Dedication of the New Methodist Church at Plainfield
Compiled from the Plainfield Sun Friday, Nov. 10, 1905 Submitted by Joan Benner
The dedication of the new Methodist Church will be held Sunday November
12. The first church building was built in 1878.
In 1855, Charles Hamilton wentn to Campbell�s Corners to hear a Methodist
itinerant preacher named Bassinger, who had come up from Point Bluff in Adams County. An invitation to preach in the log schoolhouse at Plainfield Corners was accepted, and from that time the Methodist traveling preacher was regular in his visits to the neighborhood of Plainfield, being entertained chiefly at the pioneer homes of Mr. Hamilton and Mr. E. M. Pickering.
The circuit then included Strong�s Prairie, Burr Oaks, Pleasant Prairie, Butes, Coloma, Richford, Campbell�s Corners, East Oasis, Buckhorn and Plainfield. A young man named Gale was junior preacher. Edward Brooks, of Burr Oaks, was the first secretary and steward for this large and growing circuit and continued until 1871. Amongst many other prominent names in Methodism in the neighborhood with the above are: Walter Spaulding, E. Bourne, Cornelius Ham, Caleb Greenfield, G. W. Twist, Daniel Staples, Mary Starks, W. J. Dafoe, A. Collins, Geo. Sanders, Geo. Pierce, T. H. Walker, Henry George, Julia Hamilton, Mr. and Mrs. H. N. Drake, Lottie Bardwell Fox, R. H. Runcorn and many others of equal faith and good works.
The presiding elders since 1855 were: Elmore Yocum (1855), J. B. Bachman, Matthew Bennett, R. Dudgeon, G. W. Case, William Hamilton, E. D. Huntley, J. D. Searles, M. B. Balch, J. E. Irish, W. J. McKay, H. W. Bolton and S. W. Trousdale (1903).
The pastors of the church have been: C. C. Holcomb, A. Hawe, A. B. Smith, S. S. Benedict, D. Staples, B. W. Smith, Rev. Sackett, Rev. Price, J. T. Pryor, William Gorst, W. McLaughlin, James Ford, Harry Hackney, Edward Tench, John Dumbleton, M. F. Chester, Thos. Lawson, Alfred Ramey, Charles Irish, A. G. Harrison, W. H. Chenoyeth, Rev. Steves, W. E. Conner, J. P. Greer, W. Eckert, William Alderman, John Dumbleton (2), Edgar C. Booth, C. C. Swartz, F. H. Harvey and James E. Holden.
At present the territory is divided into four circuits: Strong�s Prairie, Hancock, West Plainfield and Plainfield. A church was built in Plainfield in 1878, by the society Mr. Pickering and Mr. Hamilton being chief of the workers. During the pastorate of the late Rev. C. C. Swartz, the fine commodius parsonage was purchased and the beautiful church at Oasis finished. The new church at Plainfield, a fine monument to the work of the past fifty years, is by its modern convenience a church to serve many future generations. The corner stone was laid June 11, 1905 by E. M. Pickering, one of the very few remaining veterans of the Methodist cause in Plainfield.
