Our History

Rocky River Baptist Missionary Baptist Church was organized in the year 1776 and possibly served the community as early as the 1760s. Rocky River is the mother church of many area churches, most notably, Brown Creek, Red Hill and Rocky Mount.

The first meeting house was built near the stream of the Rocky River, whence its name, not far from the present Gaddy Bridge. Later the church building was moved one-half mile southward. It had remained at the first site long enough for a burying ground to be started. A third site was selected a few years later, a little over a mile from the river on what is now the site of Lynn Thomas family home. A fourth site was selected on a higher elevation on the same campus in the early 1880s and the present building was built in 1882 by the Sam Birmingham.

Cribbs Creek located several hundred yards to the west of the present sanctuary, was used for well over a hundred years as the one and only baptistery of the church.

For more than seventy-five years the church offered a community school to the youth of Anson and part of Stanly County in a one-room school located not far from the church building.

The present church building has been renovated four times since 1882. A Parsonage was completed in 1992 and is located on the hillside north of the cemetery.

Founded on missions, Rocky River remains steadfast till this day to witness to the community.