Historic church built near site of 'last goodbyes' of 1820s husband and wife

Canton Bend United Methodist Church

I was out riding around on Saturday morning and found myself on State Highway 28 between Camden and Millers Ferry. I eventually entered the community of Canton Bend and slowed down as I approached the beautiful and historic Canton Bend United Methodist Church. I’d been by this old church many times before, but I’d never stopped for an up-close look.

I pulled off the highway and parked in the shade beneath one of the large trees in front of the church. As I stepped out of the cool interior of the truck and into the hot, humid air outside, I was immediately swarmed by dozens of black “love bugs.” I tried my best to ignore them as I walked up to the church and closely inspected it from the outside.

I walked around the church, admiring its unique architecture and windows, before making my way inside the old cemetery. I walked slowly among the graves, keeping an eye out for snakes and dodging the banana spiders and their webs. As I read the headstones, I had one in particular in mind, the grave of Ann Smith, a young woman who died in 1823, way back in the days when Canton Bend was the county seat of Wilcox County.

I eventually found her grave and that of her husband, Duncan Crawford Smith, and I stood there for what seemed like a long time, remembering the tale of this long dead couple. Local lore has it that Ann died while her husband was gone on a trip to North Carolina and distraught relatives buried Ann beneath a cluster of oak trees not far from where Ann and Duncan said their last goodbyes. When the bereaved Duncan returned home, he gave the property where Ann was buried to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church for use as a cemetery.

Later, the old Cumberland Presbyterian Church eventually closed its doors, and the church building was torn down years ago. Canton Bend United Methodist Church was later built adjacent to the cemetery in 1913 and since Ann’s death in the early 1820s, nearly 250 people have been buried within the confines of this old cemetery. Among their number, I found the graves of numerous veterans, ministers, Freemasons and prominent newspapermen, Hollis Curl and Mark Curl.

Also, unexpectedly, I found an official witness post that marks the site of a government survey benchmark just across the wire fence beside the church’s modern fellowship hall. I later checked with the National Geodetic Survey and learned that this benchmark, which is a metal disk set into the top of a small concrete monument, was originally put in place in 1944. It’s six miles northwest of a similar marker at the Wilcox County Courthouse in Camden and is 221.4 feet above sea level.

Not long after that, I returned to my truck, flipped the AC on high and eased back onto Highway 28, headed toward the Alabama River. As I traveled down the road, I began to think about all of the people who made use of the old churches at Canton Bend over the years - all of the church services, homecomings, weddings and funerals. The place is no doubt steeped in memories, and one is left to wonder what those old Canton Bend residents could tell us about the world that they lived in.