Blount and Beyond Online Magazine - Magazine - Page 47
The Primitive Baptist Church in the Cove
By Linda Kay Baker
The Primitive Baptist Church in the Cove is located in Cades Cove, Cades Cove is situated in the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park. This park is one of the most visited National Parks in the nation. While visiting Cades Cove you might
want to check out the historic cabins, churches, and gristmill. The mountain scenery is breathtaking. If you are lucky, you
will see deer and turkeys, you might even get to see black bears.
Cades Cove was not always a vacation destination or for locals a day trip, for over 100 years it was home for many
families before the park was created. Cabins, schools, churches, and more were nestled in the valley. The Cherokees
Indians traveled and hunted for deer, elk, bison and bears before the Europeans started settling in the valley in the early
1820s. These settlers-built log home, barns, mills, smokehouses, corncribs, churches, and cleared the land so they could
farm it.
Neighbors helped neighbors, often making social events out of making molasses, gathering nuts, barn raisings, and more.
The population in Cades Cove began to grow as new families moved in and children were born to those families living in
the Cove. Many families had ten or more children. It was common for the children to go to school in nearby farm houses
where the school teachers were boarding. Schoolhouses were eventually built for the children.
The National Park Service now manages and maintains Cades Cove as it looked in the early days of the settlers. Cades
Cove was designated as a "historical area" in 1945.
People settling in the Smoky Mountains were men and women of faith, their religion was a big part of life for these
settlers. Before the Primitive Baptist Church was built the settlers living in Cades Cove had to travel through the Smoky
Mountains to attended Sunday meeting in Millers Cove, and Wears Cove. Tuckaleechee Cove, which is now the presentday Townsend, had old timey campground revivals and the people living in the Smoky Mountains would attend the
revival meetings.
The Cades Cove Baptist church was established in 1827 and met in homes until October 1832. In time the church split
over biblical interpretation regarding temperance societies, Sunday School, and missionary work. This was not just a
problem in this one church but many Baptist Churches in the Smokies. In 1841 the members of the Cades Cove Baptist
decided to rename their church in order to differentiate it from Baptists with other beliefs, the new name was the Primitive
Baptist Church. It was called Old School Church by many in the area. The small congregation met in a log structure until
the white frame church was built in 1887. The church the Old School group split from kept the name Cades Cove and
added Missionary to the title, so it was known as the Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church. Locally the Primitive
Baptist Church is referred to as