Echoes From The Attic and Poems, Arcola Church, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Don Johnson, Feb. 2001
Typed by Belford Carver
Written by by Edna F. Campbell
Copyrighted by Edna F. Campbell
With special thanks to her family for permission to use her works.

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PRE-CIVIL WAR

ARCOLA CHURCH REACHES BACK

Time has stood still for The Arcola Church.  A landmark on the outskirts of Arcola 
and Roseland, the 122-year old structure has remained much the same as when built 
before the Civil War.

Records in the Tangipahoa Parish Courthouse reveal that John Corkern and John W. 
Leonard, two business partners, deeded the church building and five surrounding 
acres of land to the Methodist Episcopal church on Sept. 5, 1859, with stipulation 
that it be for the promotion of Christian morality and education.

In the course of time it became known as the Arcola Union church.  Worshiping in 
the small wooden framework building were Methodists, Episcopalians, 
Congregationalists, Latter-Day Saints, and Presbyterians. The church now is 
Presbyterian and is under the charge of the Rev. Clarence Elrod.

In 1888 Richard Kent Sr., came to Fluker, a community three miles north of Arcola.  
He first built a brick kiln, then established a large dairy business, importing the 
first Wisconsin cows to this area.  Later he established a lumber empire.  He 
employed a number of families and they joined Arcola in fostering the small church.

Additional acreage was acquired for an adjoining church cemetery, the 
Arcola-Roseland Cemetery.  Roseland, with its name stemming from many Cherokee 
roses, was settled by Northerners and Easterners many of whom are buried in the 
church plot.

Placing bouquets of flowers on the graves of relatives, Mrs. Emma Hendry Davoll, an 
Arcola native, paused to tell the history of her lifetime church.  She told of her 
parents' attendance at church in days of their youth and of their marriage, as well 
as her own and her daughter's baptism.

Reminiscing with her was her daughter, Janet Ivy Davoll, who bears the first names 
of her grandmother, the former Janet Wands, and her grandfather, Ivy A. Hendry.  
Mrs. Davoll, a teacher in the Amite school, said she married a Yankee during World 
War II and has now come back to her hometown and old family homesite to live.

During a tour of the building memorials were cited and building features described.  
One-by-six wallboard finished the high ceiling walls, painted in light gray.  Red 
velvet carpeted the floor and stained glass windows added contrast to the 
ante-bellum architectural trends.  Unusually interesting was the slave gallery, 
upstairs sections formerly used by slaves who accompained employers to worship 
service.  The wooden stairway has been removed as a space saver.

Massive pipe organ equipment remains in the background given by Mrs. Richard A. 
Kent Sr., in memory of herhusband.  A Hammond organ had replaced the original.  
The church pews were in memory of Ernest Davis, a war hero, given by his mother, 
and a communion table was a memorial to Hollis Alford by Mrs. Phyllis Alford. Mrs. 
Davoll had in her possession an etched plate with early picture of the old church 
and a thumbnail history.

Although no poet has been inspired as has Thomas Gray to commemorate a churchyard 
in elegy, no lych-gates form the opening and no clipped yew and roses border the 
pathway, the memorial plot is a tranquil setting.  The burial ground is shaded by 
branches of towering Red Oaks.

Unusual distinction is in several markers, one in old English inscribed with name 
Mary Huselby, born in England, 1824, died in Roseland 1900.  Another ancient stone 
was marked Delton Rogers, born in Sheffield, Mass., in 1830, died in 1893; while 
another stained, weather-beaten and scarcely readable, tells of Frank Elizabeth 
Hills, 1848-1883.

An ageworn ironwork fence encircles what is supposed to be a number of graves, all 
with markings amiss.  The marker on Adele Turin's grave is in French, with name and 
1898 transcribable.  A tree has wedged its roots in one of the stones so old and 
stained that no letters were visible.

(From ECHOES FROM THE ATTIC, V, 1970, by Edna Campbell)

(Pic: etched plate)