Peninsula In Passage

Berea Congregational Christian Church Berea Congregational Christian Church sprang from three families that settled near Driver about five years before the Civil War. The John Lee, Alexander Savage and Dempsey Langston families, all members of Holy Neck Christian Church, arranged to hold services nearer their new homes at the Yeates Upper School house, not far from where the current church stands. In 1858, 13 charter members organized a church. By 1861 Langston had built a frame church sanctuary on land given to the congregation by the Richard Bennett Trust. Soon after that three of the male church members enlisted in the

Confederate Army, leaving John Lee as the only male member present. The pastor, Dr. William B. Wellons, sought refuge behind the Confederate lines. Lee kept the church running until Wellons returned to the pulpit in November 1865. No description of the original church remains - and no record of what happened to it. But local lore claims it burned to the ground. When the original communion set was discovered in the attic of the current church, the silversmith repairing it said it had been through a fire. In 1891 the current Gothic style church was built on the same site. Carved symbols of Christ and his 12 Disciples distinguish the gable end of the narthex and the sanctuary glows in the light of its stained glass windows. In 1935 church members built a Sunday School wing at the back of the church using lumber from the old Beech Grove United Methodist Church. Repairs and renovations over the years included a major 1968 repair to the wooden support sections of the sanctuary and the removal of a large support beam running the length. The congregation gave the huge beam to Meadowbrook Memorial Gardens to form part of a cross in one of the gardens. Beech Grove United Methodist Church

Until the Civil War Bennett’s Creek and Driver families traveled six miles or more by horse and buggy to Jolliff Road to attend a Methodist Church. In 1870 the minister of the Jolliff Church agreed to help organize a new congregation that met in a small frame building church members built on property donated by the Wright family in the vicinity of the intersection of Bennett’s Pasture Road and Sleepy Hole Road. The new church, Beech Grove, was part of the Norfolk circuit that eventually included Centenary, Jolliff, Olive Branch, Deep Creek and Indiana Methodist churches. The Driver crossroads grew when the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad extended into Driver Station. Elliott J. Driver gave the church a piece of property on Driver Lane, a short walk from the crossroads, and the congregation began planning for a new church in 1909. The sanctuary was shaped like a Maltese cross with a high vaulted ceiling and an inclined floor. Large stained opal glass windows were designed and molded in Paris.

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