John LaPierre and the First Churches of Cape Fear

In the seventeen twenties, when the Cape Fear region had almost no organized religion, a French Huguenot minister named John LaPierre arrived to change that. Ordained in seventeen oh seven and sent to the American colonies the following year by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, LaPierre worked the Carolina coast for decades. He helped found Saint Philip's Church in Brunswick and Saint James's Church in Wilmington, two of the oldest Anglican congregations in the colony.

Moving between parishes from the Cape Fear to New Bern, he served circuits covering hundreds of miles of frontier. In seventeen forty-nine, the North Carolina General Assembly even paid him four pounds to preach before the legislators. He continued his ministry through seventeen fifty-five, leaving behind a chain of congregations that became anchors of civic life along the colonial coast.