Corinth Missionary Baptist Church has been a place of worship in Trigg County for 200 years and on Saturday, members of the church hosted a celebration at the Pioneer’s Complex to commemorate the milestone and reflect on the church’s history.
Stacey Wimberly has attended Sunday service at the church since 1971. She says the church was established in 1825 in the Donaldson Creek area, but after the Civil War it relocated to the Corinth community.
The church is the oldest to be in the Little River Cumberland Valley Missionary Baptist Association which consists of other Baptist churches in the region.
Wimberly has strong ties to the church as her great-great-grandfather, Cato Futrell, was one of the trustees that helped find the land that the church was relocated to. Then her mother, Bessie Bacon Wimberly, played a key role in organizing the church’s history.
In 2000, Wimberly says the church was designated as a Kentucky landmark worth preservation by the Kentucky Heritage Council. She says she is blessed and thankful to see the church reach its 200th anniversary.
Reverend Manuel Holmes has been the pastor of Corinth Church for the last 12 years. He says there are churches that don’t last 200 days so he is overjoyed to be a part of this anniversary. He says the milestone would not have been possible without the church members that came before him.
Holmes says there was a time when the church did not have padded pews, air conditioning or central heating. Members used to attend church after long days of exhausting physical labor, and Holmes says church-goers today are enjoying the fruits of the labor of those that came before them.
Holmes says the church has remained for two centuries, due to the support of its members and because religion has always been at the church’s core and no other elements outshine it.
At the celebration, Princeton Baptist Church Pastor Cedric Cheatham was the guest speaker, and Cadiz Mayor Todd King also attended and presented Holmes with a key to the city.
Photos courtesy of William Brown