Snapshot of History
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High Point Church in Liberty Township.
BY MIKE AVITT
High Point Methodist Church is well documented, being covered by S. L. Thompson in 1914. Raymond Banner further researched High Point and wrote about it fifteen or twenty years ago. High Point Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1874 and sat five miles east of Wishard Chapel or one mile west of Blackmore Corner. It closed about 1950.
It has been my experience that postcards with hand-written text, like we see this week, are dated 1909 or earlier. Postcards with machine printed text are 1910 or later.
I’ve been using the digitized Ringgold County newspapers on the Internet with varying degrees of success.
One important find was confirmation about Ringgold County’s first Church building. An article in the July 8, 1880 Ringgold Record says Michael Stahl oversaw the construction of Mt. Zion Church, the first in Ringgold County. Although the denomination is not given, I know from research the entire Stahl family were Methodists.
The township is not given in the article, but other accounts say Jefferson Township in 1858 or 1859. This church would have been a log structure and is not to be confused with Mt. Zion Church, built in Riley Township later.
Early congregations met in homes or rural schools. Rural schoolhouses were unoccupied on Sunday and were scattered throughout the county. They were convenient and, more importantly, inexpensive.
The railroads came beginning in 1879, so it seems appropriate that church buildings would be more common in the 1880s. I’ll try to cover some churches that I’ve skipped previously.
The town of Eugene in Jefferson Township had an early church. It was a United Presbyterian Church and was in existence by 1875. The railroads created the towns of Tingley and Shannon City, causing many from Eugene to move to either town. However, the church was still going in early 1894 with Rev. Joseph McNabb in the pulpit.
The United Brethren were a popular denomination 140 years ago and they built a church near Siloam School in 1883. This was about three miles northeast of present-day Benton but the town of Benton did not yet exist.
Middle Fork Church (Methodist) was built in 1886, Fry Chapel (Methodist) in 1887, Wishard Chapel (Methodist) in 1887, and Hickory Grove (Advent Christian) in 1888.
I believe Palestine United Brethren Church was built in 1889, but this is one of the places I had “varying degrees of success.” Palestine was located about 4 miles northeast of Redding. Rev. Lovelace conducted a funeral at Palestine in March 1890, and one report says the church was built in 1889. But, I found very little info on Palestine in the old newspapers.
Churches, like anything else, faced competition. New churches at Eureka, Redding, and Delphos in the 1890s may have lured parishioners to closer churches as travel was very difficult during these years.
We will have more “varying degrees of success” next week.
