{"nrhp_refnum":"83001844","name":"Big Rockfish Presbyterian Church","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"SR 2268","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hope Mills","county":"Cumberland County","state":"NC","lat":34.951854898500045,"lon":-78.92385679557768,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-07-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story gable-front frame Presbyterian church in Hope Mills, Cumberland County, North Carolina, built in 1855 with a vernacular Greek Revival finish. It stands on a rear-cemetery site about seven miles southwest of Fayetteville.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the church embodies the typical plan and construction of mid-nineteenth-century rural North Carolina churches and is one of five Cumberland County churches following these vernacular traditions. Its congregation grew out of antebellum Sunday Schools and revivals tied to the nearby Rockfish mill community, linking it to the area's early textile economy and Presbyterian life.","narrative":"Big Rockfish Presbyterian Church is a two-story frame building with a gable roof, a pedimented front and double front entrances, completed in 1855 near Hope Mills in Cumberland County. Carpenter John McDonald, an elder who had earlier led Sunday School meetings in the area, supervised its construction on a five-acre tract. The church grew from a congregation organized in December 1844 by the Fayetteville Presbytery, which drew members from the Rockfish mill community, an important antebellum textile concern. Its interior follows the traditional rural church plan, with a narthex, sanctuary and gallery supported by seven octagonal columns, and original double-curved pews still in place. The fanlight in the pediment is an earlier Federal feature, suggesting a stylistic holdover. The church is regarded as a representative example of rural church building in mid-century Cumberland County, and it also contains a nearby cemetery with graves of early members and later community residents.","period_of_significance":"1855","architect_builder":"John McDonald","architectural_style":"Vernacular Greek Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"The church still houses a small but active congregation; a cinder block education wing was added in the early 1950s.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:40.767929-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/32/7198/47719832/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/83001844.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001844/3632362163-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001844/3632362163-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Gerry Dincher","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Big_Rockfish_Presbyterian_Church.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Gerry Dincher</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Big_Rockfish_Presbyterian_Church.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47719832","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rockfish_Presbyterian_Church","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4906233"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/cumberland-county/big-rockfish-presbyterian-church-83001844/"}