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Source: History of Northeast Missouri,
Edited by Walter Williams, Published by The Lewis Publishing Company,
Chicago Illinois 1913
Monroe County Article written by Thomas V. Bodine, Paris |
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| The religious evolution of the county, in its intimate phases, carries an absorbing interest. The Kentuckians were originally Old School Baptists or Presbyterians, occasionally Methodists, but early fell under the spell of the Campbell movement which swept tile central valley states in the early years of the last century. Barton Stone, ‘‘Raccoon John’’ Smith and other great pioneer preachers of the Disciples movement came to Missouri in the thirties, swaying the thought and intelligence here as they did in Kentucky, and Alexander Campbell himself was twice a visitor at Paris, the last time in 1848. As a result the county is preponderantly of this faith in its religious ideals, or rather the Disciples predominating. The Old School Baptists once the most powerful and numerous sect in the county, have gradually vanished, and only three or four of their church edifices, some of these, like Berea in South Fork having no congregation remain. They furnished the county with some of its most militant and heroic figures, such men as Wm. Priest, Elder Sutton and Epaphroditus Smith, known in person and tradition. but save for Cedar Bluff, Stoutsville, Berea and Old Baptist, there remains not a vestige of them. Every other denomination has grown and in a measure kept pace, but the faith of the pioneer is evidently no more. Monroe has one Catholic community, Indian Creek. |
