396                         HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

    The Bloomington District Conference of the M. E. church, for the
year 1882, was held at Clay City, May 29, 30 and 31.
    The thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Lower Wabash Conference of
the United Brethren church, for the year 1892, was held at Clay City
during the week beginning August 31.
    The Presbyterian church, on South Franklin street, Brazil, was
destroyed by fire on the 8th day of January, 1871; the Christian church,
on North Washington, on the 5th day of February, 1905. Both were
burned on Sunday.
    The thirty-second annual meeting of the Lower Wabash Conference
of the United Brethren church, for the year, 1889, was held at Clay City,
beginning on the 25th day of September and continuing five days. On
this occasion Miss Alva Button was licensed to preach, the first woman
upon whom this privilege was ever conferred by this church.
    Ministers of the Mormon faith have also preached at various places
within the county, some of the seed sown having taken root. As early
as 1835 they began the work of proselytism here. In that year, on their
way to the West, Sidney Rigdon preached from his tent, on the National
road, two miles west of the site of Brazil, at the point of the Isaac Moore
residence. About 1837, John Weitsch preached in the vicinity of Middle-
bury, making a number of converts. Among those who left this locality
to join the church in the West were Fielding Lankford, Frederick Ott
and George W. Duncan. In 1838 or 1839, an apostle of this faith named
Babbitt preached in the old courthouse, at Bowling Green, and he was
followed by another named Stannedge. Among their converts were Allen
and Lee Bybee, Joshua Hall, the Sloans and Mrs. Lane. Within very
recent years emissaries of this so-called religious cult have proclaimed its
tenets hereabout from street corners and elsewhere.
    In 1833, the Cumberland Presbyterians, led by Joseph Alexander and
John Thorlton, organized a society and built a shed 20x40 feet on what
was long known as the Kress place, opposite the Sink farm, a mile south-
west of Middlebury, where camp-meetings were held annually for several
years. Rev. McCord, of Rockville, was the recognized minister of this
society. After the death of its founders this organization waned and in
time dissolved.
    It is known only reminiscently and to but comparatively few Clay
county people at this day, that the faith and teachings of the Restoration-
ists were preached here more than threescore years ago. As early as
1843, Erasmus Manford, who had moved from Lafayette to Terre Haute
within that year, delivered lectures at Bowling Green in exposition of a
more liberal theology than that taught by the orthodox churches. While
residing at Terre Haute, about the time of the early fifties, he preached
Restorationism, or Universalism, at and in the vicinity of Cloverland.
Several families who heard him were so impressed and well pleased with
him and his teachings that they named their baby sons in honor and
memory of him, one of whom, Erasmus Manford Tarvin, now a resident
of California, is a minister of the New Light, or Christian, church. He
is now a man of more than sixty years, and two years ago visited his
cousin, B. F. Kruzan, of Brazil. Manford was in after years editor of
Manford Magazine, Chicago.
    Oliver Cromwell, Sr., of Bowling Green, who was the pioneer of the
county in this faith, died in the month of February, 1855, and on the
24th day of June following, funeral services were held at his grave, in