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In the spring of 1842, a Methodist Episcopal Church
was built on the farm, one-and-a-half miles south-west of
Milledgeville. There had been preaching in the neighborhood for several
years previous, in different dwelling-houses, by Revs. Hiram Luce and A. G. Miller, and at the time
of the building, the church contained about sixteen members. The house
was twenty-six feet long by twenty-four wide, and was subsequently
enlarged, and lasted until 1869, when the present building, which is
somewhat larger, and surmounted by a plain belfry and bell, took its
place. It goes by the name of the Deer Creek Church, and was built by G. W. Clure and J. S. Williams; its present
[1877] membership is about eighty.
A
Sabbath-school was started in connection with it [Deer Creek Methodist
Episcopal Church] (in 1842), and has been continued without
intermission, excepting during a few winters at the first start, when
it was thought by the early settlers to be impossible to keep an
institution of that kind for more than eight months in the year, and,
the words of one of the old members, “it froze up on the 1st of
December or before.” A library was commenced in its early years, and at
one time had grown to 300 volumes, but it has since declined.
The
History of Mercer County, 1877, page 40
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