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1878 · township class
One name in the Olive Branch trustee list ties the township's church record to the township's free Black settlement, and this article prints exactly what the record states about him — no more. Chapman states this about H. A. Manuel: he was one of the five trustees of the Olive Branch United Brethren church building project of 1878, with Joseph Shuppert, John H. Bennett, W. Lower, and Rev. N. F. Surface, while John Todd was pastor. Chapman states nothing more about him in the passages read. The surname Manuel is carried by LK-2's register as a surname of the Huggart Settlement (its spelling variants — Manuel/Manual/Maniel/Mannel/Mankel/Mannuel — print whole in LK-2's conflict C36); that link is the register's, not Chapman's statement, and the identification of the trustee with the settlement is printed at exactly that strength.
The settlement's own church thread stands beside it, from Frederick A. Karst's Indiana Magazine of History article on the settlement (dug whole in LK-2): the settlement stood in Union Township northwest of Lakeville, began with Samuel Huggart's arrival in late summer 1834, and had disappeared in the 1890s; a Huggart "became a member of the church at Sumption Prairie, three miles northwest of the Huggart farm," and his standing "was reflected in his selection as superintendent of a union Sunday school at Olive Branch — a position he held for many [years]"; "The area in St. Joseph County known as Olive Branch was named for a United Brethren church which has long been located there, although the church originated immediately north of Lakeville. Andrew's and Jane's children later became active in this church." The distinction, printed expressly: the carried record shows participation and office inside township congregations — a settlement surname on a trustee list, settlement membership at Sumption Prairie, a settlement man superintending the Olive Branch Sunday school. No carrier read seats a separate Black congregation in the town or the township. That is the whole of what the record states.