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Greater Lovely Hill Baptist Church, originally called Lovely Hill Baptist Church, was formed in 1866 by a small group of 12 brave African
American men and women who set out to serve the varied needs of the families in Warren County who had recently been freed from slavery by the
Emancipation Proclamation. The first Church was really not a building, but a clearing in the woods atop a hill that the founders considered to
be the "loveliest hill in the countryside", where the members sat on pews consisting of nail kegs, wooden boxes and log benches put together
with wooden pegs. The first minister was Rev. Loveless Brown, Sr. who served for four years encouraging his congregation to support the church
in any way they could. The 2nd minister, Rev. Saul Clanton, served for 32 years, and it was under his tenure that the first church building was
constructed. Records show that the first deed was on September 13, 1882, for the sum of $5.00, when a parcel of land containing one acre was
obtained from Turner Alston, Turner E. Brown and Eugene Brown. By 1910, a decision was made to secure land to start a cemetery, and on December
9, 1910, one and one quarter (1 1/4 ) acres of land located on Mountain View Road where the Church was then located, was bought from Turner and
Mildred Alston, for the amount of $10.00; and on March 3, 1911, another one and one-half (1 1/2 ) acres was obtained from William and Anna
Alston adjacent to the other parcel, making a total of three and three-quarter (3 3/4 ) acres of land for both the Church and Cemetery. A new
Church building was constructed in 1956 on Secondary Road 1509, and dedicated in June 1957 on land obtained from Joseph C. Faulkner, which is
its current location a short distance down the road from the Cemetery. It was at this time that the Church was renamed The Greater Lovely Hill Baptist Church, a name
that means a lot to the Church members as well as to the people in the surrounding community who remember the little church that has been on
the hill for the past 141 years.
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