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Madison
Christian Church Destroyed by Fire
“The
above is an excellent picture of the Madison Christian church
which was destroyed by fire on November 26, 1910. The
building cost about $3,000, labor and material being very cheap at
that time. This building was dedicated December 6, 1896, and
therefore only lacked ten days of having been in use for fourteen
years when destroyed. Elder J.M. Smith, now living at
Carrollton, was the pastor and led the way in building this
church. The building committee was composed of Dr. J.T.
Atterbury, H.C. Baker, D.J. Cunningham and J.H. Lightner. The
building was dedicated by Elder F.M. Rains. Over (700) people
were present and $1,900 was subscribed.
The
Madison church was organized in the dwelling of Martin Grove, at
the west edge of Madison, October 24, 1841 with about a dozen
members. All of these have now passed away, J.P. Grove and
Mrs. Ursula Bassett being the last of the faithful little band to
pass to their reward. In 1850 a church house was built on the
site just west of where the Baptist church now stands and in the
year 1873 a new house was built on the site where the last church
home burned.
In
the 70 years since its organization the church membership has
grown to over 300 and on Sunday they will dedicate a new church
home that has cost $11,000. Among the pastors of the church
of recent years are Elders William Featherston, J.M. Smith, J.B.
Hewgley, J.B. Briner, J.B. Corwine, Elder Fergerson, J.M. Bailey
and E.J. Lampton. Elders Featherston and Corwine have died in
the past three years and Elder Hewgley died some years ago.”
Source:
Newspaper article and photo from unknown source with handwritten
date of Dec 1, 1910; submitted by Don Duvall. |
