by Colleen Nelson
S
ugar Grove Baptist Church on State Rd. 88 can trace its roots back to 1868 and beyond, to the frontier days when Sunday services were held in a shady grove - weather permitting - or in the cabins of neighbors when it did not. But whatever the weather, when a convert was taken into the spirit and was accepted into the fold, the immersion happened in a nearby creek or pond even if a hole had to be chopped in the ice! Baptists, many of them hardy Welsh and Scots Irish immigrants, began moving to the frontier from Delaware, Virginia and Eastern Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s. They were heading west to escape religious persecution from the Church of England and surprisingly enough, from the Puritans of the New England colonies who were intolerant of their spiritual practices. When the Rev. John Corbly was driven from Virginia by the authorities of the Crown for the fiery power of his redemptive preaching, he began building congregations on the frontier that would in time become West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. When Corbly finally established a Baptist church near Garards Fort on Whitely Creek and one on Muddy Creek near Jefferson in 1771, he called them Goshen. Corbly’s family settled by Garards Fort and church history tells us that in the days before and after the American Revolution, Greensboro Baptists travelled two hours by horseback to the fort to hear Corbly preach. In the early 1800s, Robert Jones, grandson of David Jones, the firebrand Welsh Baptist minister who was a gun toting, medically trained chaplain in Washington’s Continental army, started bible studies in Greensboro in local homes. By the 1830s a lot was purchased on Water Street and local farmer Reverend Francis Downey helped form this new church with nine founding members. Amazingly enough, two years later the church was doing missionary work in Burma, a testimony to its desire to spread the Good Word. Scattered Baptist families who gathered to worship and be baptized in the creek beside a grove of sugar maple trees a few miles north were considered, an outpost of the Greensboro congregation. They “appealed to be granted the rights to their own church in 1868” and the wooden sanctuary they built had two doors, one for men and one for women. If you drive by their church on State Route 88 today you’ll see that a porch has been added, along with a big glass front door for all to enter. I stopped by for services on Mothers Day and was greeted by Bill and Wilda Humbert, old friends of mine from Carmichaels Grange. There’s no overhead media screen
8
The Congregation of Sugar Grove Baptist Church.
above the pulpit at Sugar Grove – just clear acoustics, beautiful windows and plenty of hymn singing with Irene Bowers on keyboard. Reverend Frank Vucic of Rices Landing takes New Testament scriptures and brings their message of love to the travails of modern life with the grace of a good teacher – he taught music at Southeastern Greene from 1964-74 and it resonates in the quality of the singing that fills the rafters every Sunday. Reverend Vucic tells me before services that the church is on land that was once part of the John Hannah farm before the family donated it. He lends me a book from the church library by Frank T. Hoadley about the history of American Baptists in Pennsylvania and Delaware. It is a good read, filled with first hand tidbits of history pulled from early documents, notes and letters written by ministers who lived through the changes that the centuries bring. I turned to the last chapter “Where do we go from here?” to find some inspiration for us in the 21st century that Frank Hoadley could only dream of when he wrote this in 1986: “The word for love is from the Greek word agape, a love without limits and without thoughts of gaining anything in return..… This is the essence of the Creator who placed us here. Can we return to that simple yet profound love….Can we cast aside outmoded customs, petty quarrels and moral hairsplitting? Are we willing to be led by God’s own hand?” Sunday services start at 10 a.m. and the congregation celebrates the holidays with church dinners. It’s been a few years since
Sugar Grove held Sunday School or did activities involving kids but Reverend Vucic wants the neighborhood to know the door is always open.
GreeneScene Magazine •
JUNE
2019
