USA > Missouri > History of Platte Presbytery; or, Presbyterianism in northwest Missouri > Part 12
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In 1905, the Mt. Zion Church, near Denver, Har- rison county, reported nineteen resident members, for-
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ty-five in Sabbath school, and property valued at $650. J. E. Carver was Clerk of Session.
The New Market-later the Dearborn-Church was organized September 1, 1866, by Rev. J. L. Riley with the following members: Sarah E. Baty, Catharine Carnard, Ann Eliza Cartwright, Mary Frie, Virginia Frie, Martha Furber, G. W. Gant, Nancy A. Gant, Susan S. Gant, Rebecca Gibbs, Elizabeth Lamar, Fran- ces Lamar, John Lamar, Wm. Lamar, Anah Mason, Carrie Neal, Mary H. Neal, S. D. Neal, Hannah Single- ton and Josie Singleton. John Lamar and S. D. Neal were chosen elders.
J. L. Riley, F. M. Miller, James H. Norman, R. D. Miller and C. B. Powers were among the early pastors. The elders are John Lamar, S. D. Neal, Jerome Mullen- dore, Wm. Litzenberg, Wm. A. Singleton, John Wood- house, Wm. Wilson and James Siner.
Rev. Geo. D. Mullendore writes: "We worshiped with the M. E. people both at New Market and at Dearborn, but at New Market we owned a half inter- est in the house, and at Dearborn they extended the courtesy of their church to us until during the pastor- ate of Rev. Chas B. Powers, we built a joint house, about 1880, with the Christians with whom we held ser- vices, they having the exclusive right of the house one half of every month and we the other half, and we got on well together until we sold out our half to them about two years ago, on account of removals and deaths. We removed from New Market upon the founding of Dearborn, when we sold our property in New Market."
The report for 1905 gave ten resident members, church property valued at $400, and $50 spent in re- pairs. This church since then has been dropped from the roll, after having done a good work and furnished to the church at large one useful minister, Geo. D. Mui- lendore, son of Elder Jerome Mullendore. Mrs. Edith Siner, the last Clerk of Session, being too enfeebled bv
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age for the task, passed the letter of inquiry over to another venerable "Mother in Israel," Mrs. Kathryne (Jerome) Mullendore, who was translated to her hea- venly home by a cyclone, near Hydro, Okla., June 5, 1909. In June, 1908, with trembling hand, she furn- ished most of the above information in the form of full extracts from the Records.
The Osborn Church was organized June 5, 1865, by Rev. E. B. Sherwood with the following members: Sidney J. Brownson, Mrs. Nancy Edie, Thos. J. Edie, Carrie W. Higgins, Mrs. Harriett W. Higgins, Mrs. Alice A Loring and Wm. E. Loring. W. E. Loring was elected elder; and S. J. Brownson, T. J. Edie and W. E. Loring, trustees. A church, twenty by forty feet, was erected in 1869. Later on, S. J. Brownson. Samuel Bouton, Geo. A. Mckinlay and Geo. A. Brown were chosen elders. The church was served by C. W. Hig- gins, J. C. Thornton and James H. Hunter. The last meeting of Session recorded was January 21, 1880. The church was sold in 1893, and the proceeds turned over to the Board of Church Erection.
Always a small church and fatally depleted by re- movals, it did not live in vain, for it gave the church one valuable minister, Geo. A. Mckinlay.
In 1893, there was a Cumberland Church at Osborn, but since that date it has disappeared from the rolls.
The Paint Lick Church, eight or ten miles north of Trenton, was organized early in 1856 by Rev. Timothy Morgan. It had a plain building. It became extinct during the Civil War.
The Minutes of the Synod of Missouri for 1885-7 give Patton as the name of a church in the Presbytery of Platte, with N. C. Griffith, M. D. as its elder, but the name has not been found elsewhere.
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A church was organized at Phelps City by Rev. E. B. Sherwood, September 2, 1869, and in 1870 reported ten members, and fifty in Sabbath school. Of the char- ter and early members only the following are known: Mrs. Bush, Mr. and Mrs. Dort, Miss Ellen Dort, Mr. Osborne, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson and Miss Emma C. Shepperson. Mr. Dort was chosen elder, Mr. Osborne, deacon, and Rev. Luther Dodd became the pastor in 1871 .. Mr. Robinson became elder later. After the death of Mr. Dort, the pastor and a part of the church became discouraged, so that the church, at its own re- quest, was disbanded April 3, 1873. '
Most of the above was furnished, from memory, in March, 1906, by Miss Shepperson, the only surviving charter member.
The Pisgah Church, six or eight miles northwest of Bethany, was organized by Revs. F. B. Dinsmore and D. McRuer, October 17, 1873. In 1874 it reported sixteen members, and Rev. F. B. Dinsmore as pastor. It was disbanded in 1875.
Tradition says that Platte was the name of one of the four churches with which Platte Presbytery, C. P. was organized. Very probably it was the Agency Church, of whose early history we have learned nothing.
Platte Church was organized by Rev. F. Starr, Nov- ember 20, 1853. In 1854 it reported four members, and in 1855, six.
There was a Cumberland Church in Platte City in the sixties. It is mentioned incidentally in the Annals of Platte County.
Pleasant Ridge Church, one mile south-east of Fair- fax, was organized in 1868. In 1905, it reported sixty- three resident members, fifty in Sabbath school, church
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property including a manse $1800, and $140 expended in repairs. S. T. Divinia was the pastor, and W. K. White, Clerk of Session. Present elders W. K. White, W. H. Hindman, Richard White and J. A. Hun- ter, M. D.
A church was organized March 20, 1881 at Ravan- na by Revs. E. B. Sherwood and John Huston, with thirteen members. Hezekiah Snyder and Thos. Clap- ham were the elders, and Jacob Clingingsmith, the deacon. Being inadquately supplied with preaching because of its isolation, it languished, and was dropped from the roll, April 2, 1885.
Richfield Church appears in the Minutes of the General Assembly (O. S.) for 1869, as vacant and having forty members. Its location is an unsolved puzzle.
A New School church was organized at Richmond in February, 1843, by Rev. Edmund Wright. In 1846 it reported thirty members and Elijah P. Noel as pas- tor. Col. John Rice was a very active and prominent elder in it. In 1853, it reported five members, and in 1854, only three.
Nov. 18, 1883, Rev. W. T. Scott and Elder S. A. Gray organized the Rockford Church (near Hale). Dr. W. H. Dice wrote, October, 1905: "Rockford Church had for charter members, John Warnock, Margaret Warnock, Clara Warnock, Bell Frock and Martin Crose and wife. John Warnock was the elder and very devoted to the church." Probably this church was the successor of the Grand River Church organized by Rev. J. D. Beard in 1871. In 1884 it reported eleven mem- bers and two elders. Some of its members joined in the forming of the Tina Church in 1886, and it was disbanded in March, 1887. Its elders were J. War- nock and Stephen Crose.
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Rock House Church, about five miles south of Eas- ton and now extinct, was represented by Elder Abijah Means at the organization of Platte Presbytery (C. P.) in April, 1845.
Rock House Church, (probably in the vicinity of the above) appears in the report of Platte Presbytery (O. S.) for 1859, with seventeen members, and two adult and six infant baptisms, Robert Scott being the pastor.
There was a Cumberland Church at San Antonio in the early sixties, but no particulars have been obtained. It may have been one of the four churches with which Platte Presbytery began, of which Bee Creek, Rock House and Cumberland Ridge (Savannah) are known.
The Shady Grove Church was stricken from the roll by Kansas City Presbytery, April 22, 1908. Rev. James Froman wrote, July, 1908: "Shady Grove Con- gregation was once prominent in religious work. . The church building is still standing, three and a half miles east of Kearney. The congregation nearly all wor- ship at Pratherville now, but have a Basket Meet- ing once a year on the old Camp Ground."
Mrs. Adelia Taylor, Clerk of Session, wrote in June, 1907: "The Tinney Grove Congregation was organ- ized at the Tinney Grove Methodist church, April 30, 1888, by Rev. O. D. Allen. The original members were: Caleb Brown, A. B. Cowsert, M. F. Cowsert, Rosannah Cowsert, Sarah Cowsert, Wm. A. Cowsert, John A. Dixon, Almeda Hampton, B. A. Johnson, H. S. John- son, Adelia Long, Ollie Long, Lucinda Long, S. H. Long, S. F. Petree, Caroline Wingling and Rosinda Wingling ; the ruling elders: A. B. Cowsert, C. Brown, J. A. Dixon, Jos. L. Wilson, John A. Petree, Hedar O. Cowsert and Harvey E. Hanna ; and the ministers: O. D. Allen, E. S. Ragan, James Froman, Geo. W. Haw-
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ley, H. G. King, H. W. Fisher, H. R. Norris, E. M. Wright and L. F. Hayes."
The church house which was valued at $500, in 1905, is located near Braymer. Then there were but nine members, and fewer since. By removals to a rail- road town near, and the giving up of the post office for a rural route, the place ceased to be a center of population and business, and the church was stricken from the roll, July 31, 1908.
A church was organized at Trenton in September or October, 1851, by Rev. S. J. M. Beebe, with six mem- bers. Elder James G. Vincent represented it repeated- ly in Lexington Presbytery. It reported nine members in 1853, and ten, in 1856.
Union Chapel, near Clarksdale, reported, in 1905, thirty resident members, church property valued at $500, and $45 expended in repairs. O. B. Lawliss was the pastor, and J. M. Hayter, Clerk of Session. A. S. McDaniel was the pastor in 1906.
April 24, 1842, Rev. Geo. M. Crawford reported as follows to Lexington Presbytery: "On the sixteenth day of November, 1851, I organized a church in Car- rollton consisting of eight members. Two were elected elders. The above church asks to be taken under care of this Presbytery and to be called the Wacandan Presbyterian Church." (The name is also written Waconda and Wakenda, and it appears in printed records repeatedly, as the Carrollton Church.) James Arter was one of the elders, and Wm. Wallace, who represented the church in Presbytery in October, 1855, was probably the other. In 1855, it reported fifteen members, and the same number in 1859. The Civil War seems to have quenched this little light, as well as many others.
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In 1905, the Watson Church reported eighty-three resident members, fifty in the Sabbath school, and church property, including a manse, valued at $2,000. Rev. W. C. Carter was the pastor, and W. H. Good, Clerk of Session. James M. Bell was pastor in 1906. The present elders are W. H. Good, Marion Good, I. B. Jones, M. D., Sylvester Hall and John Garst. The Sabbath school is very flourishing.
The Westboro Church was organized August 23, 1882 by Revs. B. D. Luther and F. J. Reichert. In 1883 it reported two elders and fourteen members. While it was grouped with Tarkio it prospered, but being left for years without a supply, it died a slow death. In 1892 it reported only eight members. 1
The West Fork Church, near Grant City, in 1905, reported thirty-eight resident members, thirty in Sab- bath school and church property valued at $800. W. O. H. Perry was the pastor and Joseph Simpson, Clerk of Session. S. H. Murray was the pastor in 1906.
Since the first "form" was printed, it has been learned that the West Union Church was about six miles east of Weston. At one time it had thirty-three members, but Weston having become a large and thriv- ing place, the people and business were drawn to it.
The Wheeling Church was organized October 20, 1869, by Rev. E. B. Sherwood, with twelve members. Isaac A. White was probably the first elder. The fail- ure of the town to become an important railroad point explains the final decadence of the church. A lot was given to the church at the beginning, but no building was ever erected. The membership reached twenty- nine in 1872 but soon the existence of the church be- came a struggle which was bravely kept up till its dis-
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bandment in 1896. Peter P. Peugh, the last elder, stood by it till the end.
The Willow Brook Church was organized some time in 1861 by Rev. Robert Scott. Its Records having been destroyed by accident, but little of its early history can be given. Its house of worship was located about twelve miles southeast of St. Joseph. Alex. Smiley was one of the first elders, and John Douglass was probably another. In 1869 it reported only six mem- bers, but in 1871, nineteen. Though it never became larger, it maintained a flourishing Sabbath school for a long time, and was not formally disbanded till April 20, 1893.
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Early Pioneers.
It is due to the living who are specially mentioned here and elsewhere, to say that such sketches (except as found in the Ministerial Register) are given with- out either their knowledge or consent, and the only regret is that more could not be given, for the Church has a right to know something of and to appreciate its worthies before they are called away to higher service.
The fact that in many cases the data concerning the early pioneers is disappointingly meager, has not prevented the giving of that little. For the informa- tion we are able to give about the early pioneers of the Cumberland Church, we are chiefly indebted to Rev. O. D. Allen.
It is very noticeable that the early pioneers were not only "home missionaries," but also largely "for- eign missionaries" in the sense of laboring among the Indians. Also, that they were largely self-supporting, often working with their own hands as did the Apostle Paul.
Before proceeding to individual sketches, a few facts of early history worthy of preservation, furn- ished by Rev. O. D. Allen, will be given.
"Rev. Henry Renick moved from Clay county into Platte somewhere between 1838 and 1840. About that time he organized at the Miller school house, what was first called the Bee Creek congregation. About the same time Rev. John Price came from Logan county, Ky., and settled in the neighborhood; and Revs. Jesse R. Allen and Moses Allen, coming from Calloway county, settled in the same parts. Rev Hugh R. Smith from Clay county came up in 1841 and set- tled where the town of Wallace now is."
Rev. O. D. Allen, the Nestor of Platte Presbytery (C. P.), is of Scotch-Irish ancestry and "Presbyterian
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all the way back." In 1851, before he was twenty- one, he was sent on a missionary tour in Northwestern Missouri and Southwestern Iowa, and his whole life has been emphatically a missionary one. "Abundant in labors, " " a most self-denying Christian soldier, he has ever served where the need was the greatest and the fight the hottest. Full of years and honors, he is still an indefatigable worker.
Major Alexander J. Calhoun, who was born in Wil- son Co., Tenn., November 10, 1814, was the son of Thomas Calhoun, a greatly revered and eminently pious minister of the gospel, who was born in North Carolina and married Mary Robertson Johnson in 1808. In 1837, Major Calhoun moved to Columbus, Miss., where he engaged in merchandising, and in 1845, to Clay county, where he farmed and taught school till 1853, when he was elected Circuit Clerk, which position he held till 1865, and again from 1874 till 1878.
"Major Calhoun was a devout Christian. He was long a leading member and elder in the Walnut Grove (Bethlehem) Cumberland Church, and attended ser- vices there up to his last illness. He was one of the kindliest, sweetest tempered of men, and all his paths were those of peace. In manners he was refined, gentle and gracious. His word was his bond. His purse was open to the needy at all times, and he could deny no one a favor ; hence he suffered often from his surety- ships. He goes with the blessing of all, and leaves a deliciously fragrant memory."
He was a remarkably active and vigorous man, never needing or using spectacles, and passed the ninetieth milestone on life's journey, going to his rest and reward, November 22, 1904.
Rev. Geo. M. Crawford appears first (in the records we have) as a member of Lexington Presbytery at its organization, November 17, 1841. He took part in the organization of the Arrow Rock, Lexington, Tabo,
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Waconda and Plum Grove churches. In 1853, he was the oldest member of the Presbytery, but he continued to labor till his death, June 5, 1858.
Rev. Henry Eppler, son of Jonathan Eppler and Elsie Thomas, was born December 6, 1808, at Seviers- ville, Tenn. His parents removed to Ft. Hampton, Ala., in 1812, and from there to Randolph County, Mo., in 1822, and later to Carroll county. He studied at Ric t- mond College, took theology under Rev. Daniel Patton. and was (undoubtedly) licensed and ordained by Barnett Presbytery. He married Elizabeth Clark, set- tled first in Clay county, and removed to Andrew Coun- ty in the fall of 1837, locating on Dillon Creek. Evi- dently he was largely a self-supporting home mission- ary, depending much on farming and teaching. After a very useful life, his work closed at Flag Springs, October 1, 1888.
Elder Wm. Jack, born in Tennessee, March 19, 1778, was an influential citizen of Lexington, Mo., where he settled about 1820. He was converted after he was forty years of age and became a devout and useful ruling elder. He raised a large family who were con- spicious fifty years ago. In the early settlement of the Platte Purchase he moved to Platte City where he lived many years in usefulness and honor, and died June 8, 1864, loved and regretted.
Mr. Paxton says (Annals of Platte County) : "In 1837 the family moved to Platte and after a few years settled at Platte City. They were a father and mother in Israel, and enjoyed the esteem and veneration of all men. I knew him only in his hoary age, when his . whole soul was absorbed in holy contemplations. T procured for him a large-print Testament, and every pleasant day, with the sacred volume under his arm, he would totter to the Presbyterian church, and at a south window, spend an hour in reading, contempla- tion and prayer."
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Rev. Samuel King was one of the founders of the Cumberland Church. He moved to Clay county in the fall of 1824 or 1825, settling where Shady Grove church now is, four miles east of Kearney. In the autumn of 1833, he moved into Johnson county where he resided until his death in 1842. He was said to be a very earnest, powerful and evangelical preacher, doing a wonderful amount of good wherever he went. He preached to the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, and it was under his preaching that the mother of the Rev. Israel Folsom, a native Indian preacher, was converted. His preaching sometimes resulted in the conviction and conversion of the interpreter. Under the direction of the General Assembly he traveled extensively through the states of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky, spending at one time twenty months away from his home and family in these long missionary tours. From the foundation . which he laid among the Choctaws, a thousand of that tribe once belonged to the church.
Elder Robert Lynn was born in Ballymena, Ireland in 1825. After spending twenty-two years in Canada he came to Missouri in 1868. He has always been a zealous, untiring missionary worker.
Rev. J. M. Morrison writes: "To Mr. Lynn more than any one else is due the organization of the Pres- byterian Church of Rockport. At his suggestion-I may say request-I commenced the work which event- uated in the organization of that church. He was the first elder, and the leader in all the branches of its work. He is a man of earnest piety, pronounced opin- ions and indomitable energy. His life is beyond criti- cism and is a recommendation of religion. He has the good-will, esteem and confidence of all, and so far as I know, the ill-will of none."
-. Rev. Duncan McRuer did not come to Missouri from Canada till 1871, yet he was truly a pioneer in the sec- tion of the country where he located. He was not -11
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afraid of work or hardship, even starting out in the face of a blizzard to fill an appointment.
A co-presbyter writes : "Rev. Duncan McRuer was a large man in every way. His large head was made massive in appearance by closely curling dark hair and beard. His father was a Highlander who intoned his reading of the Bible and his prayers at family worship because it was not reverent to speak to God or about Him in the tones of ordinary speech. Mr. Mc Ruer used to regret that he had never been able to entirely rid himself of that habit. He preached with a small Bible open in his hand and with few gestures; his round, full voice rising and falling in regular ca- dence like the waves of the sea.
"He was a clear, strong thinker, and when roused, an eloquent, impressive speaker. His field was Har- rison county and he seldom missed an appointment, though Akron was twenty-two miles from his home. His traveling companion was a large mule bearing the familiar but unpopular name of Cain.
"He loved to discuss theology. As chairman of the Home Mission Committee, it was my pleasure once to spend several days with him riding over his great par- ish and digging into the deep things of God. He closed the interview-'I'm glad to call you my friend, Bul- lard, but ye'r no sound ! ye'r no sound !' "'
Elder John Meyer was born in Baden, Germany, December 29, 1822. With his parents he came first to Ohio, and then to Holt Co., Mo. He was converted while serving as farmer in the Iowa and Sac Indian Mission at Highland, Kans. After some years of mis- sionary service there he settled at New Point. He was one of the charter members and elders of the Oregon Church and a regular attendant, coming the long dix- tance with an ox team. Later he was a charter member and elder of the New Point Church also. One beauti- ful trait of his active, energetic and consecrated char- acter was his loyalty to his pastors. Only once in his life did he criticise one of them, even in his own family,
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and that was a great surprise to them. He was happily mated, marrying a Moravian lady. All their thirteen children became Presbyterians-one of them, William, a minister.
Rev. F. Mitchell Miller came to Andrew county In the spring of 1843, when his father, Wm. A. Miller moved there. He was converted at the age of seven- teen or eighteen, and put himself under the care of Platte Presbytery at its organization, April, 1845. He was licensed April, 1849, at the Savannah camping ground, and for two years labored as a home mission- ary in Southwestern Iowa and Northwestern Missouri. September 6, 1848, he married Nancy E. McDonald, and his father died soon after, leaving him the care of his mother and three younger brothers. In earlier years he hired a hand for the farm and missionated nearly six months, teaching a school in the fall and winter for sixteen consecutive winters. He served the church at San Antonio for many years, but was very active all his life as an evangelist and organizer of churches.
Rev. Robert D. Morrow, D. D., was the young man whom the Women's Missionary Society of Kentucky sent as missionary to the Territory of Missouri in 1817 or 1818. No particulars can be given of his missionary work in all this region, but he was a very logical, virile and wonderfully effective preacher. In 1850, he was elected President of Chapel Hill College, an institution previously founded by A. W. Ridings (who had been a student in Chapel Hill College, in North Carolina) and legally transferred to the Missouri Synod (C. P.). He was a very clear theologian, and many young men were trained in theology by him, both before and during his connection with the College.
None of the early pioneers has left a more notable mark than the Hon. George S. Park. Born in rugged Vermont, near Grafton, October 22, 1811, a farmer boy, with limited educational advantages, at fifteen he start-
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ed for the West, walking all the way from Saratoga Springs to Central Ohio. After teaching school there for a year, he went to Illinois on a pony purchased hy his earnings, and later entered College at Jacksonville. His eyes giving out for study during his Junior year, he had to leave. While teaching in Calloway Co., Mo., in 1833-4, he was converted under the ministry of the sainted Dr. David Nelson, and made public profession of his faith in the Presbyterian church.
He was one of the first to volunteer his services to the young Republic of Texas under Gen. Houston, and was in the battle of San Antonio de Bexar in 1836. But he led a "charmed life" for the Lord had high service in store for him in the future. He was sent from the Alamo the day before its fatal investment as a messenger to the army of the North at Goliad. After its honorable surrender he was among the 330 doomed prisioners, stripped to their shirts and trousers, treach- erously marched out in divisions, drawn out in line on the bank of the Coleto River, and mercilessly shot down, by the orders of Santa Ana. With two others he dropped at the flash, and lying quietly till the firing was over, he plunged into the river and swam across amid the foam of a tempest of bullets. After weeks of night travel he reached the settlements in the extreme north, torn, bleeding and almost naked. In 1837 he took a claim at the mouth of the Platte River, returned to Vermont, and selling his small patrimony there, brought a stock of goods from New York City, pur- chased the site of Parkville and opened a store. He soon became the leading business man of the com- munity. He laid out Parkville in 1844, and in 1854 erected the stone hotel which became the home of Park College in 1875. A volume would be needed to give the details of his most enterprising, troublous and success- ful career, but some notice of his important religious and educational activities will be found elsewhere.
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