During the fifty-one years that I was married to my late husband Jack, I thought that all the Stubblefields had always been members at Shallowford. When Jack joined Bethlehem, I thought he was the first and only member of his family to have been a member here. Lately I found out that there was another Stubblefield who was a member here more than a century ago. Jack’s grandfather, George Stubblefield, had a younger brother named Robert Curry Stubblefield. This is the story of the events surrounding Curry Stubblefield’s departure from Bethlehem.
 In 1900 things were different at Bethlehem. Each year the congregation voted at the October quarterly business conference whether to keep the current minister for the next conference year. In October 1900, Rev. Peter Klapp, who had grown up at Bethlehem, was completing his third year as pastor. At that quarterly meeting, he lost the three way election with 28 votes to keep him versus 44 votes to replace him with the previous pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Holt. Rev. Holt had served the church from 1881 to 1890 and again for the year 1897. The records don't tell us the reasons for the dissatisfaction, but obviously the congregation was divided.
In 1901 morning worship services were held at Bethlehem only once a month, on the third Sunday. The pastor served other churches on the other Sundays of the month. Rev. Holt, who lived in Burlington, apparently drove his carriage out to Bethlehem and then ate lunch after the service with a family in the congregation. According to a story passed down through the Pritchett family, Rev. Holt asked Mr. Coley Pritchett, one of the church collectors, for a list of the good cooks in the congregation, assuring him that the list would remain between the two of them. You can imagine Mr. Pritchett's surprise when this list was read from the pulpit, and his name was given as the person who had decided who these good cooks were. We don't know Rev. Holt's side of this story, but there were problems between Rev. Holt and Mr. Pritchett from then on. It finally reached the point where Mr. Pritchett and his entire family would sit on the front row during the service, then stand up and leave the building when Rev. Holt started preaching.
At the November 1901 scheduled business meeting, the church clerk made a motion, which passed, calling for a committee to investigate the rumors that Mr. Pritchett wrote two anonymous letters. Quoting from the meeting minutes:
“[the letters] purporting to represent members of Bethlehem Church, the said letters being very unchristian like, calculated to annoy and hurt the feelings of our Pastor”.
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Four deacons were appointed as an investigating committee. At the regularly scheduled business meeting two months later in January, 1902, they reported that Mr. Pritchett had evaded their questions, but they believed the rumors that he wrote the letters. The deacons were instructed by the congregation to investigate the rumors further and report to the congregation at a called meeting in February. Also at the January meeting, Mr. Pritchett resigned as collector for the church.
In those days the business meetings were typically held on the Saturday before the third Sunday, allowing the pastor to make a single trip to both chair the meeting and preach at the monthly service the next day. Bad weather prevented Rev. Holt from attending Bethlehem at all in February, and he was unable to preside at that called February meeting. It was instead chaired by one of the deacons, who would himself leave Bethlehem three months later to help form Berea Christian Church. The investigating committee of four deacons again reported that they had concluded Mr. Pritchett wrote the letters and should apologize to the church. Their report was rejected and a motion was passed exonerating Mr. Pritchett and calling for Rev. Holt's resignation.
At the April 1902, quarterly meeting, presided over by Rev. P. H. Fleming, the pastor of First Christian Church in Burlington, the congregation reversed itself, nullifying the results of the February meeting, accepting the deacons’ report, deciding that Mr. Pritchett had written the letters, and requiring that he correct his mistakes or be suspended.
Within a month of that meeting fifty members of Bethlehem were dismissed at their own request. Berea Christian Church was formed fifteen days after this April 19th meeting with at least 41 of its 48 charter members being among these dismissed members. Berea's first pastor was the same Rev. Peter Klapp who was voted out of Bethlehem eighteen months before. The first of those Berea charter members to request that his named be dropped from the Bethlehem roll was Robert Curry Stubblefield.
We‘ve talked a little bit this Sunday about a dark part of our history. The hope is that by looking at such episodes with an open mind we can see in them our dependence on God and realize that it is only because of His faithfulness that we are still here. Can I get an Amen? |
