Susan Harber, Daily News Journal, Sunday, April 19, 2015
East Main Street Church of Christ has helped to start other congregations in the community.
When I drive by East Main Street Church of Christ, I look twice over my shoulder to recapture any historical detail I may have missed at an earlier time.
The congregation is a special and active place of worship that has freely exemplified goodwill over 180 years.
With the exception of changes made in the 1950s with electric lights and air conditioning, the church looks similar since remodeling of the 1920s. East Main Street Church of Christ was given its namesake in the early 1900s after being known as Murfreesboro Christian Church.
The church was strongly influenced by the Restoration Movement and teachings of Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. Campbell arrived in 1833 and stayed in Murfreesboro to organize the church, while Stone delved into the rural areas of our county.
The members based their principles on the directives of the Bible opposed to specific laws dictated within a religious body. Campbell and David Lipscomb were powerful guest speakers in the 1830s.
In 1812, Barton Stone baptized Alfred and Elizabeth Blackman; and Alfred became a distinguished elder of this church. The family made an early commitment to dedicate the rest of their lives to religion.
Blackman was instrumental to the future of the building program. In 1860, he was a trustee of property purchased at East Main and South Academy. He also paid the majority of the cost of land. Blackman’s son-in-law, William Lillard, was also an elder.
One of the earliest ministers was Fred Becton, who records his dismay on being shunned by other houses of worship, who locked their doors and refused to share their premises. Becton writes in 1832 “Sheriff Crockett kindly offered us spacious room in the courthouse to worship.” By August 1832, the membership had doubled to 21 members within the courthouse.
In 1833, Becton purchased a first building for $50 near West Main Street Bridge on the banks of Lytle Creek. The transaction was deeded to the elders Peyton Smith, George Morris and William Smith.
On Jan. 1, 1833, Tolbert Fanning was a 22-year old dynamic preacher in the Restoration Movement lending his considerable skill to East Main preaching a first sermon for the church. He caused a stir of gargantuan emotions when he condemned slavery, while giving a specific example of a slave owner (church member) selling a man at auction to a Mississippi farm.
The elders dismissed Fanning, and the slave owner had Fanning arrested. However, Attorney Charles Ready volunteered to defend Fanning, who won the case. Incredibly, Fanning, a talented and gifted man, ministered at East Main’s new building in 1859.
“Pictures and the Stories they tell”, p. 121
With the excitement of new premises at East Main, the Civil War began; and plans for growth were altered. During Stones River, the building was used as a Confederate hospital, and services were sparse.
An enlighening chapter in East Main’s history includes Federal troops worshipping at East Main, including James Garfield, the futue president, who attended every time services convened. He sat at the front and actively participated by rendering several sermons and leading singing.
He would leave his gun and sword on the pew when he was in front of the congregation, and this caused a sensational interest among members, especially children. As a gift, Garfield later sent the church a communion set of a silver decanter and four silver goblets.
Yet, members refused to accept this present, as Garfield remained a Yankee. The silver was delivered to a church in Christiana only to be sold to George Dehoff, East Main minister, in 1954.
After the war, East Main Christian Church sought a full-time minister and paid $2,000 to Alfred Blackman for the property. Blackman intended to will the property; but the church leaders wanted the debt repaid as a clear transaction.
East Main Church of Christ, 1922
In 1900, additional land was purchased from the T.B. Fowler family on the west side of the property.
By 1910, Nashville architects Fletcher and Bell designed the church for George and Tempe Swoop Darrow. The new church was a rectangular, Romanesque Revival structure with circular windows and doors, finials on each gable, stained glass windows, four corbeled chimney style stacks, and a bell tower.
In 1920, a baptistry was added to the west side of the building in a new wing after additional property was purchased from the Fowlers. There were now two grand entrances on East Main Street. In 1951, Dehoff added light fixtures for the auditorium that resembled German replicas he had seen on his travels.
East Main was mission-minded within Murfreesboro and sought to expand operations within its own central establishment. It created a church on State Street (1939), as well as Westvue Church of Christ (1929) and North Boulevard Church of Christ (1947) on Tennessee Boulevard. In 1941, East Main bequeathed its East State Street building to a congregation that evolved from Spring Street into present-day Bradyville Road Church of Christ.
East Main is a crown jewel of historical significance in Murfreesboro and continues to thrive today. The congregants are caretakers of a special edifice that continues to carry a bright light still shining.