered settlers who called this corner of Georgia home.
+ Continue readingFor decades, white and black congregants worshiped together until 1868, when the black members withdrew to establish what would become Holly Springs Baptist Church. In 1885, Antioch reported 53 male and 99 female members—a pattern common in the post-Civil War South, where war casualties had left many congregations with far fewer men than women.
Services were held once a month, but by the 1930s many families were leaving the countryside for towns and cities. By the mid-1940s Antioch was no longer active, though homecomings and singing conventions kept its doors open a little longer. Today, annual reunions held the second Sunday in May keep the tradition alive, filling the pines once more with the sound of old hymns. A recording of the 2013 reunion, still available on YouTube, offers a moving glimpse of that legacy.
Antioch sits quietly on a dirt road, miles from the nearest town. Plain on the outside, its interior and surrounding cemetery hold a dignity that reflects the essence of early Georgia churches. For the settlers who founded it, the church was everything—place of worship, governance, fellowship, and community life. Many of those pioneers and their descendants now rest in the adjoining graveyard, their names carved into markers that rise among broom straw and brush. Here, as ever, their stories remain bound to the words: ashes to ashes, dust to dust.