West End Church of Christ Silver Point

Last updated
West End Church of Christ Silver Point
West-end-church-of-christ-sp-tn3.jpg
West End Church of Christ Silver Point
USA Tennessee location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location14360 Center Hill Dam Rd.
Nearest city Silver Point, Tennessee
Coordinates 36°3′26″N85°44′26″W / 36.05722°N 85.74056°W / 36.05722; -85.74056
AreaApproximately one acre [1]
Built1915 [1]
ArchitectP. H. Black
NRHP reference No. 07001270 [2]
Added to NRHPDecember 13, 2007 [1]

The West End Church of Christ Silver Point is a folk vernacular brick church in the unincorporated community of Silver Point, Tennessee, United States. A primarily African-American Church of Christ congregation has met at the church continuously since its construction in 1915. In 2007, the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its role in the history of the Upper Cumberland region. [1]

Contents

The church is rooted in the Silver Point Christian Institute, a mission school established largely through the efforts of Churches of Christ evangelists George Phillip Bowser (18741950) and Marshall Keeble. Along with providing badly needed education facilities to the Upper Cumberland's small African-American population, the school published the Christian Echo, a Church of Christ newsletter circulated nationwide. In spite of early financial struggles, the school, with the help of Nashville minister David Lipscomb and philanthropist A. M. Burton, managed to survive until 1959. The church, built for the mission school community in 1915, has remained in operation to the present, however. [1]

Location

The West End Church of Christ Silver Point is located along Center Hill Dam Road (State Highway 141) in the western half of Silver Point, a rural community scattered around the intersection of State Highway 141, State Highway 56, and Interstate 40, about halfway between Cookeville and Smithville. Along with the church, the property includes a modern cemetery and a small monument commemorating the church's establishment. Like most of the Highland Rim, the area is rugged and hilly.

History

Monument commemorating the founding of the Silver Point Christian Institute West-end-church-monument-tn1.jpg
Monument commemorating the founding of the Silver Point Christian Institute

In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, education opportunities for the small African-American population of the Upper Cumberland were scarce. In his book The Souls of Black Folk , author W. E. B. Du Bois wrote of the primitive conditions of a black schoolhouse at nearby Alexandria, where he taught class while a student at Fisk University in the 1880s. [3] In 1909, after delivering a sermon at the Laurel Hill Church of Christ in Nashville, evangelist George Phillip Bowser was approached by fellow Church of Christ ministers Sam Womack and Alexander Campbell with a request to establish a church at Silver Point. Bowser agreed on the condition that he also be allowed to establish a mission school for the area's African-American children, which was granted.

In late 1909, Bowser opened what was initially known as the Putnam County Normal and Industrial Orphanage at Silver Point. Womack, Campbell, and another Church of Christ official named Henry Clay served as the school's first board of directors. Students paid between fifty cents and one dollar per month for tuition, and six dollars per month for room and board. [4] Operating costs were augmented by the sale of produce grown in the school's 8-acre (3.2 ha) garden, and by the sale of wagons built by Clay and several students. [4] The school also published the Christian Echo, a Church of Christ newsletter founded by Bowser in 1903, and shipped the newsletter to subscribers across the country. [1]

The church's northeast corner West-end-church-of-christ-sp-tn4.jpg
The church's northeast corner

In spite of efforts to reduce operating costs, the school struggled financially. One of the school's teachers, Annie Tuggle, asked Nashville educator and minister David Lipscomb for help, and Lipscomb turned to Nashville insurance magnate A. M. Burton, who agreed to provide financial assistance. [4] In 1913, the school became the Silver Point Christian Institute, which taught grades 1 through 8. With better financing, a new frame building was constructed in 1915 by P. H. Black, an African-American architect from Nashville. The building was used by both the school and the West End Church of Christ congregation, the latter founded in 1915. [1]

Bowser resigned as the school's principal in 1918 due to frustrations over lack of steady financial support for the school. He later founded schools in Michigan and Texas, and continued publishing the Christian Echo (the newsletter is still in publication today). Classes continued at the West End Church until 1959, when the school's students were bused to Putnam County's public schools. The church's congregation, however, still meets regularly. [1]

Design

The church's interior West-end-church-of-christ-interior-tn1.jpg
The church's interior

The West End Church of Christ Silver Point is an example of a simple, rural church with an African-American folk vernacular design. The structure is a rectangular brick structure with a concrete foundation and a gabled, asphalt-shingled roof. The church's south wall contains a covered porch and the double-door main entrance. The north wall once contained two rear doors, but these have been sealed. The east and west walls both contain four windows topped by brick arches. The top of the south wall contains a block of concrete which may have at one time held a stone inscribed with the name of the church or school. [1]

The church's interior follows a basic floor plan, with two sets of pews divided by a central aisle leading to the pulpit. In accordance with the congregation's understanding of Scripture that musical instruments are not authorized by the New Testament for use in worship, there is no piano or organ to be found. The pews are not original, but were retrieved from another church building. The pulpit is flanked by two rooms that serve as a Sunday school classrooms. In the 1970s, the walls were covered with wooden paneling, and acoustical tiles were added to the ceiling. [1]

A granite monument commemorating the founding of the church and its predecessor, the Silver Point Christian Institute, stands near the entrance to the church's driveway. A modern cemetery is located behind the church. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Putnam County, Tennessee</span> County in Tennessee, United States

Putnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 79,854. Its county seat is Cookeville. Putnam County is part of the Cookeville, TN Micropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cookeville, Tennessee</span> Largest city and county seat of Putnam County, Tennessee, United States

Cookeville is the county seat and largest city of Putnam County, Tennessee, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was reported to be 34,842. It is recognized as one of the country's micropolitan areas, or smaller cities which function as significant regional economic hubs. Of the twenty micropolitan areas in Tennessee, Cookeville is the largest. The Cookeville micropolitan area's 2010 Census population was 106,042. The U.S. Census Bureau ranked the Cookeville micropolitan area as the 7th largest-gaining micropolitan area in the country between 2018 and 2019, with a one-year gain of 1,796 and a 2019 population of 114,272. The city is a college town, home to Tennessee Tech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lipscomb University</span> Private university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Lipscomb University is a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It is affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The campus is located in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, between Belmont Boulevard to the west and Granny White Pike on the east. Total student enrollment for the fall 2022 semester was 4,704, which included 2,955 undergraduate students and 1,749 graduate students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Restoration Movement</span> Christian movement seeking church reformation and unification

The Restoration Movement is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) of the early 19th century. The pioneers of this movement were seeking to reform the church from within and sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament."

The Churches of Christ, most commonly known as the Church of Christ or church of Christ, is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations. The Churches of Christ are represented across the world. Typically, their distinguishing beliefs are that of the necessity of baptism for salvation and the prohibition of instruments in worship. Many Churches identify themselves as being nondenominational. The Churches of Christ arose in the United States from the Restoration Movement of 19th-century Christians who declared independence from denominations and traditional creeds. They sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the original church of the New Testament."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falling Water River</span> River in Tennessee, United States

The Falling Water River is a 46.8-mile-long (75.3 km) stream in the east-central portion of Middle Tennessee in the United States. It rises just west of Monterey at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, and traverses the Eastern Highland Rim before dropping off to the Nashville Basin and emptying into Center Hill Lake along the Caney Fork. The river is noted for the 136-foot (41 m) Burgess Falls, which it spills over near the end of its course.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lipscomb</span> Leader, American Restoration Movement (1831–1917)

David Lipscomb was a minister, editor, and educator in the American Restoration Movement and one of the leaders of that movement, which, by 1906, had formalized a division into the Church of Christ and the Christian Church. James A. Harding and David Lipscomb founded the Nashville Bible School, now known as Lipscomb University in honor of the latter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolbert Fanning</span>

Tolbert Fanning was one of the most influential leaders of what came to be called the American Restoration Movement. Born in what would later become Cannon County, Tennessee. He was man of many talents in both religion and agriculture: preacher, college founder and professor, journalist, writer, and editor. For his era he was considered an innovative farmer writing and co-editing magazines, Agriculturalist from 1840-1845 and the Naturalist from 1846-1850. His greatest influence was as much from his successful publications The Christian Review and Gospel Advocate, as much as from his circuit preaching. The most influential publication he founded, Gospel Advocate, inspired a former Franklin college student, David Lipscomb, who would follow Fanning as its editor. Fanning’s magazine provided a platform for purveying views and opinions relating to doctrine and church practice. It was through this influence that led to the 1906 identification of the Church of Christ as a distinct religious body, 33 years after Fanning's death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee</span> Diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States

The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America that covers roughly Middle Tennessee. A single diocese spanned the entire state until 1982, when the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee was created; the Diocese of Tennessee was again split in 1985 when the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee was formed. It is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.

William Lipscomb was a figure of the American Restoration Movement and co-editor of the Gospel Advocate.

<i>Gospel Advocate</i>

The Gospel Advocate is a religious magazine published monthly in Nashville, Tennessee for members of the Churches of Christ. The Advocate enjoyed uninterrupted publication since 1866 until the COVID-19 pandemic.

Robert Henry Boll was a German-born American preacher in the Churches of Christ. Boll is most known for advancing a premillennialist eschatology within the Churches of Christ, in articles written during his editorship of the front page of the Gospel Advocate from 1909 to 1915 and after 1915 in Word and Work, leading to a dispute which was a significant source of division within the Churches of Christ in the 1930s. Boll was one of the most influential advocates for the premillennial point of view, and was most singularly opposed by Foy E. Wallace Jr. By the end of the 20th century, however, the divisions caused by the debate over premillennialism were diminishing, and in the 2000 edition of the directory Churches of Christ in the United States, published by Mac Lynn, congregations holding premillennial views were no longer listed separately.

Marshall Keeble was an African American preacher of the church of Christ, whose successful career notably bridged a racial divide in an important American religious movement prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Over the course of his 50-year career as a gospel preacher, he was credited with starting almost every African-American church of Christ in the state of Tennessee. Keeble enjoyed an almost unrivaled position as an African-American subject of hagiographical biography by white contemporaries within the church of which Keeble was a member. A notable example of this is Roll Jordan Roll by fellow minister and longtime Keeble associate, J. E. Choate.

Dr. Charles Richard Brewer (1890–1971) was a notable professor, preacher, poet, and leader for the churches of Christ. Born in near Gimlet Creek in Giles County, Tennessee, Brewer's career included many publications, television and radio shows, and a reputation for biblical learning. His funeral in Nashville, TN, was attended by some 3,000 people. Brewer was named "Speaker of the Year" in his final year and eventually a "Lipscomb Legend" by the university. He was scheduled to speak at Pepperdine University, in April of his last year, where he was to receive the school's annual Most Distinguished Service Award. A belltower that was built on the campus of Lipscomb University in 1935 was dedicated to the memory of Charles R. Brewer after his death, and in 2022 it continues to bear his name.

Dr. Rubel Shelly is an author, minister, and professor at Lipscomb University. He is the former president of Rochester University.

Walden University was a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1865 by missionaries from the Northern United States on behalf of the Methodist Church to serve freedmen. Known as Central Tennessee College from 1865 to 1900, Walden University provided education and professional training to African Americans until 1925.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cookeville Railroad Depot</span> United States historic place

The Cookeville Railroad Depot is a railroad depot in Cookeville, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Built by the Tennessee Central Railway in 1909, the depot served Cookeville until the 1950s when passenger train service to the city was phased out. The depot was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and is home to the Cookeville Depot Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1915 Vanderbilt Commodores football team</span> American college football season

The 1915 Vanderbilt Commodores football team represented Vanderbilt University during the 1915 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association football season. Dan McGugin served his 12th season as the Commodores' head coach. Vanderbilt was a member of the SIAA. They faced a 10-game schedule. Vanderbilt scored 459 points in its first seven shutout games, and 514 points in 510 minutes of actual playing time by season's end, making it a legitimate "point-a-minute team" leading the nation in scoring with a school record still unequaled today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tennessee State Route 136</span> State highway in Tennessee, United States

State Route 136 (SR 136) is a state highway in the central portion of the U.S. state of Tennessee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 Nashville tornado outbreak</span> Severe weather event in the United States

A small but deadly tornado outbreak affected West and Middle Tennessee on the night of March 2 and into the morning of March 3, 2020, including a high-end EF3 tornado that hit Nashville and Mount Juliet, becoming the 6th costliest tornado in United States history, and a violent EF4 tornado that impacted areas in and just west of Cookeville. A total of 25 people were killed by the tornadoes, with an additional 309 being injured, and more than 70,000 lost electricity. The path of the Nashville tornado was very similar to the one that hit East Nashville in 1998. A few additional tornadoes were also confirmed in Alabama, southeastern Missouri, and western Kentucky. Total damage from the event reached $1.607 billion according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Randal Williams and Althea Armstrong-Ullith, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for West End Church of Christ Silver Point, 18 July 2006. Retrieved: 20 February 2010.
  2. National Park Services, Federal Register Vol. 72, No. 222 (19 November 2007). Retrieved: 22 February 2010.
  3. Randal Williams and Althea Armstrong-Ullith, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for West End Church of Christ Silver Point, 18 July 2006. The authors cite Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1997), p. 75.
  4. 1 2 3 Mary Jean DeLozier, Putnam County, Tennessee, 1850–1970 (Cookeville, Tenn.: 1979), pp. 179-180.