History & Heritage
Long before this was a lake, it was a river — and long before it was “Lake Norman of Catawba,” it was home to families whose descendants still live here today.
The Sherrill Family and the Ford
Sherrills Ford takes its name from a crossing point on the Catawba River. Adam and Elizabeth Sherrill arrived from Maryland and settled near the ford in 1747, and their family — one daughter and eight sons — grew into one of the area’s founding lineages. Many Sherrill descendants still live in the community today. The river ford itself disappeared underwater when Lake Norman was created in the 1960s, but the name stuck.
Terrell and the Country Store
Terrell was named for Pinckney Lawson Terrell, a circuit-riding Methodist preacher with ties to the nearby Rehobeth Methodist Church. A post office was established in 1893 at the T.F. Connor store, and the community took Terrell’s name because, as the story goes, he had paid all his debts. The Terrell Historic District — including the Terrell Country Store, built in 1891 and once the hub of trade in the area — is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
From River to Reservoir
Lake Norman was created in the 1960s when Duke Power dammed the Catawba River, forming what’s still the largest man-made lake in North Carolina. That single change reshaped the whole area — turning farmland and river crossings into shoreline, and setting up the slow transformation from quiet river communities to one of the fastest-growing corners of the lake.
Camp Meeting: Older Than the Lake
Every August, this whole area quietly runs on a calendar that’s over 200 years old. Rock Springs Camp Meeting actually started right here in Terrell in 1794 — longer consecutively than any other camp meeting in the country — before settling at its current site in Denver in 1829. Balls Creek Campground, near Maiden, split off from Rock Springs in 1853 after Catawba and Lincoln counties divided; 2026 is its 173rd year. And Motts Grove Camp Meeting happens every year right on Sherrills Ford Road, beside Motts Grove United Methodist Church.
The “tents” aren’t tents at all — they’re simple wooden family structures, many passed down for generations, built around an open-air arbor. It’s not something reorganized each summer; for a lot of local families it’s inherited property and an inherited week on the calendar, going back further than almost anything else still happening in this area today.
Sources: NCpedia, “Camp Meetings” · Lake Norman Publications · Balls Creek Campground history
Have a family story, an old photo, or a correction to something here? Send it our way — this page will keep growing as we hear from more of the families who’ve actually lived this history.