Rodney’s most famous symbol of antebellum prosperity is this Federal-style church, one of the finest outside of Natchez when it was completed. Fronted by an ornate wrought-iron fence, raised on a stepped base, and facing west toward the river, the church has its back to a bluff that holds the Rodney Cemetery and Confederate earthworks. The red brick building’s three-bay gabled facade (in Flemish bond) curves up to form a base for an octagonal, frame, bell tower topped by a small flared dome. Slender molded pilasters flank the twin entrances above which are delicate fanlights. A cannonball embedded in the upper wall is a product of later fanciful renovations. On the north wall is a relatively unusual exterior entrance for slaves leading to the gallery. The interior meeting house arrangement is mostly reconstructed, with two aisles dividing three sections of gated pews and the raised pulpit in the west end. The building was restored in 1969 under new owners, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, but sandblasting and repointing allowed moisture inside, which was discovered in a 1990 restoration and led to a removal of interior plaster. Remoteness, lack of maintenance, and increased flooding from the Mississippi River threaten the building’s future.
Across the street is the two-story frame Masonic Lodge (c. 1890), and one block west is the wood former Mt. Zion Baptist Church No. 1, built c. 1850 and combining Gothic arches, a Greek Revival frontispiece, and an octagonal belfry. One block north of the Presbyterian church, the Tassistro House (1840s) is a one-story frame Greek Revival planter’s cottage. An undercut gallery on rectangular box columns shelters the five-bay facade and its pedimented windows. One-quarter mile south of Rodney Road, the wooden Greater Mt. Zion Baptist Church (c. 1900), built for an African American congregation, commands a bluff above the road. It gains further height from a raised brick pier foundation; twin square towers flank the central double-leaf entrance.