Cherryville Township is a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in northwestern

Gaston County Gaston County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 227,943. The county seat is Gastonia. Dallas served as the original county seat from 1846 until 1911. Gaston County is included in the ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 16,500. It includes the incorporated city of Cherryville, the inactive incorporated town of Dellview, the

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

of Tryon, and a portion of the town of High Shoals (most of which is in Dallas Township). It is represented on the Gaston County Board of Commissioners by Allen Fraley of Cherryville.

Demographics

Cherryville Township had a reported population in the 2020 United States Census of 16,714. This includes 6,078 people in the incorporated City of Cherryville. The racial makeup of the township was 83.79%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 6.91%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.32% Native American, 0.52% Asian, 2.33% from other races, and 6.11% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 5.03% of the population. Voting-age population figures from the 2000 Census are reported for each of the township's five voting precincts. Three of the precincts are in the northwestern part of the township near Cherryville, one in the south near Tryon, and one in the northeast near Landers Chapel Methodist Church. The township's total voting-age population was 8507, or itemized by area: * Cherryville area election precincts - population 5399 * Tryon precinct - pop. 1524 * Landers Chapel precinct - pop. 1584

Geography

Cherryville Township occupies a total area of . Pasour Mountain, a

monadnock An inselberg or monadnock ( ) is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa, a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, an ...

ridge and local high point at elevation , forms the boundary between Cherryville Township and Dallas Township to the east. Cherryville Township lies within six watersheds. The northwest corner of the township is in the Buffalo Creek watershed and the area southwest of Cherryville in the watershed of Muddy Fork Creek (itself a tributary of Buffalo Creek). These watersheds are in the Broad River catchment basin and most of their area is in Cleveland County. Highway 274 / Mountain Street generally follows the watershed separating the catchment basins of the Broad and Catawba rivers. Areas north of Cherryville are in the Indian Creek watershed, drained by Mill Creek, Lick Fork Creek and an unnamed tributary of Indian Creek. Indian Creek is a tributary of the

South Fork Catawba River The South Fork Catawba River (better known as the South Fork River) begins south of Hickory, North Carolina just northwest of the intersection of US Highway 321 and North Carolina Highway 10, at the confluence of the Henry Fork and Jacob For ...

, entering the river near Laboratory, North Carolina. Most of central and eastern Cherryville Township is in the Beaverdam Creek watershed, drained by the -long Beaverdam Creek and its -long tributary Little Beaverdam Creek. Beaverdam Creek is a tributary of the

, entering the river near High Shoals. The southern section of the township is in the Long Creek watershed. Long Creek flows east through Bessemer City,

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

, and Gastonia before emptying into the South Fork Catawba River in Ranlo. Finally, a small area in the far northeastern corner of the township is in the Hoyle Creek watershed.

Community services

Fire protection in unincorporated areas of the township in provided by the Hughs Pond

Volunteer Fire Department A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respo ...

(VFD) in areas northwest of Cherryville, Waco Community Fire Department (of Cleveland County) southwest of Cherryville
Crouse VFD
(of Lincoln County) northeast of Cherryville, Tryonota VFD southeast of Cherryville, High Shoals VFD in the northeast corner of the township, an
Agricultural Center VFD
in areas along the eastern boundary of the township.

Education

Most of Cherryville Township is in the Cherryville High School attendance district. Students in southern parts of the township go to Bessemer City High School and far eastern parts to North Gaston High School in

Religious life

Saint Mark's Lutheran Church (ELCA), located about east of the City of Cherryville, is one of the oldest churches in the township and is among the older Lutheran congregations in the entire Piedmont area (and in the Lutheran Synod of North Carolina). It was originally organized in 1790 as Beaver Dam Lutheran Church and located at a site about east of the present location. The first congregants were immigrants from southern Germany. The congregation moved to its present site in 1858 and changed the church's name to St. Marks. The cemetery at the original site was restored in 1992. Mount Zion Baptist Church, located northwest of Cherryville, is the oldest Baptist church in the township. It was organized on October 7, 1857. The site had been the location of a Presbyterian meeting house called Anthony's Meeting House, established on May 18, 1807. The meeting house later became an inter-denominational place of worship for Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Baptists, called Hebron Meeting House. Other rural churches in Cherryville Township include Zion Hill Baptist Church, Oak Grove AME Zion Church, Shady Grove Baptist Church (organized in 1881), Iglesia Bautista Hispana, Creekside Community Church (Tryon), Concord United Methodist Church (Tryon), Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, Mount Beulah Baptist Church (organized 1916), Sunnyside Baptist Church, Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church, and Landers Chapel United Methodist Church.

Historic properties

Cherryville Township has three sites designated as Gaston County Historic Properties. The Tryon County Courthouse site near the Tryon Community was the location of a courthouse at the time of the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

. Bethel Lutheran Church in the eastern part of the township dates to 1893. The cemetery, school, and church building at Landers Chapel United Methodist Church in the northeastern part of the township date to 1875, 1912, and 1925, respectively.Gaston County Historic Preservation Commission Year End Report 2006
, Gaston County official government website. Retrieved on August 3, 2008.

References

{{authority control Townships in Gaston County, North Carolina Townships in North Carolina