Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1939-06-22

supervisors were elected. Thes'
supervisors before fixing mud hol'
in the road, first interviewed one o
| the trustees. After the job wa
completed they hurried back to ge
| the order for his money. The trus
tees put in much time with the su
pervisors for which they received
no pay.
We remember that T. Y. Cham
bers who served as squire, was fo
many years township clerk. He wal
a fine penman-specimens Of which
are to be found in the school rec
| ords which we shall deal with fur
Ither on We have noted his pen
manship in the records of Bristo
| grange.
We forgot to tell you where the
| old wooden bridges that are still do
| ing service are located. Feeling
that some Of our readers might be
interested to know we will give the
locations here: The Whitehouse
Bone, Gilliland, Lindimore, Wilson
Tilden and Henderson. The last
three span the creek above Cloud
The others, on or near the farms
known by these names. The one
at the Ode Tilden farm is the one
that did service and was known for
many years as the Cotton bridge,
and was torn down and moved to its
present location in 1915, to be re-
placed with the concrete one at the
old location.
Churches
Very few townships have been
more "churched" than Bristol.
While the number Of church build
ings have been above the average
for a like territory, many services
have been held in private houses
and school houses. Much Of the ear
" records of these churches have
been lost and as we gather together
bit BY bit what is available, even
the officials of the churches are
surprised TO learn Of some Of facts
we are getting together. We find
that our love for the things told by
older folks Of the early days and
the Meigs section of the Morgan
County Democrat in the past 80
years has been and will be Of value
to us in this work Two churches,
Bristol Baptist and a church on the
former Robert Whitehouse farm, on
the part now owned by Stanley Ray,
were perhaps the earliest public
buildings.
Baptist
Some years ago we interviewed
Jesse Gibbs. who lived just over the
line in Meigs township, in regard to
this old church Mr. Gibbs divided
honors with the late Wesley Bone
for being our oldest historian.
While Mr.. Gibbs never lived in the
township, he could get in from his
home in two minutes He ''saw-mill-
ed" attended church, funerals and
parties in the territory Of which
we write.
The building where these folks
worshiped was near the cross roads
east of the Bristol Presbyterian
church, on land now owned by Jas.
Grandstaff, which is part of the
farm formerly the Alexander Roy
farm, at a point south of the cross
roads. There is a cemetery at this
place. but we believe it can not be
seen by tourists, except from the
hill north of the cross roads. Squire
Belts was a leader in this church.
Others connected with the church
inluded the names and families fol-
lowing, many of whom will be found
in subsequent history Of the town
ship and other church organizations
-Coulters, Pedicords, Purcells, Gar
retts, Fordyces, Moore, Trimble
and Torbert Squire Torbert who
was the marrying squire; Mordecai
Bishop was one of the old time
preachers 1t was said he caused
quite bit of excitement when he
preached on the coming Of the end
of the world AS this was some 50
years ago, it seems they were need
Iessly alarmed Mr.. Gibbs also told
us the following: When they wanted
to scrub the meeting house they had
to haul water, so the men decided 10
dig out a rain trough, the result OF
which he said was the biggest rain
trough he ever saw, and water was
not only plentiful ever after, but the
trough lasted as long as the church
building. From here the place OF
meeting was changed to the s.
Square school house, which We will
tell you about under the head OF
schools.
Christian Church
The old log meeting house men
toned on the Whitehouse farm, was
the forerunner of the Meigs Chris
tian church. The society which met
in the log church afterwards, used
two story building in the Meigs Gem
etery. While helping the late Geo.
Carnes dig a grave for Mabel Al
cock, in the southwest corner Of the
graveyard, we took out some OF the
foundation of the building, which
was at first two story, one story be-
ing used for church services and the
other as a hall, where public meet
ings, other than religious were held.
This building was later reduced to
one story, which later was burned.
While no one ever spoke the name
out loud in our hearing of the per-
son or persons thought responsible
for the fire, it was told that the ole
church was burned down. Those re-
lating the story always went on to
say that there had been disagree
ment among the church folks, and