Information Sheet

 

 

R         First United Methodist Church of Cole Camp, Missouri.

157                  Records, 1896-1983.

                                    Seven volumes and fourteen folders.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

These records include minutes of meetings, financial records, membership rolls, and mis­cel­laneous material of the First United Methodist Church of Cole Camp, Benton County, Mis­souri, which was organized in 1885 as a Congregational church, but which has been affiliated with the Methodists since 1945.  Also included are records of the Ionia (Mo.) United Method­ist Church, whose pastor was supplied by the Cole Camp church after 1965.

 

Twenty charter members organized the Methodist Church at Cole Camp as a Con­gre­gational church in 1885.  The church was affiliated with the Congregational Conference for sixty years until the relationship was terminated.  The membership had become increas­ingly dis­satis­fied with the Conference, which, from time to time, had failed to provide a pastor for Cole Camp.  At a special meeting held in April 1945 the congregation voted almost unani­mously to end the association and to affiliate with the Methodist Church.  The name of the congregation was changed to “The First Methodist Church of Cole Camp.”  Later, after a reor­ganization of the par­ent denomination, the congregation was re-named “The First United Methodist Church of Cole Camp.”

 

This collection consists of material representing three different churches: the Congre­ga­tional and Methodist churches of Cole Camp, and the Methodist Church of Ionia.  There are four fold­ers of records of the congregation at Ionia, a small community on the northern edge of Ben­ton County.

 

There are four volumes and one folder of records of the Congregational Church of Cole Camp, including a church manual published in 1910 to commemorate its “silver” anniver­sary.  This illustrated booklet contains an historical sketch of the church, the constitution, and the by­laws.  The four bound volumes of Congregational material are combination church reg­isters and administrative record books, containing minutes of church meetings as well as data on marriages, deaths, and transfers of membership.

 

After 1953, by which time the congregation had associated with the Methodists, the records of the Cole Camp church were kept in loose-leaf binders.  Minutes of meetings are entered in sepa­rate volumes from membership data.  There are three volumes and ten folders of Cole Camp Methodist records, including one folder of correspondence and allied material pertaining to church sponsorship of a Cambodian refugee family in 1980.

 

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