Organized in July 1854 by the Rev. Richard O. Watkins as Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the congregation erected its first church building in 1854-55. Its first pastor, the Rev. Dempsey W. Broughton, helped found Trinity University. The present sanctuary was built in 1877. After a national denominational merger in 1906, the church took the name First Presbyterian. It became Covenant after absorbing the Gastonia congregation in 1912 and the Jiba congregation in 1963.