This large carved headstone is unmarked.

Old Toxaway
Baptist Church is located four miles south of the town of Rosman.  The church was established in 1879 as the
Baptist Church of Christ at Toxaway in the community of Galloway, which officially existed as a post office
from 1887-1914.  Also known as Toxaway
Church the first reference to it as Old Toxaway Baptist Church did not appear
until the 1925 Transylvania Baptist Association Minutes.

The church maintains two cemeteries.  The
Upper Cemetery is located on a wooded hillside northeast of the church.  It has over 100 marked graves, plus over 100 that are unmarked.  A
few of the marked graves date to before the church was established.  The most prevalent surnames found there are
Aiken, Chapman, Galloway, and Powell.

James Earl
Galloway was the church’s pastor in its early days.  He was a 1^st Lieutenant with
Company K, 62^nd Regiment N.C. Troops, the “Brevard Rangers”, during
the Civil War.  Galloway was captured at
Cumberland Gap on September 9, 1863 and remained in prison until taking the
Oath of Allegiance on June 11, 1865.  He
was also the Galloway post master from 1887-1898.  He died on January 1, 1920 at the age of 81
and is buried in the Upper Cemetery at the Old Toxaway Baptist Church.

Molisa Elmina Summey’s headstone is one of three grave markers in the Upper Cemetery that are constructed of square chucks of quartz cemented togethter, enclosing a marble slab.

A monument
at the Lower Cemetery reads, “This hallowed ground was consecrated with the
burial of Connie Meece January 15, 1918. 
Little Connie was the first to be interred here.”  She was the three-year-old daughter of William
Morris and Kannie Galloway Meece.  She
was a granddaughter of James Earl Galloway. 
The Lower Cemetery is located beside the church and has considerably
more graves than the Upper Cemetery.

For more
information on the Old Toxaway Baptist Church and its cemeteries see Old
Toxaway Baptist Church by Larry and Dorene P. Mahoney and Where Our
Ancestors Rest A Written & Photographic Tour of Old Toxaway Baptist Church
Upper Cemetery published by the Rosman Historical Association.

Photographs
and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina
Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit
the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about
our history and see additional photographs. 
For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at [email protected] or 828-884-1820.