Taylor's Creek
Liberty County, Georgia
Taylor's Creek was a community in Liberty County It is now part of Fr. Stewart which is an army base.
The Taylor's Creek cemetary is still on the base,Get permission to visit,from the army base, I would guess. I was told there was a history and geneology
book about Taylor's Creek. It may have been written by Wyman May.I believe it is called the History/Geneology of Taylor's Creek!
WHY DIDN’T THE YANKEES BURN TAYLOR'S CREEK METHODIST CHURCH?
The Taylor's Creek Methodist Church was situated directly in the middle of the Taylor's Creek Village, and was right in the center of General Judson Kilpatrick’s "Kilcavalry" in Shermans infamous March to the Sea. The village of Taylor's Creek was a very prosperous community and all of her men for the most part were off serving the Confederacy in volunteer units, such as the Liberty Guards (Troop D, 5th Ga. Cav. Regt), The Altamaha Scouts (Co. I 25th Ga. Inf Regt) , the Liberty Mounted Rangers (Co. D, 20th Ga Cav) or the Liberty Independent Troop (G Troop, 5th Ga. Cav) . Sherman’s orders were to burn all buildings. Houses of God were not to be spared the torch. The Methodist Church was built in 1841.
It was said that the reason the church was spared, was that when constructed the craftsman who did some of the work had a custom of marking the work he did with the square and compass emblem of Freemasonry. He being a mason, usually placed the emblem in a conspicuous place on the structure when completed. It seems that the commander of the federal cavalry foragers that came through Taylors Creek , being a mason, saw the emblem, admired the church structure, and felt that since it was built by a brother mason, he would spare the church, and use it for a storehouse for foraged provisions. The Yankee soldiers stripped all of the pews out of the church and placed them down by Canoochee Creek around their campfires, where they sat and gambled. The church was spared the torch and survived the war. It remained at Taylors Creek for 100 years and was finally torn down in 1941, when the land was taken to build Fort Stewart. This information is not written anywhere and the source was lore handed down by masons.