Sugar Plain Church

Adjoining Thorntown on the west is what is known as Sugar Plain Neighborhood, and composed chiefly of members of “The Friends’ Church.” The first settling here in this neighborhood was by Hugh and Sarah Moffitt entering the farm now owned by John Glover & Son, in the spring of 1830. In the following fall came William Childree and wife, and their daughter Phebe, the latter being a late widow of Isaac Brown. They settled on the farm now owned by Alpheus Maxwell, Jeremiah Moffitt and wife following in the year 1832. The latter is now Cynthia A. Woody. Josiah Hollingsworth, William and Joseph Herner, Richard Bratton, and wife of Adam Boyd, were soon added to the list. The first meeting of worship was held at the residence of Hugh Moffitt, in December 1833, and was “set up,” to use the old phrase, by Sugar River. They continued to meet twice a week for worship at the same place until the year 1835, when a small log house was built near the site of the present building, which served the double purpose of school and meeting house until the growth of the members had increased and it was insufficient in size, when the second was erected; this time a frame building in which a meeting for business denominated by the Society, a monthly meeting was established in the 12th month 1840. Although some of the members living from five to seven miles away (as it was not the days of gravel roads) the roads sometimes and often were almost impassable, their custom of going was generally on horseback, they seldom missed attending any of these meetings.

Besides the names already given in this account, many others, no doubt, would be familiar (more especially to those of the first settlers, that appear on the early records of the meetings), among whom are Isaac and Mary Barker, their daughters Hanna Weisner and Ruth Barker, Nathan and Catharine Elliot, William and Margaret Chappell, Thomas Thornton, James and Mary Brown, Nicholas and Matthew Barker, William and Tacy Cloud, James Fisher, Isaac Lawrence, Samuel and Peter Rich, Isaac and Rachel Cox, Samuel and Mary Cox, Ambrose and Elizabeth Osborn, Seth Williams, Priscilla Wells and others. Most of them are laid away in their narrow homes. The meetings were kept up at an increasing rate, the membership showing 277. There has been a Quarterly Meeting held at the same place since 1852, which now numbers about six hundred members. The present house was erected in 1852 for the accommodation of Quarterly Meetings. The size of the house is sixty-four feet long, sixty-four feet wide, and eighteen feet between the floor and ceiling.

Transcribed by: Julie S. Townsend - 07/07/2007

Source Citation: Boone County Church Histories [database online] Boone County INGenWeb. 2006. Original data: Harden & Spahr. "Early Life and Times in Boone County, Indiana." Lebanon, Indiana. May, 1887.