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Creek (when the meeting-house was on a small stream
of that name), afterwards when the meeting-house
was built on the hill it was called Mount Pleasant.
As the country developed his preaching tours were
enlarged, finally extending to Jefferson, Switzerland,
Ripley, Jennings and Clark counties. In his autobiog-
raphy he says:
"I have been at the constitution of twelve churches,
have aided in the ordination of eight ministers, and
have baptized persons in eighteen churches; the high-
est number at one time was eighteen, and the greatest
number in any one church one hundred and twenty-
seven."
In 1831 Mount Pleasant church went down into the
city and became, in large part, the Madison church,
which has had so long and glorious a record. Elder
Jesse Vawter died in March, 1838, and his body was
laid to rest in the cemetery at Wirt, Indiana. His wife
preceded him to the promised land, having died in
September, 1830. "Jesse was a quiet, thrifty, brown-
eyed, peace-loving man, and every one loved him."
His name was a household word in almost every
church of the three Associations--Silver Creek, Coffee
Creek and Madison.
Philemon Vawter, the younger brother, was also
efficient as a Baptist minister. He was present at
the organization of the Silver Creek Association. He
was born in Virginia also; was married to Anna Vaw-
ter, a cousin, in 1779, and 1798 they emigrated to Ken-
tucky, settling near Versailles, in Woodford county.
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Although reared in the Episcopalian church they now
desired to unite with a Baptist church, and were re-
ceived. In 1808 they crossed the Ohio River to In-
diana, taking eighty acres where Springdale Cemetery,
Madison, now is. He was a mechanic as well as a Bap-
tist minister. "Elder Philemon Vawter was a man of
piety and a faithful and successful-pioneer preacher
the few years that he remained." He died in 1814 and
his final resting place is in the "Vawter grave-yard"
a few miles northeast of North Vernon.
Elder William McCoy, another of the ministers in
the organization of the Silver Creek Association,
preached in Kentucky for some time before he came to
Indiana. He was, for a while, pastor of the Silver
Creek church. He died in Charlestown, Indiana, in
1813 or 1814. It was honor enough for him and his
wife to have been the parents of four such men as John
McCoy, one of the founders of Franklin College;
Isaac McCoy, the Judson to the Indians, James and
Royce McCoy, the defenders of missions, education
and Sunday schools at a time when these institutions
were frequently and vigorously assailed.
Elder Moses Sellers was born in North Carolina in
1796. He came to Indiana in 1814, and settled in
Washington county. He removed to Clark county in
1817 and joined the Silver Creek church in 1884; was
licensed to preach in 1828 and was ordained by the
Little Flock church in 1837, and remained the pastor
of that church for thirty-seven years. He died full of
honor, as well as years, in 1868.
