BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, Whiteland

The Bethany Presbyterian Church was organized September, 1833, by Rev. David Monfort and William Sickles, pursuant to an order from the Indianapolis Presbytery. The following are the names of those who petitioned for an organization: A. V. and Emma Banta, Jane, Jane Ann, Mary, and Francis Dobbins, John Fitzpatrick, Thomas, L. R., Samuel C., Elizabeth, James H., Archibald C. and Polly R. Graham, Samuel G. and Jane Henderson.  The organization was effected at the residence of Lewis Graham, a short distance from the present site of Whiteland, and at the first meeting the following persons additional to those enumerated, were received into membership: A. Banta, Adaline Dobbins, Allen D. and Elizabeth Graham.  For about four years services were regularly held in a school-house, three quarters of a mile southeast of Whiteland, and at the end of that time, a building for the especial use of the church, was erected, about two miles northeast of the village.  This was a frame edifice, 30x40 feet in size, and answered well the purposes for which it was intended, until 1866.  In that year a beautiful brick buiding, 40x60 feet in size, was erected in the village of Whiteland, at a cost of $4,000.  A neat parsonage was built in 1875, and the church property is now among the best in the county.  The following ministers have sustained the pastoral relation to the church: Revs. William Sickles, B. F. Woods, J. Q McKeehan, James Gilchrist, J. G. Williamson, J. B. Logan, John H. Harris, William H. Hyatt, and the present incumbent, Rev. H. L. Dickerson.
 

Banta, D.D.. History of Johnson County, Indiana 1888 . Chicago, IL: Brant & Fuller, 1888.
Transcribed by Cheryl Zufall Parker