Monday, July 27, 2009

Beginning of Sugar Grove Church

This is a picture of the first Sugar Grove Church house, which was made of logs.

Sugar Grove Cumberland Presbyterian church was organized in 1840 by Rev. W. C. Love. The charter members were largely drawn from the Piney Fork Church but owing to the destruction of the first church book in the winter of 1864 and 65 when the clerk's house burned, (Uncle Harvey Travis was the clerk at this time), we do not know who the first members were.

The Rev. W. C. Love was the first pastor. William Neal, James Clinton Sr. and William Asher Sr. were the first board of elders.

The new congregation went to work and built a neat log house on the Phillips branch of Piney Creek in a beautiful grove of sugar trees near a famous spring. They also built a large shed and many tents and held annual camp meetings.
From the Crittenden Press dated, Jan. 15, 1932.
The Old Sugar Grove church which was built more than a hundred years ago by the great great grandfathers of the present generation has been taken down and the timbers moved away.
It was built in a narrow thickly wooded valley near a beautiful spring which gushed from the hillside among countless maple sugar trees from which the church took its name.
The old while Oak hewn logs, when taken down, were found to be perfectly sound and if they could protested again being moved as they could render service for another century.
The next Sugar Grove Church was built about three fourths miles northwest of the old church, on higher ground and more convenient to get to.
The church standing today was built in 1981. It has many faithful followers that attend services regularly.

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