WestVirginiaCemeteryPreservationAssociation

Historic Church

Church Name: Rock Spring Church

Date Founded:

 1892
County: Jackson Founding Denomination: Methodist
USGS Quad: Sissonville Condition of church building/grounds**: Fair (July 2007)
Coordinates: 38.618ºN  81.687ºW Preservation Outlook: Endangered - may be being allowed to deteriorate
Maintained by: Property owner Construction: Stick frame
Property owner: 
Date added to WVCPA register: 23 November 2003   Data Updated: 07 September 2012
Accessibility: Poor. Access by foot only.  Not far from CR-2 on the north, but Dog Fork Creek must be crossed twice by this route, and it can be rather muddy after a rain.  Access from the south has been halted in the past by the  property owner - not certain how he feels about it currently.

** Condition of church building and grounds as observed on the given date - may not be representative of care at other times of the year
Scale: Excellent - Good - Fair - Poor - Abandoned

Click thumbnail photos below to enlarge

Elihu and Louise Miller deeded property for “the purpose of erecting thereon suitable church houses for the holding of religious services”. That was in 1892. Early 1900’s found the people of Dog Fork gathering together to build Rock Spring Church, a Methodist. A stone’s throw away is the spring that still furnishes nearby residents with drinking water.

Generations of Millers, Clendenins, Reeds, Boggesses, Harrisons, and Carneys have come together to worship there on Sundays.¹

 As viewed from the cemetery on the hill to the north

   North side of church from the banks of the Dog Fork of the Pocatalico River   View of the inside of the church through a window 

From the Jackson Herald - photo from 1903 of Summer School

The photo to the left is from an article in the Jackson Herald (Ripley, WV) from some years back - it was submitted to the newspaper by Ethel Ellen Miller Clendenin, wife of Sanford Lee "Saint" Clendenin.  Along with the photo she provided a list of the people in the photo.  The text of the article says:

"...students who attended the summer school taught by W.A. Smith in Rock Spring Church, Jackson County... ROW ONE, (l to r), Lum Reed, parent, and daughter Bertha; scholars: Glatus Reed, Lilly Miller, Ethel Miller, Cecil Reed, Hughlett Miller, Alfred Miller, Hanford Reed, Herbert Harrison, Edward Carney, Oshel Wolf, Henry Reed.  ROW TWO (l to r) Litha Munday, Eddie Reed, Fanny Mullens, Grace Harrison, Nettie Munday, Fanny Miller, Irma Miller, parent, and son, Brady Miller, Barbara Reed, Roby Harrison, Will Miller, parent, Peter Reed, parent.  ROW THREE (l to r) Ben Carney, Manse Lewis, Carl Munday, W.A. Smith, teacher, Girta Munday, Zella Hill." 

 
From the Charleston Daily Mail < These announcements found in the Charleston Daily Mail in 1939 and 1941 > From the Charleston Daily Mail
¹Reprinted from “Sissonville A Time To Remember” ©1988 
By The Sissonville Historical Awareness Committee of The Sissonville Village Association

Comments:

This church, and it's accompanying cemetery on the hill to the north, hold a special place in the heart of the WVCPA founders, Joel & Donna Duprey, as the church is located on land next to the family farm that was in his 4G-grandfather Joseph Harrison's twin brother Reuben Harrison's family for nearly 200 years until the year 2000,  and the cemetery is the resting place of many of Joel's ancestral cousins. 

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 Updated: 07 September 2012