Clear Creek | Henderson Heritage

The community of Clear Creek is entirely west of the Continental Divide; therefore, the earliest settlers in the community arrived in the late 1780s and early 1790s.
Many moved into the community from the Edneyville and Dana sections, others arrived following the old wagon road later named the Howard Gap Road, and a few may have entered via gaps in the mountains from the north and northwest.
The fifth oldest Baptist church in the county – Ebenezer Baptist Church – was the earliest church established in Clear Creek.
None of the other churches were established prior to the Civil War.
Grave sites of two of the county’s Revolutionary War veterans – John Peter Corn and Jacob Shipman – are located in Clear Creek.
As the early settlers entered the county, they brought their slaves with them.
The only two partially intact slave cemeteries in Henderson County are located in Clear Creek – the Featherstone Slave Cemetery and the Drake/Seagle Slave Cemetery. Ebenezer Baptist Church has a black section that also contains graves of some slaves.
Descendants of slaves in Clear Creek and other black people in the community established two black churches about 1900 – Mt. Zion Baptist Church and Stanford Chapel AME Zion Church. The cemetery of the early Stanford Chapel AME Zion Church was virtually destroyed.
The other church cemeteries in Clear Creek are Moore’s Grove United Methodist Church and Locust Grove Baptist Church.
There are remnants of cemeteries where two churches once stood – Hogney Church and Old Brown’s Chapel Methodist.
St. Mary’s Chapel, now known as La Capilla de Santa Maria Episcopal Church, began as a family chapel. Nearby is a cemetery of the Drake and Seagle families.
Other family cemeteries in the community are the Featherstone Family Cemetery and the Love Family Cemetery.
Two cemeteries once located in the community were destroyed in the latter half of the 20^th century – the Corn Family Cemetery and the Bessie King Homeplace Cemetery.