Now that the church was deeded its own property in 1869 and population was growing per the 1882 map, construction of a new and larger church was needed. The church was built of sawmill lumber, as depicted in the photo taken in 1902 by Thomas Dawley, during a federally funded survey of the Dark Corner. Also obvious in the photo are Thomas’s horse and a tall white gravestone of James Howard who died in 1901. The caption inscribed by Mr. Dawley references a horrific event which occurred in August 1891, in and around the church. The caption reads: THE CHURCH SHOT FULL OF HOLES.
The Greenville Paper – “The Enterprise and Mountaineer” – dated September 2, 1891
includes the court record including conflicting testimony which is still debated today.
Regrettably, both Massena and Joshua Howard were killed at the church during the time
church members were preparing for the service to be performed by Rev. Kuykendall.
Many others have stories that are somewhat different from this court accounting.
However, the results are the same as needless deaths and a wounded church facility
did happen.
We can accurately locate the second church by aligning the gravestones of James Howard
(1901) and Rachel Howard (1896), as shone in the 1902 photo. Note that we can impose
the second church near the Eastern edge on our existing paved parking lot with the third
stone school/church in the background.
While this second sawmill constructed facility was primarily used as a church, it also
served the mountain as a meeting house. The initial log structure continued use as a
schoolhouse.
There was a need for a larger second Mountain Hill Church in that the population grew
in the mid-late 1800’s as shown by Kyzer’s map of 1882, revealing some 150 homes in
Glassy Mountain Township.
Mountain and church population growth were interrupted with the coming of World War
I. Prior to the war, Toliver Earl of Landrum was commissioned by the U.S. War Depart-
ment to lease six (6) square miles of Dark Corner property for an artillery firing range,
with Mountain Hill Baptist Church and cemetery declared “off-limits.” The landowners
who refused to lease their lands were evicted by eminent domain. Some Glassy riflemen
became soldiers of the 13th Division, fighting in France, and others left Glassy for
work in the early cotton mills.