Trinity Methodist Church

Built around 1848 on the high west bank of the Cape Fear River in Elizabethtown, this simple frame church has a two-story, center-aisle plan under a gable roof, with a small belfry and pointed wood spire rising behind the main facade. Its original double front door, six-pane transom and fifteen-over-fifteen sash windows remain, and the second-floor gallery on three sides is intact, reached by an enclosed stair against the west wall. The Trinity congregation was founded in 1834 and purchased its town lot in 1836, and the church was dedicated in 1849. The building is regarded as the oldest surviving meeting house in Elizabethtown and one of the few antebellum buildings remaining in the town. It recalls the 1840s growth of the county seat, which was fueled by the naval stores trade in turpentine from longleaf pine forests. Its cemetery holds roughly two hundred stones, including Confederate casualties and well-preserved late nineteenth-century wooden markers.