New Salem Baptist Church and the New Salem Academy

New Salem Baptist Church and the New Salem Academy. . (front) , Situated on the wooded ridge south of Burnt Hickory Road stands the site of New Salem Baptist Church. The church's stone foundation (located within the fenced enclosure) and the depressions of unmarked burials are all that remain. The log church was once the social and spiritual center for farming families living in the New Salem community. These residents, which included the Hardages, Kirks, and Yorks, were among the first settlers to Cobb County after the forced Cherokee removal in 1838. As well as attending church services delivered by Reverend Springer, many local children were educated at New Salem Academy, a one-room schoolhouse which stood near the church. Lucinda Hardage, who grew up in the New Salem community before the Civil War, remembered playing in the woods and drinking from a nearby spring in between lessons and church services. , (Continued on other side), (back) , (Continued from other side) , The peaceful life for those of the New Salem community changed dramatically beginning in June 14, 1864. The New Salem Church became a makeshift field hospital where Confederate ambulances brought their wounded men who had been fighting at nearby Pine Mountain. Most nearby families evacuated. Lucinda Hardage would remember the rains of that June 14 and 15 long ago - rains that filtered through wooden planks of the ambulances and left a red trail along the muddy and rutted Burnt Hickory Road. On June 17, 1864, Confederate General William H.T. Walker's Division secured the ridge surrounding New Salem Church and the Academy. The structures were dismantled and the materials incorporated into far-reaching defensive walls. After the devastating war, the site of the church and academy was abandoned. Many families never returned to Cobb County, but those who did selected a new site for the New Salem congregation, and thus, a new beginning.