By Mannix Porterfield
‘There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood,
‘No lovelier place in the dale.
‘No spot is so dear to my childhood,
‘As the little brown church in the vale.’
— Dr. William Pitts, in 1857
DEMPSEY — Midway through the 19th Century, on a stagecoach ride to see his fiancee, Dr. William Pitts stopped in a wooded expanse in Bradford, Iowa, so impressed with the serenity that engulfed him he envisioned a church springing up there.
Eventually, to his surprise, one did.
Pitts wrote a song that has become synonomous with churches tucked away in largely unsettled regions, apart from the din and rush of metropolitan life, “Church in the Wildwood.”
Seven years before Pitts penned his enduring song, settlers in this backwash of Fayette County decided they needed a church.
Lacking a building, the congregation of the fledgling United Methodist Church simply met inside each other’s homes until a sanctuary was raised in 1879.
Fully a decade before hostilities erupted in the Civil War, the Doggett Chapel was born, deriving its name later on from a Methodist bishop who dedicated it to the ME South Church.
After a few years of taking turns with home worship, members began meeting in a log grade school, a one-room structure that is still standing about a mile or so down the narrow, one-land road from the church.
Church historian-treasurer Phyllis Gagich learned of the history from an aunt, Nettie Cottle, who prepared a lengthy discourse on the matter in 1925.
Samuel Carter put up an acre of land, and John Coleman donated the timber. Horner and Cassidy, managers of a local stave mill, sawed and planed the wood, and Joe White took it on himself, with a little help from his friends, to construct the church. When the local Methodists weren’t using the structure, other congregations were free to hold services there.
Back then, diversions were limited to log rollings, dinners on the ground, quiltings, corn shuckings and singing.
“The reason I have all the major information on the church is that Nettie Cottle (Nugent at the time) was a teacher in the community,” Gagich said.
“She taught my mother. People were married in this church and some came back.”
Each year, on the Saturday before Labor Day, the church holds its homecoming, and this year’s event is planned Saturday beginning at 11:30 a.m., featuring a half-hour sermon, followed by a covered dish dinner and an opportunity to catch up on family news over the preceding year. Mindful a church means the flock foremost, as opposed to an actual building, the church considers this the 150th anniversary, since members began meeting before a structure was erected.
Just how many pastors have led the flock in the century and a half of its existence isn’t known, but there have been some of the fire-and-brimstone variety.
“I’ve been around when we had a few that pounded the pulpit,” Gagich recalled.
That’s hardly the style of the current pastor, Clare Sulgit-Horn, who divides her time between the Doggett Chapel each Sunday and the larger, sister church, Fayetteville United Methodist.
“Clare is an educator,” says Gagich.
“She teaches so that the people of our age group understand and don’t get confused. She gives us little homework assignments so we can go home and study. That’s a blessing. Things we can do throughout the week, places in the Bible we need to take another look at it. It’s wonderful.”
Nor is there any starchiness one might expect in more formal and illustrious surroundings.
Paul Clay, a Fayetteville attrney and the flock’s pianist, describes an informal atmosphere that finds some worshippers arriving at Doggett Chapel in jeans and holding cups of steaming coffee.
Between 15 and 24 people make up an average Sunday turnout.
“We have members that drive down from Fayetteville,” says Gagich. “Family members come from out of town and still worship here on Sunday morning.”
Windows oval-shaped at the top are of stained glass design. Over the years, some interior changes became necessary, such as replacement of the floor.
“There was a hewn log, about four feet wide and two to three feet thick, from the pulpit to the door,” Gagich related.
“It was hand-hewn and was one of the base supports for the church. When we took the flooring up, you touched it and it absolutely disintegrated in your hands.”
One modern intrusion, besides electricty, has been the installation of ceiling fans to combat oppressive heat, as an alternative to an air conditioning unit, not favored by the congregation.
Pews were donated by a church that closed its doors in the 1950s.
Dempsey boasted no small share of citizens that achieved a high mark in the world — a sheriff, a millionaire banker, county school superintendent, an Army colonel who led a unit in Mexico, and 13 young men who served in World War I, to name a few.
“The Lord took care of this church, because it’s still standing,” Gagich said with obvious joy.
With all the add-ons used to lure and retain fresh converts in the 21st Century, can a small, country church compete for members, and will Doggett Chapel be able to pass its storied past onto the next generation?
“I hope so,” Gagich said.
“There are very few young children in the community. Most attend churches out of town. As we grow, who knows what we’re going to do. I just love this old church. There are a lot of memories.”
— E-mail:
mannix@register-herald.com
