Plum Grove Baptist Church and Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Fayette County, you can still find a piece of ground that outlasted the congregation it served, and that's the story of Plum Grove Baptist Church and Cemetery. Now, the cemetery is what the marker calls the enduring physical reminder, and that phrase is worth sitting with for a moment.

Enduring. Because the church itself is gone, the worshipers are gone, and yet the ground remains, holding its quiet. The congregation that worshiped here did so from 1870 until about 1904.

That's a run of Sundays, of hymns, of potluck dinners after the service, and then a slow fade as the surrounding population thinned out. But let's back up one year, because the story really starts in 1869. That's when two congregations, Plum Grove Baptist Church and the Pleasant Retreat Baptist Church of Christ, decided they were stronger together than apart.

They combined their congregations, and then the following year, 1870, they built a sanctuary right here on this spot. Once a month, church services were held. And every year, a revival meeting.

That was the rhythm of this place. Once a month, once a year, steady as seasons, until about the turn of the twentieth century when the membership began to dwindle along with the area population. Now, cemeteries have a way of beginning with a particular kind of sorrow, and this one is no different.

The first burial in this churchyard took place in 1872, and it was a child. Four years old. His name was William A.

Routh. That is the foundation stone of this cemetery, and it deserves to be said plainly and without decoration. After that, the burials continued until 1945, when they ceased.

Forty years of quiet followed. Then in 1985, a new section opened for interments, and this old ground accepted people again. The church that built it is long gone.

The pews, the preaching, the once-a-month gathering, all of it dissolved somewhere around 1904. But you drive out here to Fayette County, and the cemetery is still here, still receiving. Some places just refuse to be finished.

What the marker says

This cemetery is the enduring physical reminder of the Baptist congregation that worshiped at this site from 1870 until about 1904. Plum Grove Baptist Church and the Pleasant Retreat Baptist Church of Christ combined their congregations in 1869 and built a sanctuary the following year. Church services were held once a month with annual revival meetings until the area population and church membership declined about the turn of the 20th century. The first burial in the church's cemetery, that of four-year-old William A. Routh, took place in 1872. Burials ceased in 1945, until a new section opened for interments in 1985. (2001)