Our History

Our church now occupies the second building on this site, built before 1851.Salem knew hard times, the winters of 1834 and 1835 were extremely cold, as it was -8 degrees in Milledgeville on February 7, 1834. In the summer and fall of 1839, there was a great drought; the Savannah River dried up until it could be crossed on foot. In August and September of 1851, church services were suspended because of an outbreak of smallpox.On August 6, 1852, “Dr. Allen, our Domestic Missionary,” preached the first recorded ‘protracted meeting’ in August, recorded in our minutes. In the summer of 1857, four members of the Howard family died of typhoid fever. It is possible that other members of the community were equally affected; we just don’t have a record.

The War Between the States brought a great deal of change and hardship to the community. Most of the men from seventeen to forty went to war at one time or another during the war years, leaving the women and servants to work the farms and plantations alone.

The men from Salem joined Oglethorpe County units, or units of surrounding counties, many of whom never came home. The families of Salem have always been patriotic. Many of the founders of Salem were Revolutionary War veterans taking up their land grants. Men from Salem went to the War of 1812, the Mexican War, World War I and World War II, Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam Conflict.

John Scott Bacon, clerk of Salem, kept a diary of his daily life; on August 4, 1908, he recorded an event that has been a tradition at Salem, the week or two weeks before August Meeting: “Cleaned off cemetery at Salem – 20 hands.

Salem Church building has been often altered in one way or another over its long history. In the late 1930s, the old Salem schoolhouse was torn down when students started being bused to Meson Academy in Lexington and Crawford School. Old benches and pulpit furniture were sold or given away in the early 1900s.

By the early 1950s, the church deemed it necessary to build three Sunday School rooms on the back of the church; in only a few years, two more Sunday School rooms were added to the front of the church. By the early 1960s, a fellowship hall with two more Sunday School rooms was added. Later a nursery was added to the back of this addition. Again new sanctuary furniture was purchased. In 2002 a new fellowship hall was added to the southeast side of the church, double the size of the old hall. In 2003 the sanctuary was renovated. Salem has stood as a beacon for her Lord from the time she was surrounded by deep forests till she has entered the 21st century.