Good Spring Baptist Church and Cemetery

About this property

Good Spring Baptist Church and Cemetery is a historic church and cemetery mainly for the descendants within and outside of what now is called Mammoth Cave National Park and is formally located in Edmonson County, Kentucky. "A petitioning letter from members... naimely (sic) Henry B. Blair and Mary (wife) and sister Rachel Pearce (sic) for letters of dismission which was granted for ministerial aid for the purpose of being constituted into a church to themselves for convenient sake for which is granted and sent to their aid Elder Jesse Moon... " The members of Good Spring, before it was formed, had to travel to Rhoda to attend church at Beaver Dam, or go to Nolin Baptist Church. Due to the distance and conditions of travel at that time, they thought it expedient to form a church of their own. Aunt Susan Blair was born in the heart of the Forks in the middle of the decade preceding the Civil War and grew to young womanhood there. In a letter written to Charlie Whittle in 1931, she paints a picture of the conditions that existed around Good Spring Church in the olden days, "On Sunday we went to church were Good Spring Church now stands. The old house was built of logs and heated with a fire place. My father and the neighbors built it in 1842; and my father and mother were among the first members there. The first preacher I can remember was Uncle Billy Skaggs (William Skaggs). When they had a revival meeting, everybody came and stayed all day. Some would bring the dinner one day and others the next. There were no night services. Sometimes there would be more than the church house would hold; and then they held the service out under the trees. The older women wore homespun, yarn dresses and hats tied with a ribbon under their chins. I was fourteen years old before I had my first pair of dress shoes; and I had to carry them in my hand until I was nearly to the church and then sit down and put them on. When I started home, I had to pull them off and carry them, for they had to last me for three or four years, or until they were too small for me." Many of the charter members of this old church were descendants and-or the living existence of the pioneer Baptists who settled Green County and associated with the Brush Creek Church and settlement. Elder William Skaggs married first Lindsey Meredith, a daughter of Joseph Meredith, Sr., who was traveling from Green County. Joseph was the father of Thomas Meredith, a charter member of Good Spring Church. The Sanders family also came from Brush Creek area of Green County at an early date. The Blairs came to Edmonson County from the Cumberland River area of Tennessee.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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