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The first minute of this church is: “Saturday
before the fourth Lord’s Day in November, 1836, the church met after
worship and proceeded to business by appointing Benjamin Bundy,
Moderator, and Zepheniah Hart, Clerk.” At this
meeting, articles of faith, seven in number, were adopted. The following
is the fifth article: “We believe that Christ bore the sins of all
the elect and those only, in his own body on the tree, and that the redemption
obtained by the blood of Christ is special and particular, viz., it was
only intended for the elect of God and sheep of Christ, as they only share
the special benefits thereof.” One of the original rules adopted
by the church was: “Members are to be received by a unanimous vote,
and all other business to be determined by a majority.”
At the first meeting, a committee, consisting of Benjamin Bundy,
John Bonham and Thompson Lam, was appointed
to make a division of the property belonging to the original church between
the two branches into which it was divided. This committee afterward recommended
that the Western Church retain the old church and all the property appertaining
thereto, except the communion ware, and pay to the Eastern Church $750;
and that the Eastern Church have the use of the meeting-house one-half
of the time until it could erect a new house of worship , this time, however,
not to extend beyond January 1, 1838.
On the Saturday before the fourth Lord’s Day, in July, 1837, a
council met for the purpose of regularly constituting and organizing the
church. There were present from Bethel, Hezekiah Stites,
Nathan Clark and Josias Lambert; from
Clear Creek, David Williams; from Muddy Creek, D.
Laymon, R. Witham and D. Manning;
from Elk Creek, Joseph Kelly and S. M. Potter;
from Tapscott, James Barkalow, Thomas Shinn
and John Cox; from Fairfield, Elder Thomas Childers.
After mature deliberation, the council constituted the church on the articles
of faith adopted by the congregation in November, 1836. On the same day,
the church elected its first officers: Zepheniah Hart
and Thomas Lamb, Deacons; J. B. Drake,
Treasurer, and Samuel Drake, Clerk. The church has had
but two clerks in its whole history. Samuel Drake was
the |
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church clerk from 1837 until his death, June 16, 1865; E.
S. Culy, from 1865 until the present time.
Rune R. Coon preached for the church for more than a
year and was succeeded by Elders Hezekiah Stites and
Samuel Williams, who were joint pastors for about twenty
years. Elder Williams was pastor for about thirty years.
The pastors have generally been men of little education, but some of them
have had good natural abilities.
The church occupied the old house of worship until 1860, when a new brick
church was built, sixty feet long and forty-five feet wide – a plain
and substantial edifice, erected at a cost of $4,031. It was first occupied
in October, 1860, and is the present place of worship.
In 1837, the church had seventy-two members. Its membership is now small,
and there is regular preaching but one Sunday each month. The whole number
of members received from the organization to September, 1881, was 163,
of which number more than one-half were received during the first ten
years of its existence. Nine persons have been received into the church
during the last ten years. Although they are few in numbers, the members
show no disposition to falter in their rigid adherence to their original
articles of faith. They claim to be the original and regular Baptists.
They look with disfavor on Sunday schools, missionary, temperance and
tract societies, and regard the doctrine of a general atonement as the
heresy which first made the gulf between the schools of Baptists and which
still keeps the gulf open.
The following are the names of the pastors of the church. In its early
history, there were generally two pastors in charge of the congregation
at the same time: Elder Rune R. Coon, November, 1836,
to April, 1838; Elder Hezekiah Stites, 1838 to 1857;
Elder Samuel Williams, 1839 to 1868;
Elder William Dodd, 1862 to 1864; Elder John
A. Thompson, January, 1869; died August 24, 1875; Elder
Daniel Hess, April, 1876, to April, 1879; Elder George
Tussing, April, 1879, to November, 1879; Elder J. A.
Thomas, November, 1879, to November, 1880; Elder
Daniel Hess, December, 1880. |