Bucklesberry, Back in the Day: Hickory Grove Church (22)
Hickory Grove Church (22)
Dr. Joe Sutton
TRANSITION YEARS
The first year of Hickory Grove's transition to a new denominational home in 1885 was not without interruption. Fewer than thirty days after the Church voted to align with the Methodist Protestant Church (M.P.C.) Conference, former Baptist pastor Rev. Bushrod Washington (B. W.) Nash, no doubt unhappy, was reportedly back in the pulpit by the end of April 1885. Whether he was invited to preach or requested the meeting is unknown:
1885, April 29: "Rev. B. W. Nash was here last Saturday, and went to Hickory Grove on Sunday to preach." (The Daily Journal, New Bern)
An agent of the Union Baptist Association (U.B.A.), Rev. Nash's message was likely a protest over the Church's separation from the U.B.A. just seven months earlier in October 1884. Nonetheless, with newly-appointed M.P.C. pastor Rev. William Ellis Swain in place, Hickory Grove moved forward with implementing a new church government. In the early summer, Rev. Richard H. Wills, then-President of the M.P.C. Conference of North Carolina, visited Hickory Grove with the likely intention of welcoming a new affiliate church:
1885, June 17: "Rev. R. H. Wills preached at Hickory Grove on last Sunday 11 o'clock, and at the M.E. [sic., M.P.] Church here [La Grange] Sunday night." (The Daily Journal, New Bern)
Typical for the time period, the M.P.C. Conference appointed one pastor for a group of smaller, fledgling churches in a geographic area. The churches were initially referred to as a "mission" and eventually a "circuit." Preachers assigned to a mission or circuit were called "circuit riders." They traveled by horseback to preach one Sunday, and sometimes one Saturday, per month at each church.
By 1887, the La Grange M.P.C. Mission included four churches. In addition to a church in the town of La Grange, and Hickory Grove Church in Bucklesberry, the two other churches were Oak Grove Church and Speight's Chapel. Oak Grove was located near Washington in Beaufort County, some forty miles east of La Grange. Speight's Chapel was in Tarboro in Edgecombe County, about sixty miles northwest of La Grange. A considerable distance from La Grange and Bucklesberry, the monthly commute by horseback to Oak Grove and Speight's Chapel was surely a challenge for pastor Rev. Swain.
The next article will share more about Hickory Grove's continued transition to a Methodist work. Interested readers may enjoy a previously published Bucklesberry article titled "Glimpse in Time 1873: Weather" available at https://bit.ly/3U2Ev6r.
