Eden church to mark 180 years of ministry

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EDEN — They gathered in a one-room log cabin, warmed by a fireplace.

It was 1838, and this new building was the culmination of a journey begun two years earlier when a circuit-riding minister started leading services in a few local homes and barns.

Many years and two buildings later, the journey continues: Eden United Methodist Church will mark 180 years of ministry with a celebration Oct. 28.

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“It’s a time of reflection and of hope for the future, for future generations to come,” said church secretary Jo Ann Turner.

The church’s origins date to an era when State Road 9 was a young toll road, when horses pulled stagecoaches up and down it as they passed through Eden — only at the time, the community six miles north of Greenfield went by the name Lewisburg.

According to various historians of the church and Green Township, circuit-riding minister Stephen Masters came into town in 1836 and began having services in several homes and barns. In 1838, residents built a log cabin as the church’s first building.

“Let’s try to picture what the first service in the log church may have been like,” Turner writes in a church history she’s compiled for the celebration. “The building was a small one-room affair, no more that 15×20 feet. The pews were split log benches, smoothed off as much as possible to avoid splinters, with a fireplace at one end.”

Methodist Episcopal Chapel, as it was known then, took shape west of a new cemetery, according to a history of the church presented by Flora Curry at its 1938 centennial. Her account was published in the Oct. 15, 1938, edition of the Daily Reporter.

The northwest corner of the cemetery includes graves of some of the township’s earliest settlers. Thomas Fuqua’s 1831 log cabin is remembered with a historical marker in front of the church; his wife, Sarah Fuqua, was buried in the cemetery in 1853.

Masters, the circuit rider, became one of the church’s early ministers. The new congregation became part of the Greenfield circuit. Hancock County is home to nearly 20 United Methodist churches, and the circuit-riding minister is part of their story.

“The circuits usually were hundreds of miles long, the classes small and scattered, and the accommodations crude at best for members and clergy alike,” John Riggs writes in a history of Indiana’s United Methodists at inumc.org.

Over the years the Eden church would be aligned with different circuits, according to Curry’s account, sharing a minister with other United Methodist churches in the area — Curry’s Chapel, Philadelphia, Fortville, Ingalls, Maxwell, Willow Branch.

The log building would be replaced in 1860 with a frame building named Eden Methodist Episcopal Church. Curry’s account mentions a revival there that began in late 1885, lasted into early 1886 and “continued all winter with many conversions and members added to the church.”

Turner said the frame church building was eventually moved across the street and still stands as a garage. The church’s current brick structure with stained-glass windows, built on the same site as the previous buildings, was dedicated Oct. 13, 1904.

“This beautiful church is a gift to this generation by the members of the past,” Curry wrote in her 1938 church history. “It is a noble reflection of their faith in God.”

Less than two weeks after her history was published, a fire inexplicably began in the church basement. Firefighters put it out and saved the building, but the church suffered $4,000 to $6,000 in damage, according to the Oct. 26, 1938, edition of the Daily Reporter.

There have been other hard times in the church’s history. The congregation has bid goodbye to members fighting in wars, including Union soldiers leaving for the Civil War and two 1940s ministers who went to World War II. In 1954 the church’s minister and his wife died in an auto accident on the drive to a youth church camp at Epworth Forest in North Webster.

Yet the years of the church have also held happier times, times of shared labor and rich fellowship.

“We try to make everybody feel like they’re part of our family,” said Mary Wooten, who’s attended the church since 1962.

The church began having its annual ham and turkey supper — a tradition that continues today — in the days before there was a fellowship hall, Wooten said. The dressing for the event was cooked across the road in a member’s kitchen and carried from there to the church.

Wooten, 82, continues to not only play piano at church but also helps prepare the breakfast sponsored by the United Methodist Women on the first Saturday of most months. (The next is 7-10 a.m. Dec. 1.) She gets there at 5 a.m., she said, to make grits before she begins flipping pancakes. The Rev. Dave Crittenden, the church’s pastor, often turns fried potatoes and hands out coffee.

The free-will offerings given by those who come to breakfast support United Methodist missions, such as Red Bird Mission in Kentucky, and also causes closer to home, such as Hancock County Food Pantry and Kenneth Butler Memorial Soup Kitchen.

In these and other good works, the mission of the 1830s society of settlers continues.

“We’re just a family-based community. We try to give back to the community,” Turner said.

“Like all churches, it’s a place to come and share the love of Jesus Christ and pass it on to other people. We’ve continued to do that.”

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The celebration begins at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 28 and will include special music by Gordon Brooks, as well as some congregational singing. Several former pastors of the church plan to return to be part of the celebration. A lunch follows the service.

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1836: Methodist circuit rider Steven Master begins having services in local homes and barns.

1838: The church, or society as it was called, builds a log cabin, its first church building. It’s known as Methodist Episcopal Chapel.

1860: The church outgrows the cabin and builds a frame church costing about $1,500.

1884: The first Sunday School begins.

1885-1886: A revival continues into the winter.

1901: The Barnard Family Orchestra, which would go on to tour nationally as a popular musical group at chatauquas, plays its first concert at Eden Methodist Episcopal Church.

1904: The frame building is moved and replaced with a brick building costing $8,000.

1921: A four-room basement is added to the church.

1938: A fire damages the church.

1954: The Rev. Frank Stoelting, who also served Willow Branch United Methodist Church, and his wife die in an auto accident.

1964: The parsonage is built. Today it is used for small group gatherings.

1967: The fellowship hall is added.

1968: The name of the church changes from Eden United Brethren Church to Eden United Methodist Church.

1983: The sanctuary is air-conditioned.

1996: United Methodist Women breakfasts begin.

2000: A ramp makes the church more accessible to people using wheelchairs.

2018: The church celebrates 180 years.

Sources: Eden church historians, Daily Reporter archives, George Richman’s "History of Hancock County Indiana"

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