In 1839, the Reverend Levi Bedenbaugh and a number of Lutheran families began migrating to Coweta County, Georgia, from the Dutch Fork region of South Carolina. Reverend Edenbaugh led the establishment of the Mt. Pilgrim Lutheran congregation in 1840, and the congregation worshipped with Baptists in a structure near the Neriah Church Cemetery on Magnolia Road, now known as Haralson Baptist Church. Early members included the families of Jacob Rawls, Benjamin Glover, William Taylor, Elijah Elmore, Jacob Addy, George Caldwell, and Peter and Benjamin Kempson, and later-arriving Lutheran families included David Gable, Daniel Lightner, Shadrack Vansant, John Zeno Sywgert, and Samuel Nixon. In 1846, Jacob Rawls deeded two acres of land to the church, and the first church building, named Mt. Pilgrim Lutheran Church, was constructed; that property is now Mt. Pilgrim Lutheran Cemetery on Gordon Road. In 1891, under the pastorate of Reverend Henry P. Counts, a wooden structure was constructed on Georgia Highway 85 at Line Creek Road; it was struck by lightning and burned to the ground about 1924. The church was rebuilt and dedicated in 1927. Mt. Pilgrim, the oldest Lutheran congregation in Georgia north of Macon, has nurtured several young men to ministry, including Jacob S. Elmore, Muller R. Wingard, Austin Gray, Paul M. Counts, Fulton B. Counts, and his sons Paul and Edward, and it helped plant seeds for several Lutheran congregations in Georgia and Alabama, most notably in 1903 the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Atlanta.