our story

A long history of God's faithfulness

Between 1705 and 1775, persecution, drought, and famine drove 500,000 Scotch Presbyterians from North Ireland to America, along with Huguenots from France, the Dutch, and Puritans from England. Many of them found their way to the Williamsburg District of South Carolina, where a church was formally organized in August, 1736.

 In 1782, the Reverend Samuel Kennedy, a native of Ireland, came as minister of Williamsburg church. He openly denied the divinity of Christ and ultimately split the church. The orthodox minority destroyed the church building and reorganized under the name of Bethel. In 1803 they completed and occupied a new house of worship one mile east of Kingstreet. One of the pastors of Bethel was Reverend James White Stephson, D.D., a veteran of the Revolutionary War, who would later become the first pastor of Zion Presbyterian Church. 

 On March 25, 1805, four families from the Bethel Congregation left Williamsburg, They arrived in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 8, and settled in the area of Franklin. On March 6, 1806, a second exodus of ten additional families left for Tennessee and arrived at Franklin.

 In August 1807, these fourteen families purchased eight square miles (5,120 acres) of land in Maury County for $15,360, or $2 an acre. The land was a portion of 25,000 acres originally awarded to General Nathanael Green for his service in the Revolutionary War. The men of the families divided the land and erected a log house as near the center as possible for a house of worship.

 They chose the name Zion for their new community and their new church. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was celebrated for the first time at Zion in August 1809 with 54 communicants. The first regular Sunday School was organized in 1810.