Description
Historic Interest in Old Union Church. - - (excerpted from longer article) - Slaves Built Church - Among these early settlers was Capt. Andrew Johnson, who brought his family from Georgetown, Kentucky. Aside from being a military man of experience, he was noted as a farmer and a lover of home, and he especially delighted In the friendship and companionship of his newly-acquired neighbors. He was later an officer in the Mexican War under General Leavenworth.
Captain Johnson was soon the possessor of hundreds of acres of the richest soil in Missouri. The slaves that he brought with him, under his management, made the land blossom like a rose, and he soon began to be known as the richest man in this part of the country.
Captain Johnson, as well as man of his neighbors, was brought up along the strict religious ideas of the old-line Baptist faith - the common name given them by others was “Hardshell Baptists.” The captain offered to donate the land for a church site and also agreed that his slaves would help to erect a suitable church building. This was in 1840 and it was not until 1844 that the church was completed and ready to be dedicated.
It is a matter of record that Captain Johnson's slaves practically built this church, taking a few days now and then from their work on the large farms. They felled the trees in the woods and skillfully hewed them so that the surface was as true as lumber sawed at the mill. They cut the dove-tailed corners as true as did the workmen on Solomon’s temple in the days of old
The puncheon floors - a tree split in half - were hewn and laid as true as any modern-day floor could be, and the old wooden door hinges that do service yet today bear evidence that the workmen of those days - whose bodies have long since crumbled to dust - did their work well and true.Date(s) of Creation
12/31/1922