Sandy Run Baptist Church Burns To
Ground When Struck By Lightning
Church Was Constituted in the Year 1750 and Was Second Oldest Church in This Association; Property Loss Valued at $5,000; Partially Insured
Kelford. July 27. --During a severe electrical storm that covered the entire, northern section of Bertie County last Friday afternoon, Sandy Run Baptist Church in Roxobel was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.
Sandy Run was the second oldest Baptist Church in the West Chowan Association.
Constituted in the year 1750, 21 years after the founding of Meherrin Church at Murfreesboro, (then a Kehukee Baptist Church) and 20 years before the organization of Cashie at Windsor, it has occupied a prominent place in the religious and civic life of the Roanoke-Chowan section of eastern North Carolina for nearly two centuries.
The name, Sandy Run, was taken from the old mill stream known as Sandy Run Branch and is now the dividing line between Bertie and Northampton counties.
The church house was first located a mile or two west from its present site on the Norfleet plantation. After years of service the old building was abandoned and a new one erected near where the Sandy Run Baptist Colored Church now stands.
In 1854 when Britton's Cross Roads (now Roxobel) bid fair to become a town, a new site was selected and Sandy Run Church was moved to its present site where it has stood as a beacon light to guide the religious-minded for 82 years.
The passing of this ancient and honorable old landmark by fire, recalled to the memory of T. S. Norfleet, well past his four score years, that the original Sandy Run Church was destroyed by fire after its abandonment for church purposes.
In the loss of Sandy Run Church building the congregation has lost a most valuable property on which they had recently expended several hundred dollars in repairs and repainting; it was valued at $5,000, with insurance in the amount of $3,000 on it. The piano and organ and some few seats were saved. "The Hertford County Herald", Ahoskie, [Hertford County], N.C.
Thursday, July 30, 1936
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