As they prepare activities for their Sesquicentennial Celebration on Oct. 8, members of Mocksville Second Presbyterian are looking at the history of the church.

Some of their ancestors were slaves who made up 40 percent of the attendance, in the galleries, at First Presbyterian Church, which is the oldest church in the county.

Second Presbyterian Church (MSPC) was organized shortly after the Civil War in 1867. A total of $75 was borrowed from the Synod of Atlanta to secure land on Feb. 5, 1893 for the first church. The boundaries included what is now Depot Street, the graveyard lot off US 64 and the railroad tracks.

The first church, which had no insurance, was destroyed by fire on a cold Sunday morning. Most of the seats and the organ were saved. The present church was built on Pine Street in 1910.  A basement was added in 1967 as an educational unit and the white frame church was bricked in 1968.

When MSPC was approached by the Davie County Historical and Genealogical Society for a submission, three members of the Steele family (Jane, Jimmie Lou, and Ruth Lewis) completed a listing of the cemetery for the 1995 publication of Cemeteries in Davie County.                                                                                                                              

The first minister, the Rev. J.H. Crawford (1840-1894), is buried in the MSPC Cemetery.  After his death, his wife Sophie, married the Rev. C.H. Williams, who also pastored the church.  In addition to being a minister’s wife, Mrs. Sophie Crawford Williams taught in the Parochial School next door.  She is listed as Mrs. S.E. Williams (1849-1918) on her first husband’s gravestone. The Rev. Williams (1849-1920) is also buried there.

After 150 years, under the pastorate of CLP Fred Terry, Mocksville Second Presbyterian Church members are looking back while moving forward.