Before the Revolutionary War, Scots-Irish Associate Reformed Presbyterians from Antrim and Monaghan Counties in Ireland came to the section of Anderson County known as Concord. They began meeting in the open air near Rankin’s Springs, two miles from the site where a log church that would be erected in 1797.

Though the recorded history of the early church is meager, it is known that the Rev. Peter McMullen was the first pastor. In 1845 the old structure was deliberately burned and a new building of hewn logs was raised on the original foundations. This sanctuary lasted until 1900, when it was torn down and a new frame church was erected across Concord Road on land belonging to Robert Moorhead. Beginning as Mt. Nebo, it was also known as Six and Twenty, Moorhead’s Meeting House, and finally Concord.

Concord struggled through its one hundred-year history. After 1798 the church seldom had a regular pastor and the congregation scattered.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the lure of opportunity in nearby Anderson, the county seat, drew people from the smaller towns of the county and from neighboring farm communities. Some of these people were Associate Reformed Presbyterians. As early as February 1904 they began gathering for worship.

The Anderson Intelligencer reported that on July 10, 1904 the congregation met for the purpose of organizing and building a place for worship in the city. The congregation at Concord would be dissolved and the membership consolidated with the Anderson congregation.

The first entry in the Minutes of Session of the Anderson Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church states that after the morning worship service at City Hall on July 10, 1904, organization of the congregation was affected by a Commission of the Second Presbytery. The Commission consisted of two elders from the dissolving Concord Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Robert A. Lummus served as the congregation’s first pastor.

On May 16, 1909 the congregation held services for the first time in a frame building constructed on the corner of McDuffie and Society Streets. By this time membership reached seventy-one with an average attendance of eighty, and the Rev. C. M. Boyd was serving as pastor.

Fire gutted the church building on November 14, 1949. The congregation met at Anderson College while the decision to rebuild or relocate was being made. At a meeting of the church Session on January 10, 1950, Dr. and Mrs. James Rogers Young offered a plot of land on the corner of Boulevard and Second Streets for a new church building. If approved, their gift would be a memorial to their son, Louis Gray Young, who died serving his country in World War II.

The congregation accepted their generous offer and voted to construct a new building on that site. At the recommendation of the Session, the congregation voted to change its name to “Young Memorial Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church” in memory of Louis Young. The church building, which underwent renovation and expansion of the educational wing in 2005, is located at 508 Boulevard.

For over a hundred years Young Memorial Church has been a vital presence in the Anderson community.

A vision statement adopted for the 100th anniversary celebration on June 6, 2004 reflects the congregation’s nature and ministry:

Our vision and hope:

• · to seek to know God with open minds,
• · to share the love of Christ with open hearts,
• · to embrace the community with open arms.

• Sources:
  Church records and A Goodly Heritage: A History of the Anderson/Young Memorial Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1904-2004 by Flora Y. Preston and Harriett V. Richie.