Remembering Rutherford, Daily News Journal, August 3, 2014, Greg Tucker
Ebenezer Church
In March 1905, J. R. Hill asked Tennessee Congressman John Gaines how to recover damages from the government for the destruction of the Ebenezer Church during the Civil War. The church building near LaVergne, according to Hill, “was torn down and used by Union troops in preparing for winter.”
Rep. Gaines referred Hill to Benjamin Carter, a Washington attorney, who agreed to handle the claim for 25 percent of the recovery with the church paying expenses. In subsequent correspondence Hill explained that “the building was large, plastered, nicely finished and in good condition.” The damage claim estimate was $3,000. Hill also explained that the formal name of the church when destroyed was the Ebenezer Congregation of Disciples, but that the surviving congregation was “known as the Church of Christ at La-Vergne (which) by many are called Campbellites.”
Carter explained that Congress would have to be persuaded that “the claim is entitled to investigation by the Court of Claims” and “if it goes to the Court, it will have to be tried there on depositions…” If the report of the Court is favorable, according to the attorney, “Congress will doubtless, within two or three years, make appropriation to pay the amount of the damage.”
Following instructions from the attorney, Hill obtained and forwarded affidavits explaining the claim, the amount of damages, and the connection between the original and current church entities. Carter noted in October 1905 that the affidavits were sufficient to “put the matter on foot when Congress meets.”
In January 1906, Tennessee Senator J. B. Frazier submitted a bill directing payment to the “Church of Christ of La Vergne, Tennessee” in the amount of $3,500 “in full payment for Ebenezer church building which was demolished and its materials used by the military forces of the United States during the war of the rebellion.” The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Claims.
Depositions were taken by a government attorney in November 1906 with H. E. Palmer from Murfreesboro acting as local counsel for the church. (The court stenographer, Kate Major, billed the church $6.60 for recording and transcribing the depositions.) Attorney Carter filed his brief with the Court of Claims in February 1907. Three months later the court “handed down a finding in favor of the Church of Christ of LaVergne for $2,200.” Carter recommended against any appeal for a greater amount, and the approved claim was submitted to Congress for appropriation.
Sen. Frazier advised the church in December 1910, that the appropriations bill had passed the Senate and been sent to the House of Representatives. With assistance from Tennessee Congressman William C. Houston, the appropriations bill eventually passed in the House. In 1912 the La-Vergne church finally received the long-awaited payment, less expenses and a 25 percent legal fee.
Marital harmony
According to the writings of the venerable local historian and educator Mary Hall: “Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone (great grandfather of Mary Hall) came to Rutherford in 1833. Campbell stayed in Murfreesboro and organized today’s East Main Church of Christ. Stone went out into the country.” Four Church of Christ congregations in rural Rutherford are credited to the efforts of Stone: Science Hill, Miles Hill, Rock Hill and Antioch.
The Antioch Church of Christ on Halls Hill Pike was constructed in 1854 on a plat of ground donated by Jacob Wright.
Antioch Church of Christ on the Halls Hill Pike is built on property donated to the church by Jacob Wright, son of Isaac Wright, one of the earliest landowners in eastern Rutherford County. Jacob was a member of the Church of Christ congregation, but his wife adhered to the Presbyterian faith. In deference to his wife, Jacob also donated nearby property for construction of a Presbyterian house of worship. Local lore tells of a stipulation in the property transfers that “services of the two groups not overlap.” Whether this effort at conflict avoidance applied to matters of doctrine or scheduling, or both, is unclear.
Key Memorial
“Before the Civil War, the colored and white people worshiped in the same building,” according to Melvin E. Hughes in “A History of Rutherford County’s African American Community.” “After Emancipation, it was necessary for the colored people to provide houses of worship for themselves.”
In 1866 one local group of unaffiliated worshippers was approached by a representative of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then based in Louisville, Kentucky, and offered assistance in securing a house of worship if they would become a Methodist congregation. The local congregation of about five dozen voted to accept the proposition.
Property was purchased at what became the northwest corner of the North Highland and East College intersection for $700. Construction of the church and adjacent parsonage was slow, however, as the local economy struggled to recover during the Reconstruction years. In 1877 the Rev.
Hilary W. Key, a former slave born and raised on a plantation in Sumner County, assumed leadership of the local congregation. With Key’s leadership, funds were solicited from a number of sources, including the federal Freedman’s Bureau, and the new house of worship was dedicated in 1879. In recognition of his leadership, the new church was named Key Memorial United Methodist Church. (Rev. Key was also instrumental in organizing churches in Gallatin and Hartsville. These Methodist congregations are also named for this dynamic church-builder.
In Nashville, Key was one of the founders of Central Tennessee College which provided education and professional training to freedmen from the end of the War to 1925. One of the college’s departments was the first black medical school in the south and became Meharry Medical College. Renamed Walden University in 1900, the college campus is now part of Trevecca Nazarene University.) On June 8, 1963, Key Methodist was completely destroyed by a fire of “unknown origin.” The early Saturday morning fire was noted in a foursentence report in the Sunday newspaper which observed that no service was scheduled for that weekend due to a church conference convention.
Curiously, there was no further reporting on the fire or its cause in either of Murfreesboro’s two newspapers.
Despite the racial tensions of that era in other parts of the south (George Wallace blocked the door of the University of Alabama to protest federally mandated desegregation on June 11; Medgar Evers was killed on June 12), the Key fire prompted no such concerns or conflict in Murfreesboro.
Florence Ridley recalls that attorney Whitney Steagall helped the Key congregation purchase a new site for their church.
A new house of worship for Key Memorial United Methodist Church was dedicated in 1967 at 806 E. State St. in Murfreesboro.
The original parsonage still stands at 467 East College.
City Hall
How many of us remember the Murfreesboro City Hall occupying the Old Cumberland Presbyterian Church on the corner of East Main and North Spring Streets? The original church was built on this site in 1859 but burned in 1915. The congregation ‘of 50’ built the structure pictured above in 1918 and used this building until 1928 when they sold it to the City to be use as City Hall. The Church now worships at its current site at 907 East Main Street. (Bill Jakes, Postcards from Murfreesboro)
Disagreement over certain matters of theology and educational requirements for ministers in the early 1800’s prompted several Tennessee and Kentucky ministers to separate from the established Presbyterian Church. They organized what came to be known as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
An imposing Cumberland Presbyterian house of worship was built in Murfreesboro in 1852 on the northwest corner of East Main and North Spring Streets. In or about the 1920s, this congregation sold their building to the City of Murfreesboro and moved to a new home on the northeast corner of East Vine and South Bilbro. The East Main building became City Hall.
Most city offices, including the water department, were housed in the old church. The police department was in the basement. In 1957 City Hall moved to new quarters at 220 NW Broad St., and the century-old church structure was demolished. In 1963 the Cumberland Presbyterians moved to their present location on the northeast corner of East Main and North Bilbro streets. The Vine Street building became commercial property (Swanson “church goods”) and has since been demolished.
The old parsonage remains at 205 S. Bilbro.
A special thanks to Lorene Hill and Leon Stancliff for research assistance. Rutherford County Historian Greg Tucker can be reached at [email protected].