By Jason Evans

Staff Reporter

jevans@thepccourier.com

PICKENS — A crowd gathered at Soapstone Baptist Church Saturday afternoon to celebrate the history — and the future — of the church founded by freed slaves.

An effort to raise $50,000 to pay off the church’s mortgage hit its goal earlier this year, and church members celebrated by burning the mortgage on the large soapstone rock that gives the church its name.

“To God be the glory,” Mable Owens Clarke said. “I can hear Table Rock ringing bells. I can hear

Caesar’s Head ringing bells — and what the those bells ringing are saying is ’To God be the glory.’”

The church has been part of Clarke’s entire life. Her

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