The drone of the cicadas (Brood 14 is in full voice after 17 years of dormancy!) and the sudden escalation in temperatures makes me think of hazy August days, winding down a rural Kentucky road. I came across the Lick Spring United Baptist Church and the neighboring Prater Cemetery on one such August afternoon. While I failed to unearth any historic background on the building or the congregation, the setting of the church and the nearby cemetery is really quite lovely.
A few of the markers in the cemetery framing the church.
Unlike most rural church buildings in Kentucky, which have a front gable orientation, the entry doors to this one room building are on the side.
The main facade of the church.
A hand painted sign above the double entry door reads “Lick Spring est. 1888 United Baptist Church.” There are four, wooden, 6/6 double-hung sash windows on the three primary elevations. The rear elevation, backing up to the hillside, looks like it had an attic vent once upon a time.
A small brick flue rises from the green metal roof, but I don’t know if the stove vented by that flue still sits inside, cold and forgotten.
The doors to the church.
Wooden pews remain inside, along with a table and some small bracketed shelves on the walls holding lanterns.
The interior, as seen through one of the windows I could reach from the exterior.
On the hillside to the west of the church is the Prater Memorial Cemetery, the name picked out on a metal sign.
The cemetery nestles into the hillside on the west side of the church.
Since there was no one in sight when I stopped, there was no one to ask my many questions about church and cemetery.
The grave of Mathey Lee Sparks, 1872-1926. “A kind, loving husband and father, and a believer in Christ.”
There are approximately 40-50 marked interments in the cemetery, with the earliest dating from the late 19th century. Family names include Prater, Jenkins, Prater, and Williams.
The marker for Ethel Caudill, 1897-1918. I wondered if she died in the Influenza Pandemic?
Down the road from the Lick Spring Church is the Mash Fork Missionary Baptist Church, also founded in the late 19th century. The Mask Fork church was established by the Reverend L.F. Caudill of Barnett’s Creek from Johnson County, Kentucky.
I know many other rural churches cling to hillsides or stand in valleys across rural Kentucky, many of their stories lost to memory. Although I am always sad at the loss of community represented by abandoned churches and schools, I am glad for my chance to travel these roads and tell what I can of their stories.
old rural church is so interesting….but the wooden pews reminded me of the church your Mom and I grew up in………..same like of wooden pews…. some people had their own pillows – some needlepoint with family crests. I suppose it was good in that visitors knew where to not sit…..in the older days families paid money each year for the family pew….it was a pleasant surprise when I returned to the church after being gone for 25 years, there were lovely cushions in each pew…..