History of the Round Prairie Church

 

    The first church to be erected was by the Christian denomination at Round Prairie, Section 32 in Dorchester Township, in the year 1845.  This church would have been about two miles east of the Willis Wolf farm on the Catholic Springs Road.  The first ministers were Robert Foster and Jonathan G. Wood.

The following is from the records of the church:

    Round Prairie Church was organized July the first in the year of our Lord eighteen-hundred and forty  five by appointing the following named persons to the office of the Eldership to wit:  John P. Bayless, Samuel Wood, and Hiram Daugherty, and John Nesbit as Deacon, at the same time.  About 1849, John W. Keller was added to the list of Elders and resigned in 1854 and Johnson McGilvary and W.S. Spruill were ordained as Elders and Levi Miller and William Nesbit were ordained Deacons at the same time.  Johnson McGilvary went off to the Army in 1862 and died.  In 1874, there was added to the Eldership, Peter C. Randle, Albert L. Fairchild, Benjamin Mize, and William Soapes to the Deaconship.  Elder Fairchild moved his membership and died March 12, 1881.  Scott Mize was added to the list of Deacons by the church and Sanford Mize at the same time was appointed as an assistant clerk for the church of Round Prairie.

    January 1, 1865, a subscription for the support of a minister at Round Prairie Church, eighty nine dollars contributed by 16 people.

--Cite this story: The Bunker Hill IL Historical Society. "A Look Back in Bunker Hill History." Bunker Hill Gazette-News, February 10, 2022, April 7, 2022.  

Stanton, Carl L. . "Bunker Hill News 1932." In Bunker Hill Revisited, Volume Six, 1920-1940, p. 120. Bunker Hill: Bunker Hill Publications, 2006. Provided by the Bunker Hill Historical Society.

Redford, Carol, and Betty Triplett. "Bunker Hill History." In Reflections: A History of the Bunker Hill-Woodburn Area, p. 123. Bunker Hill: Bunker Hill Publications, 1993. Provided by the Bunker Hill Historical Society.