Burlington Macedonia Church Was Organized.
Submitted by Martha Kounse

Burlington area religious leaders, George Bryant, Charles Roberts and Henry King organized the Burlington Macedonia Church in 1830.

    The church building was built in the fall of 1849 on Macedonia Ridge north of Burlington, Ohio. Before 1849, the church members were worshiping in cabins belonging to the individuals in the congregation. Eli Thayer of Massachusetts was an abolitionist congressman and founder of Ceredo, WV who supplied lumber for the church. The former slaves and their white neighbors carried the lumber across the Ohio River in rowboats, transported it up Macedonia Ridge and erected the present structure.

    The Burlington Macedonia Church is significant as a religious and cultural milestone in the progress of black history in Southern Ohio.  Slaves fleeing Virginia plantations before the Civil War traveled the Underground Railroad, many of them coming to the Burlington area to freedom.

    In 1849, the 'Burlington 37' joined the congregation of the church.  One of the freed 37, Thomas Walker Fry, became a famous evangelist.

    The Burlington Macedonia Church was placed on the National Historical Register of Historical Places in 1978 and is still standing on Macedonia Road in Fayette Township in Lawrence County, Ohio.