Welcome to the Missouri Bicentennial Minute from the State Historical Society of Missouri.
May 21 marks the 200th anniversary of the gathering of devout Presbyterians to form a congregation near present-day Pocahontas, Missouri. With pioneer minister Rev. Salmon Giddings acting as moderator, the group of mostly North Carolina immigrants was of Scots-Irish descent. A number were patriots in the American Revolution.
Apple Creek was the third Presbyterian Church established in Missouri. The first was at Caledonia in Washington County, founded August 12, 1816. Many charter members of that church were relatives of those from Apple Creek.
Members built the first church building in 1822, a frame building replaced it in 1831. The present church dates to 1873. A view of the early days appears in the 1838 memoir of Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, who visited May 22, 1835. He describes the second largest Presbyterian congregation in the state, with 1834 membership at 206.
Lovejoy stated, “To see the congregation assemble, reminded me of … the gathering of the Highland clans at the muster call of their leaders.” “The meeting-house stands deeply embowered in the woods… Arriving there, a short time before the hour of worship, a person accustomed to live in cities, would conclude that few would be there to disturb his solitary meditations…” He concludes with, “The assembly was universally and uniformly attentive and devout.”
Members of Apple Creek Presbyterian Church and their descendants provided a number of leaders to southeast Missouri and beyond, including members of the Abernathy, Harris, Henderson, Hope, Lewis, McLain, McNeely and Oliver families. Although the congregation dissolved in 1962, descendants of many of the church members still gather for services in May and September, in commemoration of their ancestors.
