The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 1868 — Built, and Gone from the Roll

1868 – end date not reached

The second church in the township was the Seventh-Day Adventist church in town, built in 1868 by six named donors; no Adventist congregation stands at North Liberty today. Chapman: "The second church in the township was the Seventh-Day Advent church at North Liberty, which was built in 1868 by donations from James Harvey, Elias Styles, Jacob Styles, Anson Worster, Adam Rupert and Russel Hoag, since deceased." Howard confirms the year: "The Adventists erected a church in North Liberty in 1868." Chapman's biography of Russel Hoag calls him "one of the founders of the Seventh-Day Advent Church at North Liberty." The denomination's own history of Indiana Adventism, Brian E. Strayer's "The Cause Is Onward" (2022), reached at search-snippet strength rather than read whole, carries the congregation into the organized denomination: at the organization of the Indiana Conference on 20 September 1872, delegates "voted the churches at North Liberty, Alto, Ervin, Salem Center, and Patricksburg into membership"; James Harvey, a donor to the 1868 building, was the conference's first secretary; and "many Adventists in North Liberty were 'in a state of discouragement' in 1872." A denominational paper of 13 September 1864, likewise at snippet strength, places "North Liberty and Salem Center, Ind." in a Michigan Conference district list — an Adventist company at North Liberty by 1864, four years before the building, though which Adventist body it belonged to is not verified from a read. No Adventist congregation at North Liberty appears on the town's present roll or in the genealogical society's church-records index. The congregation's closing date and the 1868 building's fate were found in no read carrier, and bank as a named gap (G-RL-4); Strayer's history opened at its North Liberty passages, and the Indiana Conference's church directories across the twentieth century, are the settlers.