The
Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church stands southeast of the junction of Dallas
County Roads 7 and 12.
Built between 1851 and 1852, its principle features include brick footings, a recessed portico with two columns in antis, a bell tower and cupola, fourteen window openings, an interior gallery (for slave members), and two interior staircases. The church yard contains 8.39 acres, more or less.
There are over 140 graves, dating from the 1830s to the 1980s. Iron railings dating from the 19th Century define a few family plots.
Like
the rest of Dallas County, the land at Pleasant Hill was part of the cession
by the Creek Nation in the Treaty of Fort Jackson. Pleasant Hill
was the site of an Indian trading post called Fort Rascal, a name which
it bore into the 1840s. Fort Rascal had a "grog house," a slave market,
and as white settlement increased, several stores and law offices which
catered to the needs of land speculators and planters.
In 1818, James Moor, a planter from Tennessee, bought the patent for 160 acres immediately east of Pleasant Hill. By 1823, James and his sons William and Lewis patented an additional 320 acres in the area. William Moor(e) patented 82.44 acres of which much of the modern village, including the Presbyterian churchyard, is a part.
The
Moors were Cumberland Presbyterians, and formed the nucleus of a Cumberland
congregation called Mount Carmel. William Moor(e) served as pastor
of Mount Carmel Church until his death in November 1831, by
which time the church had a log building. Reverend Moor(e)’s
82 acres must have passed to his brother Lewis, because Lewis Moor sold
lots from that parcel in the 1840s and 50s, including the one for the Methodist
Episcopal Church. In 1851, Mt. Carmel Church took up a subscription
for a new frame building. Seventy-four subscribers pledged $1569.50, of
which Lewis Moore pledged $400. According to tradition, Moor
donated the land for the church, and his slaves are believed to have carried
out much of the construction, which was completed in 1852.
Before
the Civil War, slaves and their owners worshipped in the same room, and
at the same time, The slaves sat apart from their owners in the gallery
at Mt. Carmel Church, clearly maintaining the distinction between
owner and slave.
The front of the gallery railing, seen by the white portion of the
congregation, was beautifully and expensively paneled and painted.
The back of the railing, the gallery floor and risers, and the
stairs to the gallery, all seen only by slaves, are of the most basic construction
and were never painted.
The doors leading from the portico to the slave stairs have molding and paint on the exterior side, seen by whites, but no molding or paint on the interior side, seen only by slaves. The doors to the main floor, used by whites, are paneled and painted on both sides.
Few
records are known to exist for Mt.Carmel. In an 1867 request Martha
F.Vasser Hunter asks Reverend Meredith of the Cumberland Presbyterian
Church (Mt. Carmel) at Pleasant Hill to transfer her church letter
to a church closer to her home at Cahawba. A church session
book from October 2, 1881 shows that
Mt.Carmel had 34 communicants at that time and was pastored by Reverend
L. R. Bond. The church’s three elders were William R. Smyly, John
N. Cowan, and Harvey N. Crumpton. Lloyd Barnes was the sole deacon.
Church business for the month involved electing a new church clerk, appointing
a delegate to the next meeting of the Presbytery, collecting Presbyterial
dues, and granting a letter of dismission to a member. Church membership
from 1890 to 1902 varied from seven to ten. Mount Carmel continued
to be listed in statistical reports of the Alabama and Birmingham Presbyteries
through 1902, after which it dropped from the annual minutes of the General
Assembly.
In June 1873, a second Presbyterian congregation was organized at Pleasant Hill. It was organized as Presbyterian in the United States. Having no building of its own, the new congregation worshipped in the Mount Gilead building. Founding members brought letters from Adams Grove, Hayneville Church, Lowndesboro Church, and Sandy Ridge Church, and the Elders were Dr. Kenneth McKinnon and John G. McLean, both of Adams Grove. McKinnon had been one of the original subscribers of the Mt. Carmel Church building. Of the twenty-one members who were organized in 1873, only five were still connected to the church in 1890. During the intervening time, twenty-four new members joined, and twenty were dismissed to other churches.
Although church records end March 27, 1927, services continued
for a few years more. Pleasant Hill Presbyterian was served from
1921 to 1928 by W. R. Henderson. C. H. Moorman of Plantersville served
from Fall 1928 until he died in 1932. The church was then without
a pastor from 1933 to 1935, when membership consisted of six communicants,
including one elder and one deacon. The Pleasant Hill Presbyterian
Church, finally known as the First Presbyterian Church of Pleasant Hill,
was officially dissolved on January 15, 1963 by the Tuscaloosa Presbytery,
PCUS.
References Cited:
Dallas County Deed Book (microfilm); Alabama Department of Archives and History Reference Room; Montgomery, AL.
Dallas County Deed Books; Probate Office of Dallas County, Selma, AL.
Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church Book; 1873-1927; Montreat, NC.
Subscription List for Mt. Carmel Church; Lula Pouncey; Montgomery, AL.
June Middleton Albaugh and Rosa Lyon Traylor;
Collirene: The Queen Hill. Paragon Press;
Montgomery, AL; 1977.
Marilyn Davis Hahn. Old Cahaba Land Office Records and Warrants 1817-1853. Southern University Press; Birmingham, AL; 1986.
