Information Sheet

 

 

R         Dry Fork Regular Baptist Church (Lake Spring, Mo.).

406                  Records, 1834‑1903.

                                    One volume and one folder, with typescripts.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

These are a record book and papers of the Dry Fork Regular Baptist Church in the Lake Spring community of Dent County, Missouri.  The vol­ume includes the rules of decorum, articles of faith, membership records, and minutes of church business meetings, 1834‑1879.  The papers in­clude letters of dismission and church correspondence.

The Dry Fork Baptist Church was organized about 1833 by individuals living along Dry Fork Creek near the settlement at Lake Spring.  The area was then part of Crawford County but is now on the western edge of Dent County along its border with Phelps County.  The Dry Fork Church was an af­filiate of the Little Piney Baptist Association, and, like the association, adopted an “anti‑mission” clause in its constitution stating the opposition of the church to for­eign mis­sions, Sunday schools and theological institu­tions.  The Dry Fork Church modified its name in June 1836 to reflect its form of belief with the incorporation of “Regular” as part of its title.  Dur­ing the 1850s and 1860s, the church was designated a “Regular Predesti­narian” con­gregation.  The final item in the collection, dated 1903, bears the heading “Dry Fork Church of Primitive Baptists.”

The Dry Fork Church served a rural congregation whose active members probably num­bered thirty to forty members at its peak.  Many of the of­ficers of the church were prominent in­dividuals of the Lake Spring com­munity whose descendants still reside in the area.  The modera­tors and pastors from 1834 through the 1870s were Thomas B. Snelson, David Lenox, John Brown, and Christopher Howell.  The clerks were John B. Harrison, James Brown, George W. Moore, Isaac Adams, Richard Jones, Wilson Lenox, and James H. Wilson.

The records of the Dry Fork Church consist of one record book and a few miscellaneous pa­pers.  They were recovered by the donor from a building at Lake Spring which was razed in the summer of 1990.  The record book con­tains the rules of decorum and articles of faith, an incom­plete membership roster, and the minutes of monthly church business meetings from June 1834 through May 1879.  Business matters routinely included the admission and dismissal of mem­bers, election of officers, and appointments of delegates to associational meetings.  Occasionally, the church investigated charges brought against members for improper conduct, among which were swearing, dancing, using alcoholic beverages, and killing a deer on the Sab­bath.  Members were sometimes excommunicated or “excluded” from the church as a result of charges, but a pub­lic apology often was accepted by the congrega­tion.  The church also han­dled cases which in­volved disruption of “fellow­ship,” some of which indicate the extent of the church’s influence in the community.  The minutes include investigation of a member and slave who spoke ill of a master who had sold her, the settlement of a dispute regard­ing the guardi­anship of a minor, and a decision concerning a personal debt owed by one church member to another.  The minutes of business meetings appear to be complete from June 1834 through August 1857.  Ex­cept for three meetings in the summer of 1860, there are no min­utes from August 1857 through June 1867.  Thereafter, the minutes are sporadic through May 1879.

Miscellaneous papers have been filmed separately following the record book.  They con­sist of letters of dismission for various members, a statement concerning a site for construction of a meeting house, and a statement regarding the rules of decorum of the church.

Transcripts of the record book and miscellaneous papers have been prepared. They have been filmed proceeding the originals.

 

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