Coopers Creek Baptist (Fannin County, Ga.)

A history of the Coopers Creek Baptist Church was written in 1999 to celebrate the 152nd anniversary of the church, including some direct quotes from the old church minutes from the Tarver Library at Mercer University. The church was constituted in 1847 as Coopers Creek Meeting House and was a member of the Chestatee Baptist Association. Original minutes also reveal the fact that these were ordinary mountain people without a high level of education. Spelling was certainly not a strong suit. Original minutes state that "our Meeting House should be nown and distinguiest by the name of Coopers Creeke Meeting House." The minutes also state that in 1847, "Isaac Burlison and Harmon Brown were appointed as trustees for the purpose of recording a deede to a bit of land for Cooper Creak Church yard and buring ground." A motion was passed "to petition the office of the judge to grant a qater of a mile around the church for the protection of the church and scoole." In addition to the school, the first Sunday School was organized in 1909. An old photograph shows a vibrant congregation standing in front of the church in 1910. The cemetery at Cooper's Creek is located on a hill above the church and has several Confederate veterans among its interments. But the thing that makes the cemetery image so haunting is the number of small fieldstone grave markers on the hill. Many of them have now been cross referenced to the actual interments, which is highly unusual. Fieldstone markers are common all across Georgia and they indicate the lack of wealth and resources at that place and that time. They almost always are just there as a reminder of the difficult lives many of these early settlers had.