FRIENDSHIP METHODIST CHURCH CEMETERY (c1830), Pickens County, SC
a.k.a. >

Version: 3.0   Effective: 30-Jul-2006   Text File: P052.TXT   Image Folder: P052


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*********************************************************************** 05-01-15


CEMETERY LOCATION:
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>

GPS = Latitude N x Longitude W 


CEMETERY HISTORY:
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FRIENDSHIP METHODIST CHURCH

The first Friendship Methodist Church was a small hand-hewn log building on a 
mountain side north of Sunset, SC and the present Highway #11 built about 1830. 
It was deep in the forest in rugged terrain, isolated, on a dead end road, 
almost inaccessible and not easy for the elderly to attend. (This location is 
listed in Pickens County Cemetery Book, Vol #3 as Gilstrap-Walker Cemetery.

Due to the unsatisfactory location and increasing population over a period of 
years, the old log church was abandoned and a larger white boarded church was 
erected on Sunset Post Office Road about a mile south of the first one on land 
said to be given by the Gilstraps; land very likely owned by Bright or John Ash-
more Gilstrap.

This new Friendship Methodist Episcopal Church, South was constructed about 1865 
on the south side of Old Sunset Community Road, which is now south of Scenic 
Highway #11. The church was used until 1955 when a storm wrecked it, and it was 
never rebuilt. Some tombstones and many unmarked graves remain. The earliest 
death date at this new location recorded on a stone is 1891. Some names on 
stones at this one are: - Gilstrap, Alexander, Tomes, Wooten, Powell; and in the 
first one are found Gilstrap and Walker. 

Submitted by: Era M. Davis, 714 Ireland Road, Pickens, SC 29671

Sources: A leaflet Gilstraps from 1749 Genealogy and Migration by Ernest 
Gilstrap, some from Cemetery Book, some my research

by: Pickens County SC Heritage Book 1995


TOMBSTONE TRANSCRIPTION NOTES:
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a. = age at death
b. = date-of-birth
d. = date-of-death
h. = husband
m. = married
p. = parents
w. = wife