CHAPTER XXXII.

                                    RURAL CHURCHES.

    Data pertaining to the half a hundred rural churches in the history
of Clay county are not readily obtainable. The sources of information,
mainly, are personal recollection and the columns of the local press.
Diligent search and inquiry in some instances have failed to bring out the
points desired. Experience along this line has served to recall in the rec-
ollections of the writer the vivid impressions made upon his mind in his
school-boy days by the reading of the lesson in McGuffey’s first edition
of his Third Reader about the boy’s pursuit of the butterfly.
    Asbury, a Methodist Episcopal church in Jackson township, on the
Brazil-Hoosierville road, near the Simonson place, built in 1871-2, dedi-
cated on the 11th day of August of the latter year, named for Francis
Asbury, the first M. E. bishop ordained in America; sermon by President
McNutt, of the State University.

    Beech, a United Brethren church in Owen county, here named for
the reason that it is near the county line, the congregation, in part, Clay
countians; services frequently attended by Middlebury and Clay City
people; dedicated May 27, 1883, by Bishop E. B. Kephart.

    Beech Grove, a Universalist church in Dick Johnson township, near
the Warren D. Wolfe homestead, on land belonging to Joseph Carter, on
the Leachman gravel road, built in 1890, dedicated on the 26th day of
October, the only church of this denomination in the county. It was so
named, in common with the district school having the same location, from
the growth of native beech timber thereabout.

    Bee Ridge, a Christian church in Dick Johnson township. (See chap-
ter under this caption.)

    Bellaire, a Christian church near the site of the old town of Bellaire,
a little distance south of the former James Kendall place, across the road
from the school-house known by the same name, built and dedicated late
in the sixties or in 1870, as given from recollection by several of the
membership who participated in providing the means and constructing
the house.


    Berea, a Christian church in Posey township, one mile south of Bra-
zil waterworks, built in 1889, and dedicated on the 18th day of Novem-
ber of the same year. The society was organized at the Wools school-
house, January 24, 1892.

                                        389