One Building or Two? Olive Branch, 1878

1878 · conflict C74, carried whole

Three carriers describe an 1878 church built at Olive Branch, and they do not agree — the question prints whole and unmerged. Chapman, Union chapter: a United Brethren church, commenced April 1878, 30 by 40 feet, cost about $1,000, the trustees and pastor named in the Olive Branch article above. Chapman, Greene Township chapter, under "Maple Grove Church": "The society here was first organized a mile or two north and west of where the church stands at the Hummer school-house. After a course of years it grew small and the society was removed to Olive Branch, in Union township. In the spring of 1878 they built their church. It cost about $1,200… The same minister officiates at this society as at the M. E. Church on Sumption's Prairie" — a society on the Methodist circuit, at a different cost. Howard, Greene section: the Maple Grove society "afterwards removed to Olive Branch, in Union township, where, in 1878, they erected a beautiful little church which the society still occupies," no denomination named. And Howard, Union section, expressly ties his United Brethren building to the Greene sketch: the Brethren removed to Olive Branch in 1878 and built the church "of which we have made mention in the sketch of Greene township." Whether one building or two stood at Olive Branch from 1878, and which society built which, is not settled by these carriers. Settlers: the Archive.org page images of Chapman pp. 697–699 and 952–953 read against the print originals, and the Olive Branch society's own church records.