Ebenezer Cumberland Presbyterian Church

The story of Ebenezer Cumberland Presbyterian Church reaches back to the earliest years of settlement in western Madison County, Tennessee. As settlers moved into West Tennessee seeking the region's rich alluvial farmland, they established churches, schools, and communities that would shape the area for generations.

About 1840, local settlers organized Ebenezer Cumberland Presbyterian Church as a place of worship on what is now Ebenezer Road, in western Madison County near the Haywood County line.

The congregation's early presence is documented in Madison County land records. On November 22, 1854, William "Wm." Pope conveyed approximately two and one-half acres, including the meetinghouse and schoolhouse, to John T. Bryan and Thomas Buchanan, trustees for the Ebenezer Society of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The transaction was recorded in Madison County Deed Book 17, page 585.

The property also included a cemetery. The earliest surviving gravestone is believed to date to 1843, providing evidence of the community that had formed around the church by that time.

The cemetery also contains the graves of enslaved people who worshiped alongside the white families of the congregation. Their presence is an important part of Ebenezer's history and reflects the complicated social and religious history of West Tennessee before the Civil War.

The original Ebenezer Church served the community in another important capacity: the first school in the community was conducted in the old church building. In this way, Ebenezer was not simply a place of Sunday worship. It was one of the centers of community life and education for the families living in the surrounding countryside.

The community began to change dramatically with the arrival of the railroad.

As the railroad was constructed through the area that would become the town of Mercer, homes and businesses began concentrating around the new transportation route. The center of community life gradually shifted toward the developing town.

The Presbyterians of Ebenezer, along with Methodists who had worshiped at nearby Hays Chapel, eventually chose to relocate their houses of worship closer to Mercer's growing population and business district.

The move reflected a pattern occurring throughout West Tennessee during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Churches that had originally served widely scattered farming communities increasingly relocated near railroad towns, where members could more easily gather for worship and community activities.

A 100-by-100-foot lot, identified as Lot 1 of Block 22 in Mercer, was obtained for the Presbyterian church. The property transaction is recorded in Madison County Deed Book 74, pages 342–343.

In 1910, the congregation constructed a new church on the site. The building was a plain, one-story rectangular wood-frame structure with a gabled roof, representative of the craftsmanship and church architecture commonly found in rural West Tennessee during the period.

Its location at the intersection of Main Street and McGlathery Avenue, near Mercer's business center and within walking distance of many residences, demonstrated the importance of worship and church life to the people of the community.

Despite the simplicity of the main structure, one architectural feature immediately distinguished the building: two steeples rose above separate sets of double doors facing Main Street.

The two entrances reflected the customs of the era. Men entered through the double doors beneath the taller steeple, while women and children entered beneath the shorter steeple.

In later years, the entrance beneath the shorter steeple was sealed. Plans were eventually made to restore it to its original appearance. The doors opened into foyers located on either side of the choir loft and pulpit area, from which worshipers entered the sanctuary. Tall, four-pane, double-hung glass windows provided natural light and ventilation. A rear door supplied additional ventilation and an emergency exit and may also have provided convenient access to the woodpile used to fuel the church stove.

The church bell is believed to remain within one of the steeples.

The interior of Ebenezer Cumberland Presbyterian Church preserves remarkable physical connections to the congregation's earlier history. Hand-hewn pews from the original Ebenezer Church were moved to Mercer and placed in the choir loft beneath a simple, unadorned arch.

Other furnishings—including the Bishop's chair, altar table, and fern stands—also date to the original church. Beadboard wainscoting covers the lower portions of the sanctuary and foyer walls. The interior woodwork is varnished, as is the beadboard ceiling. Carpet was later installed over the original wooden plank flooring.

Perhaps most remarkable is the degree to which the sanctuary remained intact after regular worship services ended.

The hymnals remained in place.

The organ stood ready to accompany another congregation in song.

The Bible remained open upon the pulpit.

The communion service waited as though another Sunday service might begin at any moment.

Together, these objects preserve not merely the appearance of an old church, but something of the atmosphere of worship that once filled the building.

One of the most distinctive features of the sanctuary is the large painting located on the wall behind the choir. The painting depicts Christ weeping over Jerusalem and was completed in 1954.

According to the church's history, the artist first sent rough sketches of the proposed work to the congregation for approval. After receiving approval, he traveled by train from Searcy, Arkansas, to Mercer to complete the painting in the church itself. While working on the painting, the artist stayed in the home of Mrs. Annie Sue Pope Mulherin, who would later become the last surviving member of the Ebenezer congregation.

The artist's identity was not recorded in the source from which this history was compiled and remains an important subject for additional research.

The religious life of Mercer reflected an extraordinary degree of cooperation among the town's churches. Traditionally, residents often attended whichever church was holding preaching services on a particular Sunday. The Baptists and Methodists alternated services, traditionally worshiping on the first and third Sundays and the second and fourth Sundays, respectively.

The Presbyterians held their preaching services on the fifth Sunday of the month.

On those fifth Sundays, members of the Baptist and Methodist congregations joined their Presbyterian neighbors. After attending Sunday School at their own churches, townspeople would hear the tolling of the Presbyterian church bell and make their way to Ebenezer for worship.

For a small West Tennessee community, denominational boundaries did not prevent neighbors from worshiping together. The practice became part of Mercer's religious and community tradition.

Like many rural congregations, Ebenezer Cumberland Presbyterian Church gradually declined in membership as population patterns changed and succeeding generations moved away.

Eventually, only one living member of the congregation remained: Mrs. Annie Sue Pope Mulherin.

With a congregation no longer sufficient to maintain regular worship, the Presbytery discontinued regularly scheduled services.

Yet the closing of regular services did not mean the end of the historic building.

The church was eventually donated to the Big Black Creek Historical Association, Inc., allowing the structure to be preserved and given a new purpose.

Plans for the historic church envisioned the building once again serving as a community gathering place.

Improvements, including the installation of air conditioning and continued maintenance of the building, would allow it to serve as a meeting place for the Big Black Creek Historical Association, Inc. and to house memorabilia associated with a proposed veterans' memorial.

In this way, the building that had served generations of worshipers could continue serving the people of the surrounding community.

The history of Ebenezer Cumberland Presbyterian Church is about much more than a single building.

It begins with pioneer families establishing a congregation around 1840 in the countryside of western Madison County. It encompasses an early cemetery whose surviving stones reach back to 1843, including the graves of enslaved people whose lives were part of the congregation and community. It includes one of the area's earliest schools, conducted within the original church.

Its story follows the coming of the railroad and the rise of Mercer, when the congregation moved from its rural home to become part of the developing town.

The 1910 church preserves hand-hewn pews and furnishings carried forward from the earlier congregation. Its two steeples recall an era when men and women entered worship through separate doors. Its bell once summoned not only Presbyterians but Baptist and Methodist neighbors to gather together on fifth Sundays. And inside, the hymnals, organ, pulpit, Bible, communion service, historic furnishings, and painting of Christ overlooking the sanctuary preserve the memory of generations who worshiped there. Although regular services eventually came to an end, Ebenezer Cumberland Presbyterian Church survived.

Today, the historic church stands as a tangible reminder of the settlers who built communities from the farmland of West Tennessee, the generations who worshiped and learned within its walls, and the small-town tradition of neighbors gathering together in faith and fellowship.