source: Pope p. 77 When the Reverend Charles Woodmason was ordained and assigned to Upper St. Mark's Parish in 1765, he was the only Anglican minister in the Carolina backcountry. There was no established church of that faith in the whole area. Woodmason formed an intense, extreme dislike for the Presbyterians and the New Light Baptists and inveighed against them in his sermons and slandered them in his correspondence. Later he helped the Regulators draw up their remonstrances, one of which was the lack of churches in the upcountry. Still later the first grand jury at Ninety Six in its presentment of November 1772 complained of the lack of churches. There was never a church of the established religion organized in Newberry County, the need for religious assemblies being supplied in part by the dissenting congregations. The need, however, was supplied only in very small part. The lack of the elevating influence of organized religion was reflected in the morals and boisterous conduct of the frontiersmen. The few churches served only as nuclei for civilized society; only a small proportion of the population attended or felt their beneficent influence. From the time of the earliest settlements, the need for churches and for schools was seen as imperative by the leaders of the backcountry. In the present area of Newberry County, three Lutheran churches were in existence prior to 1800 - they were in a small area near present day Pomaria. The three Baptist churches of the period were in the northern part of the county. Three Presbyterian churches were also in the northern section, one of them being across the line in Laurens District. The two Associated Reformed churches were on Kings' Creek and Cannon's Creek. The Quakers were on Bush River and the Dunkers were on Palmetto Branch, south of the present county seat. The Methodists established their small congregations only in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and their importance was not achieved until later. Of these churches, only the Quakers and Bush River Baptist kept adequate records; consequently the modern historian has a difficult time in writing about the early religious institutions. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com