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Religious Development (1.5.4)

Religious opportunities for both whites and blacks witnessed considerable growth and diversification in Elizabeth City during the late nineteenth century. This growth was particularly evident in the black community, where four new congregations were organized. The first was in 1889 when Corner Stone Baptist Church(507 South Martin Street) was formed out of Olive Branch Baptist Church (both black). Four years later, Christ Episcopal Church (white) established St. Phillip's Episcopal Church (512 South Martin Street) as a mission in the black community. In 1896 St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church was organized as the black congregation in the black neighborhoods north of the central city in the area known as "Sawyer Town." At the turn of the century, the local Presbyterians also organized a mission in the black community, Antioch Presbyterian Church (518 Shepard Street). Each of these congregations, except St. Stephen, built churches in the Martin-Shepard-Road Street area that was developing as the center of the city's black community (Butchko 1989, 163,271,272, 308; "St. Stephen History" 1992, 4).

New congregations were also started for the numerous whites who were attracted to the city. In 1889 a Presbyterian church, now Cann Memorial, was organized as the first congregation of its denomination in northeastern North Carolina; a flamboyant Gothic Revival style frame edifice was soon erected at the northwest corner of Road Street and Colonial Avenue (demolished 1940s). The antebellum Elizabeth City Baptist Church (300 West Main) not only built a new edifice in 1889, but began two mission churches during the late 1890s. Both chapels eventually became independent congregations, Blackwell Memorial Baptist Church (700 North Road street) in 1900 and Calvary Baptist Church (801 Riverside Avenue) in 1921, respectively. Likewise, City Road Methodist Church, South was established in 1900 at 511 North Road Street to accommodate members of the Elizabeth City Methodist Church who lived in the Northside area north of Poindexter Creek. The formation about 1900 of a Northern Methodist Church (now Pearl Street Pentecostal) further diversified the religious climate in Elizabeth City (Outlaw 1961, 176-181; Weaver 1915, 11; Butchko, 1989: 255, 293, 294).