Mount Tabor Lutheran Church
Shenandoah Valley circuit-riding preacher Paul
Henkel formed Mount Tabor Lutheran Church
about 1785, several miles to the east. It shared a
log building with St. John’s, a Lutheran and
Reformed union congregation. Under the direction
of David Frederick Bittle, the Mount Tabor con-
gregation moved here in 1838 and built a brick
church within the current cemetery. In 1842 Bittle
and Christopher C. Baughman organized a
preparatory school for boys in the church
parsonage about a mile west. The school became
the Virginia Collegiate Institute in 1845. It moved
to Salem in 1847, where it became Roanoke
College in 1853. Construction of the present
church building was completed in 1889.
Marker is on Mt. Tabor Road (County Route 694) 0.1 miles north of Middlebrook Road (Virginia Route 252), on the left when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
