Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/261

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 201 Perry county. Members were received there in 1807. Among them was Thomas Donohoe, who afterward became a preacher. This con- gregation of members seems to have disap- peared after the year 1815. Donohoe and, perhaps some of the other members, then joined a church called Barren church in the same vicinity. This church was constituted in 1816 at the house of Jesse Evans. It soon disappeared, also, and was succeeded by an- other church known as Hepzibah. The second organization constituted by Bethel was that at St. Michaels. This was in October, 1812. On the same day John Parrar was obtained as a minister. He was a mem- ber of this congregation. In 1814 this con- gregation was organized into a church known as Providence church, and Farrar became its pastor. In January, 1813, a committee was sent from Bethel to organize a congregation on Saline creek. This soon became a church and seems to have been united, later, with Barren church and .still later with Hepzibah. In 1813 there were twenty-three members of Bethel church who lived about twenty-five miles south of Fredericktown. In 1814 they were organized into a church called St. Fran- cois. A church was organized on Turkey creek in 1815. There had previously been a num- ber of members of Bethel church living in that vicinity. In June, 1820, an organization was estab- lished on Apple creek, near Oak Ridge, and it was formed into a church in September of that year. The committee which had charge of the organization of the church was com- posed of Elders T. P. Greene. James Williams, and J. K. Gile, and Isaac Sheppard, Benjamin Thompson, Abraham Randol, Thomas Eng- lish and Benjamin Hitt. In June, 1821, it was resolved to constitute a church in the Big Bend. The church so organized was called Ebenezer and was sit- uated near the site of Egypt Mills. On May 11, 1822, fourteen members of Bethel church were dismissed for the purpose of organizing Hebron church, five miles south- east of Jackson. These members so dis- missed, were, most of them, of the Randol, Poe and Hitt families. Seven members of Bethel were dismissed in April, 1824, and they constituted a church at Jackson. In the period from the organization of the church in 1806 to 1824, nine church were con- stituted thi'ough the efforts of Bethel church. Of these nine churches, only two seem to have survived to the present date. They are Prov- idence church at Fredericktown and the Jack- son church. The ministers of Bethel church from its foundation were David Greene, 1806 to 1809 ; Wilson Thompson, 1812 to 1814; Thomas Stephens, 1817; Thomas P. Greene, 1818 to 1826; Benjamin Thompson, 1826 to 1853; Jolm Canterbury, 1853 to 1861, and Joel Foster, 1866. David Greene, who organized the church, had spent some years as a minister in the Carolinas. Pie loved the life of the frontier, and moved from Carolina to Kentucky, where he preached among the frontier settlers of that date. In 1805. as we have said, he visited Missouri and stopped for a time in the Ty- wappity Bottom. There were some Baptists living in the neighborhood, and he preached to them and organized a church. The mem- bers of this church were Henry Cockerham, Jolm Baldwin, William Ross and a few others. After residing in this settlement for a few months. Elder Greene paid a visit to the vi- cinity of Jackson, but after preaching for a