Shapshots of History: Benton Church
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Christian Church in Benton about 100 years ago.
By Mike Avitt
The first church built in Benton was the Methodist Episcopal in 1890.
The Benton Christian Church was built in 1897. But I found two Benton churches built in 1894 and 1895; a Seventh Day Adventists and a United Brethren.
The Seventh Day Adventists Church was dedicated April 28, 1895 and was probably built from the fall of 1894 to the spring of 1895. The United Brethren Church was built in 1895-96. I have very little info on those churches after that.
Neither of these churches appear on the 1915 plat map and the churches were built after the 1894 plat map so I don’t even know if they were in the city limits.
To my knowledge, this was the first appearance of a Seventh Day Adventists congregation in Ringgold County. They would make second appearance in the summer of 1953 at the Flowery Glen schoolhouse one and a half miles north of Mount Ayr on US 169. George Stone of Osceola was the preacher there.
Flowery Glen, Liberty Township No. 9, was still being used as a school at this time. The last notice I found for these services was in July 1955 with W. G. Zima as the pastor.
The United Brethren was an early Ringgold County denomination with mostly rural churches. Beaconsfield was one town with a U. B. Church, that being built in 1885 and I believe was the first church building in that town. Maloy was another.
Palestine United Brethren Church was located in section five of Middle Fork Township and was built in 1889.
This location was about two and a half miles south of Delphos or two and a half miles northeast of Redding.
This church, like most rural churches, did not seem to have a full-time minister but was on the Blockton circuit and received supply pastors from Blockton. Palestine also participated in most Middle Fork Union Services which usually consisted of an all-denomination Sunday School.
By the 1910s, Palestine was no longer holding services and appears to have been dismantled in 1919.
There is brief mention of the Wesleyans and the Campbellites in the May 1894 Redding column. The Wesleyan Church broke away from the Methodist Church before Ringgold County was organized in 1855. Wesleyans were named after John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church.
Campbellites were named after Alexander and Thomas Campbell who were leaders in the Disciples of Christ Church.
Campbellite was a slang term which the Disciples of Christ rejected. I saw one other brief mention of Campbellites in another newspaper and never saw that name mentioned again.
A congregation of Church of the Nazarene was established in Knowlton in 1922 but the only Nazarene Church I’m aware of was in Diagonal. It operated until about 1966.
As early as 1893, Free Methodist preachers were sharing the Gospel in rural schoolhouses in Poe and Lotts Creek Townships. Their church in Mount Ayr was built in 1951 and I know of no others but services were held in the Caledonia vicinity for decades and decades.
In April of 1955, the Community Bible Church was organized at Redding with Merton Knapp as Superintendent. J. C. Galloway, Ross Keith, and Gifford Knapp were elected to the board of trustees. Dedication of the new “Interdenominational” church was held April 24, 1955.
The one-story brick building on the northeast corner of the square was purchased for a church building from Mr. and Mrs. George Hawk.
