In early 1881 the Norwood Methodist Church was organized in a little school house located opposite the site of the present Norwood Baptist Church. In February of 1882, Flavius McGinty of Warren County deeded 3,900 square yards of land to several of the trustees to be used as a “divine place of worship for the ministry and membership of the Norwood Methodist Episcopal Church”. The deed is recorded in the office of the clerk of Superior Court of Warren County, Deed Book DD, page 417.

While a building was being erected on this lot, Sunday school continued to be held in the school house. The structure was completed and dedicated in 1882. There are still quite a few buildings left in the old town of Norwood, named after the Hon. Thomas Norwood, a member of congress from Savannah in 1888. It had previously been named Gunn’s Mill after a grist mill built by Mr. Radford Gunn just prior to the Civil War.  According to the history in the Methodist archives at Pitts Library, “The first church edifice was used for only a few years after which it was sold to the negroes to be used by them as a place of worship.  The present church house was erected on the same site as the first in 1890.”

In 1888, the Georgia Railroad laid tracks through the town, which bustled with business activity its early days. It had a Southern Express office and a Western Union Telegraph office in the depot.  The advent of the automobile and highway system, however, spelled the rapid decline for Norwood’s business district, today a faint shadow of what it once was. The first rural, free mail delivery occurred in Norwood in 1868, when six residents hired Jerry Parsons, an African American, to deliver their mail on a daily basis, paying for his food and clothing in exchange.

The nearby cemetery contains 248 recorded interments.  The complete inventory can be found here on Find a Grave.  Be sure to click and scroll the photos below for more history and photos.