| ChristianChurch, Bethany Congregation |
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
By William FowlerSeven miles north of Rushville,Bethany was organized in 1830 or 40, preaching by Elder King, and afterwardby Elder Patton, then Wm. Ross, in a school-house known as the Garrisonschool-house, where they had preaching at intervals, as they could securethe services of some worthy brother, and the cause flourished for a while.Then there arose a dissatisfaction between some of the members, and thecongregation went down, and they had no meeting for a long time.
In 1870 A. Brown, in companywith A. S. Robinson, came into the neighborhood and held a meeting in theGarrison school-house again and got up a good interest, and had some newadditions, and some of the old parties had passed away. They reorganizedin the Garrison school-house, and in the summer of 1871 they built a houseof worship about one mile south of the school-house, which will comfortablyseat 200 persons, at a cost of about $1,400 in all. The first regular pastorwas A. S. Robinson, followed by Joseph Morgan, M. D. Sharples, and G. F.Adams, after which A. Brown preached for them three years. At the presenttime M. D. Sharples is employed again for one year; his term has not yetexpired. So ends this history.
Source: The Combined Historyof Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois, 1882
Transcribed by Carol LongwellMiller for Schuyler County ILGenWeb
Photo contributed by CindyFoster, [email protected]Copyright 1999, 2000 RobinL. W. Petersen; all rights reserved. For personal use only. Commercialuse of the information contained in these pages is strictly prohibitedwithout prior permission. If copied, this copyright must appear with theinformation.