One of Alabama's earliest Presbyterian congregations, this church was founded in September 1821 by the Reverend John Allen as The Church of Nazareth and was renamed Courtland Presbyterian Church in 1833. Its first meeting house, just west of today's church on the site of the existing manse, burned in the 1850s. Construction of the present edifice began about 1859 but was not completed until 1868 because of the Civil War, and its bricks were made at the nearby Daniel Gilchrist plantation. Following a serious fire in 1957, the church was extensively refurbished. Architecturally, it reflects the mingling of classical and Italianate influences common in the late 1850s. Its interior follows a plan popular among many Protestant congregations of the time, placing the main sanctuary on the second floor with meeting and Sunday school rooms below. The original stained glass windows, all but two of which were destroyed by fire in 1957, reportedly came from Italy, and a melodeon, then later a pipe organ, provided early musical accompaniment for congregational singing.