The influence of Barton W. Stone's "Christian church" or "church of Christ" began in West Tennessee with the mid-1820s migration to Carroll and Henderson Counties of several families who were members of the old Christian Union Church (now the Church of Christ, Gamaliel, Ky.) and Old Mulkey (Mill Creek Church) in Monroe County, Ky. (originally Barren County). The Church of Christ at Roan's Creek began with the worship meetings of seven people from the Gist, Pinkley, Mitchell, Holmes and McWhorter families. All of these names can be found in the records of Old Christian Union and Mill Creek in Kentucky before 1825 when the Roan's Creek Church began. Probably some of the families settled in Henderson County. Christopher Gist, a charter member, used the post offices at Pleasant Exchange and Red Mound when reporting religious activities to publications.
CHRISTOPHER GIST, Red-Mount [sic] Ten. May 28 - About 12 years ago there was a congregation organized in this neighborhood, called Roan's creek church, with six or sever members. I was one of that number. We agreed together to obey the Lord in all his commands as far as our knowledge of those commands extended. 1
The most significant activity reported was the annual camp meeting at Roan's Creek, conducted from 1832 until the Civil War. The first notice appeared in Barton W. Stone's Christian Messenger in 1832 (page 94) listing meetings in West Tennessee including one "at Guess's, Carroll co Tn 1st [Lord's day] in September." The camp meeting attracted numerous preachers from Western Tennessee and Kentucky as well as Northern Alabama. Large crowds gathered every October, coming in some cases many miles to attend great traditional camp meetings. Roan's Creek exerted a strong, lasting influence radiating to other communities and spawning other churches, e. g. Christian Chapel, Holly Hill and Stray Leaf (Mt. Pisgah) in Henderson County; Williams Chapel and Christian Chapel and Huntingdon in Carroll County.
Several writers have mentioned the radiating influence of this pioneer church in West Tennessee. First, David Lipscomb, editor of the Gospel Advocate, Nashville, Tenn. who preached in 1874 seemed impressed with this historic rural congregation:
"The Roan's Creek Church not only has a large membership now, but she has sent out many colonies, some around her, at Christian Chapel and Huntingdon and other points not now remembered, others, further West. The congregations here were large, too large. Even during the week, they were larger than we like to address. It required too much of a strain upon the voice."2
Two local writers, W. N. Abernathy and J. B. Brecheen, both having first hand acquaintance and association with Roan's Creek and Clarksburg also noted the influence from this earliest Church of Christ in West Tennessee. Abernathy wrote just after the turn of the century that
"It is not known just how many persons have been baptized at this place, but is is safe to say that the number would reach two thousand. It is estimated that Brother John W. Johnson, who is a member of this congregation and has preached for it for eighteen years, first and last, has baptized at least five hundred persons. Some six or eight congregations in this and adjoining counties are the direct offspring of this one."3
J. B. Brecheen's article listed ten churches which grew out of Roan's Creek.
"From this congregation many other congregations have sprung, among which are Williams Chapel, Wildersville, Hickory Plains, Obion Chapel, Trezevant, Huntingdon, Christian Chapel, Clarksburg, Lexington, and Hare's Mill."4
The early records found by this author, indicate that two of the earliest preachers to visit Roan's Creek were Samuel DeWhitt and John Mulkey from the two churches in Kentucky mentioned above. The first local preacher was Mansel Babb, evidently in the mid 1830s. This rural church also produced her own preachers Christopher H. Gist, James Holmes, James Gilliland, T. E. Scott and John W. Johnson.
A small record book kept by the clerks of the church, document Antioch's beginning and much of the history. Henry S. Wood, along with John B. Davis, served as "Elder pro tem" at Holly Hill, a temporarily capacity in 1871, but Elder Wood remained a member at Christian Chapel. Wood evidently moved to Holly Hill church at reorganization in 1879. The following entry from Christian Chapel records documents the beginning of "Antioc", or Holly Hill all the charter members of Holly Hill formerly worshipped at Christian Chapel.
---The Undernamed Brethren & Sisters Met at Antioc Meeting house seven miles north east of Lexington Henderson Co Tenn on Saturday before Lords second day in July 1871 and organized in to a church capasity by appointing officers here follows the names of Disciples 5
Daniel Small - 1867}right hand of fellowship
John Small - 1866}immersed
William Roberts - 1866}on confession from the Baptist..Letter
Rachel Small - 1867}right hand of fellowship
Eliza A Roberts - 1866}immersed
Nancy J Small - 1867}immersed
David C. Altom - }"received the right hand of fellowship=on the 3rd Sunday in July 1867"
Arry Wilkerson - }"Recd right hand of fellowship August 1869"
Ann McCarrell - }"immersed and Reced Right hand of fellowship on Monday after the Third lords Day in August 1869"
Burrel Wilkerson - }"immersed and Reced Right hand of fellowship on Monday after the Third lords Day in August 1869"
Levi Burkett - }Made the confession and was immersed by Elder W.A.Johnson and Received the Right hand of fellowship October the 16th 1870"
Matilda C. Burkett - }"Made the confession and was immersed By Elder H. S. Wood November the 9th 1870 Reced Right hand of Fellowship April the 23rd 1871"
Sarah Dickerson - }Oct 1867 "received the right hand of fellowship"
Note: Only the names occur in this entry, but following each name and "}" I have added other quotes from the record, which show how and when each of these members first joined at Christian Chapel between 1866 and 1871.
A few reports of meetings or visits by preachers appear in brotherhood journals. H. C. Booth, of Bell's Depot, Tenn., editor of The Christian At Work, included Holly Hill on a tour in July of 1882 and preached on a Friday night to a house full of people.
"We failed to get the number of members at this place. Bro. H. S. Wood preaches for this church. We will hear from Holly Hill church in the next cooperation meeting. 6
Daniel Small reported the number added in a meeting conducted by Bros. Johnson and Wood in September, 1882: "four by confession and baptism, one from the Baptists, one united who had been baptized several years ago." 7
Holly Hill seemed to reach the greatest level of growth in 1882 as indicated by the record published in a "Church Directory of West Tennessee" in The Christian At Work:
"Holly Hill; memb 100; elders, H S Woods and D Small, Lone Elm." 8
An entry in the Christian Chapel minutes lists four people who moved to Christian Chapel from Holly Hill: 9
Eli Derryberry
C. M. Derryberry
Marga Rogers
Anna Lindsey
These four names united with the church from Holly Hill Congregation, August 19, 1906
By 1908 Alberton became the address of the "old Holly Hill church" which possibly continued to meet at the old site, or may have moved to Alberton. That year, W. R. Wilson reported details of two meetings held in the region at two churches.
Lexington, August 31. - On the second Lord's day in this month Brother J. W. Johnson, of Clarksburg, commenced a series of meetings with the Stray Leaf congregation.....On the fourth Lord's day in this month Brother Johnson began a meeting at Alberton (old Hilly Hill church) closing on Friday evening at the water's edge, after baptizing six persons.
W. R. Wilson. 10
John William Johnson attended both Bethany College at Bethany, W. Va., and the College of the Bible, Lexington, Ky. where he studied under Professor John W. McGarvey, recognized internationally as a noted Biblical scholar. Johnson died in 1909 at Clarksburg, Tenn., after a fruitful ministry reaching into adjoining states. Especially in West Tennessee he wielded his greatest influence as a well educated rural minister. 11
John Walter Roberts, born in 1902 near Alberton, remembers the first church building at Alberton plus "the baptistry" - Albert Hare's fish pond - where he was baptized in 1915 or 1916. The church building was new. Roberts thinks the land and materials were given by the Hare brothers, his family boarded the carpenter as a contribution toward the building. "A former Church of Christ place of worship was Holly Hill" about one half mile distant and adjoining the Roberts farm. The building deteriorated then was used for a sheep shelter and burned one night about midnight. 12 Brenda Kirk Fiddler also writes that the "Alberton Church of Christ was located near the store. The Hare family constructed a church house with stained glass windows. The congregation had first met in 1871 on nearby Holly Hill, where the site is still marked by four Murren gravestones" and adds that Horn Public Library has the church records. 13
According to Anita Webb's research, the Holly Hill site in the Third District has at least eleven graves: three Murren graves and eight others unmarked. 14 According to Peggy (Roberts) Busbee, in her well researched "Roberts Family History," Charlie and Mary Roberts' unmarked graves are here. They were the parents of Sarah Roberts, John Duncan Roberts, James Roberts and William Roy Roberts. 15
Judge Hugh Lawson Small (1878-1955) of Tarrant County (Ft. Worth, Texas) was born near the Holly Hill site on a farm cleared by his father, John W. Small, but now nearly covered by Brown Lake. 16 Judge Small recalled his family attending worship at "Cub Creek" (Christian Chapel), a building which stood on a fork of Cub Creek in Natchez Trace Park. The present building is just outside of the park.
"Here in this park near the old farm home of John Small, my birth place and my mother's grave, once stood the old log church house known as "Cub Creek Christian Church" where my father and mother used to attend church and never missed a Sunday. Although a very small child, I can still see in my mind that caravan of two horses upon which rode my father on one, with a child in front, and one on behind him, and my mother on the other horse, and likewise, a child in her lap and one on behind her. " 17
Today most of the physical evidence of Holly Hill's location is gone. As one drives East from Lexington on Highway 20, turns North on the Alberton road, then West on the first paved road and crosses Haley Creek, on the North side of this road a grove of pine trees stands. Beyond this grove to the North nothing but the old cemetery remains to mark the site of Holly Hill.
No explanation ever occurs for the designation "excluded," written rather often in the minutes. It does seem to indicate at least a disciplinary action by the congregation. Sometimes members were excluded after moving away without a letter or for ceasing to attend. Usually when members received discipline upon a moral charge, or a difficulty between two or more members, or for heresy. The Christian Chapel minutes contain such entries, including a possible church trial and once the word "Prodigals" appears in the the margin beside two names.
W. R. Wilson, formerly a member at Holly Hill (see entry in Holly Hill records for Oct. 1884, Page VII), in 1906 helped establish the church at Wildersville, where he held membership until his death in 1943. W. R. and Mary Catherine(Kiser)Wilson were also early members of the Church of Christ in Lexington. W. R. graduated from Henderson Masonic Male and Female Institute (B. Lit., 1882), Henderson, Tennessee, a school which became West Tennessee Christian College in the 1880s, and a forerunner of Freed-Hardeman University. While attending the early Henderson school, W. R.'s close friend, teacher and the school's leader, Prof. John Bunyan Inman, converted from Presbyterianism under the preaching of the noted signing evangelist Knowles Shaw and led "Willie" Wilson and his sister Alice(Wilson)Kiser, into the church of Christ. W. R. Wilson taught several schools in Henderson County at Lone Elm, Wildersville, Maizes Chapel, Lexington and Farmsville. He also served the county in several other capacities - county superintendent, newspaper publisher, county agent and ended his career in partnership with Dr. C. E. Bolen in the City Drug Store at Wildersville, they being also fellow elders of the Wildersville Church of Christ. The Wilson have many grandchildren and great grandchildren now living in Tennessee and Texas
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Footnotes:
1. Christopher Gist, "Items of Ecclesiastical Intelligence," Heretic Detector, 3(October, 1838),313. Gist lived in Henderson County.
2. David Lipscomb, "A Trip to West Tennessee," Gospel Advocate, 16(August 20, 1874), 767-770. Lipscomb's reference to the large audiences in 1874 indicate that Roan's Creek was one of the largest country churches of that time. The building which I remember, as a boy of six or seven years(1932) when my father, R. L. Roberts, Sr., preached at Roan's Creek, was a large frame building, new in 1893, with a seating capacity of 600. The building 40ft x 60ft., when filled provided an average of four square feet of space for each of 600 people.
3. W. N. Abernathy, "The Church at Roan's Creek," Gospel Advocate, 45(1902), 514.
4. J. B. Brecheen, "The One Hundredth Anniversary of Roan Creek Church," Gospel Advocate, 67 (August 13, 1925), 787. Brecheen also gave a brief list of pioneer preachers who preached locally or on various occasions - the camp meetings, the annual dinner-on-the-ground meeting in May, or the annual Fall meeting which replaced the camp meeting, or sometimes brief visits by itinerants. "Nearly all the old preacher preached there, among whom were Jim Holmes, Allan Kendrick, Carroll Kendrick, Brother Van Dyke, Brother Stalling, John Neely, McGee, David Lipscomb, J. A. Carter, Elihu Scott, Briney, Roulhac, Moses E. Lard, Crumb, Cook, and too many others to mention."
5. Christian Chapel Church record, pp.17-18
6. H. C. Booth, "Notes of Travel," The Christian at Work, 2(August 1, 1882), 17.
7. Daniel Small, Letter to editor, ibid., 2(November 1, 1882),17. Bro Johnson was probably John Johnson of Clarksburg. The entry of Sept. 1882 named these six: "A. R. Applebay, M. A. Hare, Matildy Campbell, Emalane Murren, T. A. Hare, Mary Lewis." M. A. Hare and T. A. Hare were probably Martin A. Hare and Thomas Albert Hare, for whom Alberton was named. W. R. Wilson, of Lexington reported on the same meeting adding: "The interest increased with the audience to the last. Bro. Johnson is a fine defender of our faith, and though the number added was few, we feel confident that he sowed seed that will yield fruit to the church in the near future, and tell in eternity." W. R. Wilson, ibid, p.12.
8. The Christian at Work, 1882, p.19.
9. Christian Chapel minutes: p. 49.
10. "Church News," Gospel Advocate, 50(Sept. 10, 1908),588. Wilson reported another meeting at Holly Hill in 1882 by "Bro. Johnson" which was well attended, six added and much good accomplished: cf. The Christian At Work, 2(November 1, 1882), 12. Two preachers named Johnson, W. A. Johnson and J. W. Johnson (of Clarksburg, Tenn.) lived and preached in the area, but W. A.'s name occurs earlier in the Christian Chapel record and is presumed older. The Stray Leaf church, between Wildersville and Alberton remained a significant rural congregation for many years.
11. "Sketch of the Life of J. W. Johnson," Gospel Advocate, (1909), also an Obituary.
12. John Walter Roberts, "Memories of old Alberton," on the Tennessee Genweb site.
13. Brenda Kirk Fiddler, "Alberton Community/School and the Hare Family," Lexington Progress, May 26, 1993. Also posted on the Henderson County Tenn. website of D. Donahue. Fiddler adds that the Alberton church house ceased to be used in the mid 1930s when the lumber was sold to erect a church house in Pinson.
14. Anita Webb, "Holly Hill Cemetery" cf. tngenweb.usit.com/ = The Tennessee Genweb site on the Internet.
15. Hugh L. Small, Hugh L. Small: His Life, History, Autobiography. (Ft. Worth, Texas, 1939), see: pp.3 and 9. John W. Small(1841-1887) married (1st)Nancy Jane Wood(1844-1869); (2nd) Sarah Lovell (Hugh L.'s mother and dau. of William and Margaret(Ridings)Lovell..."Grandfather Lovell...was buried in the cemetery bearing his name, the Lovell cemetery, on the farm where he reared his family, and were my mother was born in Henderson county, Tennessee." "My mother died when I was five year of age [1883] and she too was buried in the Lovell cemetery." Another grave, in that of Margaret Anne Small, Hugh L.'s sister, who died at age sixteen and was "buried on the old farm so long occupied by grandfather [William] Lovell."
16. Hugh L. Small, The Small Family Tree, (Dallas, Tex., 1956) p. 21.
Records from Holly Hill transcribed by Opal Mae (Altom) Jarrett of Nashville, Tenn.; typescript and Christian Chapel notes by R. L. Roberts of Abilene, Texas. Placed into 'html format' for the WWW, by Linda(Altom)Smith.
SPECIAL NOTE:
Mr. R. L. Roberts died in Sept. of 1998 a very short time after sending me this article on Holly Hill history. The following is his obituary:
September 14, 1998
Longtime ACU faculty member, church historian dies Sept. 12
ABILENE - R. L. Roberts, Jr., 73, library faculty member at Abilene Christian University for 21 years and prominent church historian, died early Saturday morning, in his home at 602 E. N. 18th.
The funeral service is set for 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, at University Church of Christ, with funeral arrangements handled by Elliott-Hamil Funeral Home.
Roberts was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., March 11, 1925. He graduated >from Hollis, Okla., High School in 1943. He graduated from ACU in 1947, and earned the Master of Library Science degree from North Texas State University in 1967. He married Johne Garner of Belton, Texas, May 30, 1946.
Roberts preached for several Texas Churches of Christ: in Seymour, Alvord, Keller and at McGregor Park in Houston. He taught Bible and Church History at Fort Worth Christian College from 1962 to 1965. In l966 he joined the library faculty at Abilene Christian University. He retired from the ACU library in l987 and devoted himself to research in restoration church history.
Roberts was baptized in 1940. In 1972 he became a deacon at AbileneŐs University Church of Christ, and in 1985 became an elder. He served as chairman of the elders, then as coordinator for the elders where his knowledge of restoration history, the Greek language, church music, and biblical texts made him an invaluable advisor to the ministerial staff and the elders of the church.
He wrote numerous articles on restoration history and New Testament topics for Restoration Quarterly, Firm Foundation and 20th Century Christian. He edited the Union List of Restoration Periodicals in Christian College Libraries. In 1994 Pepperdine University awarded him the Distinguished Christian Service Award. In recent years Roberts directed tours of restoration sites in Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. He also led tours to early church sites in Texas including many of the early Spanish missions. He assisted Dr. B. J. Humble in preparation of video films depicting early restoration history in the United States, Ireland, Scotland and Engtand. Survivors include his wife, Johne, of the home in Abilene; three sons: Garner Roberts of Abilene, Dwight Alan Roberts of Austin, and Dr. John Paul Roberts of San Antonio; one daughter, Carol Ann Campbell of Flower Mound, Texas; five sisters: Mildred Shepherd of Burkesville, Kentucky, Mrs. Mary Hayes of Scottsdale, Arizona, Mrs. Bettye Blay of Abilene, Mrs. Bill Clovis of St. Marys, West Virginia, and Mrs. Jerry Hill of Pleasanton, Texas; one brother, Bill Roberts of Spur, Texas; eight grandchildren: Cary Roberts of Austin, Koy Roberts of Denton, Aaron Roberts of Corpus Christi, Cody Campbell of Palo Alto, California, Cord Campbell of Flower Mound, Texas, Gabriel Roberts of Austin, Nicolle Roberts of Austin and Jake Roberts of Austin; one great-grandchild, Hanna Roberts of Corpus Christi; one brother, Dr. J. W. Roberts, preceeded him in death. He is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. R.L. Roberts, Sr.
Services: Eddie Sharp, Dr. Carl Brecheen Memorial gifts: Abilene Christian University Library, Christian Service Center of Abilene