County's
Oldest Presbyterian Church Host to Throng From Near &
Afar
The
100th anniversary of the organization of
Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church, on Highway 26 six miles
east of aris, was appropriately celebrated Sunday.
The
church was filled to overflowing when the meeting was
called to order at 10:30.
People
from Paris, Perry, Santa Fe, Mexico, Moberly, Shelbina and
other towns were in evidence as the crowd filed into the
house of worship.
From
nearly every car boxes and baskets of good things for the
dinner were produced and carried to tables that had been
set on the east side of the building. Practically every
person present had one or more relatives buried in the
nearby cemetery.
Mrs.
Belle Crutcher Peterson served as organist during the
rendition of hymns and special numbers.
A
song by a quartette from Paris, composed of J. T. Sproul,
Hugh Bridgford, Mrs. Robert Sproul, and Mrs. James
Threlkeld, was a program feature.
Eight
girls from the Pleasant Hill community—Mary Lindsey,
Lillian, Vivian and Ruby Bridgford, Frances and Leta
Blanche Scott and Dorothy Tipton, Frances and Isabel
Wills—also sang.
The
only preacher that has gone out from the Pleasant Hill
congregation during its century of history, Dr. C. F.
Richmond, was one of the speakers of the day. By a happy
coincidence the Paris church, of which he has been pastor
for a generation, was organized by Presbyterians from
Pleasant Hill.
The
opening address of the day was by Rev. T. M. Barbee, of
Mexico, present pastor of the historic church.
The
principal address of the day was by Rev. J. Orton Reavis,
of Nashville, Tenn., a Monroe county man who has attained
to national prominence and leadership in the Presbyterian
denomination.
A
program number of unusual interest was the reading of the
history Mrs. R. T. Vaughn had compiled from the records of
Pleasant Hill, from which history much of the matter in
this special Appeal edition was taken.
During
closing hour in the afternoon talks were made by A. T.
Stuart and Senator Whitecotton, of Paris, and George
Trimble, of South Fork.
The
Pleasant Hill community was the original home of the
McKameys, the Bridgord, the Vaughns, the Smitheys, the
Nugents, the McGees, the Murphys and the Sprouls. The
hundreds of names published elsewhere in this paper, all
taken from markers and monuments in Pleasant Hill’s city
of the dead, gives a fair idea of the families on which
the community has held special ties during the last
hundred years.
A
remarkable thing in connection with the Sunday’s
exercises was the reading of letters from Rev. L. P.
Bowen, aged 96 years, a former pastor, and one from Mrs.
Popham, aged 94 years. Rev. Bowen was a former and his
home is now in Berlin Maryland. He also wrote the special
Centenniel song that was sung. Mrs. Popham now lives in
Montana but retains her membership at Pleasant Hill.
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