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History |
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On December 30, 1820, a small group of Christians met in the modest log cabin of Elder Jonathon Stone, the first pastor in the land of the Painted Post. He lived about a half mile south of East Campbell on what is now Meads Creek Road. At that meeting they decided to form a Baptist Church. On February 8, 1821, a church council was called consisting of representatives from the Baptist Church of Elmira, the Baptist Church of Smithfield, Pennsylvania, the Baptist Church of Jersey NY (Old Wayne?), and the Baptist Church of Tioga Pennsylvania to recognize this new Baptist Church of the Painted Post. For the next eighteen years, this church met in barns and school buildings until Deacon Alston Pierce and Dr. John Cooper, Jr. determined that a meeting house should be built in Coopers Plains on land donated by Dr. Cooper, who served as the first Trustee and raised the money to build the Erwin Meeting House. In 1841, the church was incorporated as the Campbell & Erwin Church and Society. John Cooper, Jr. was also responsible for the beginnings of the Coopers Plains Cemetery which is operated by the Campbell Erwin Baptist Church to this day. In the early 1840s, the church began a satellite congregation in Corning which evolved rapidly into the First Baptist Church of Corning. Elder Benjamin Bascomb, who was trained and ordained for the ministry by the Campbell Erwin Church, served as first pastor of the Corning Church and then returned as pastor of this church, He then went on to serve as first pastor of the Painted Post Baptist Church. In 1890, the original meeting house burned and was rebuilt on the original site with two towers. In 1896, the church building again burned was rebuilt in the same style as the second building. In the 1950s, with the aid of Thomas Watson, president of IBM, the church was extensively remodeled and the south tower was removed resulting in the present appearance of the building. The most recent major event in the history of the church was joining with the Coopers Plains Methodist Church under the leadership of the current pastor, The Rev. Thomas Bell. The combined congregations are serving the community as the Coopers Plains Community Church.
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Campbell-Erwin
Baptist Church