History
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| This Church began as a camp-meeting ground sited about 2 ½ miles north of Clinton about the year 1811, on the road now know as Sinking Springs Road and ¼ mile from the present Church building. A spring which disappeared beneath the road and then came up again on the other side gave the Church its name. | |
| Camp-meetings were a feature of great revivals in the early part of the nineteenth century. One account tells us: “Camp-meetings were held in the fall. Many people came, and some of the wealthier ones built cabins to line in while they were there. Most of the people brought food provisions, including a cow; special places were made in the spring to keep the milk cool. The methods of transportation were various . . . The meetings lasted for two weeks but sometimes they continued longer.” | |
| Traditions tells us the Church was organized about 1840. On November 27, 1848, a deed for property belonging to the McAdoo family was drawn “to Samuel Dunn, James Kirkpatrick, William Dale, Benjamin P. Hackney, Samuel Moore, E.C. Edwards, John Severs and Phillip Seiber, Trustees, for 1 ½ acres and 24 poles, for the sole purpose of establishing and building a campground . . . for the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church, south, forever so long as the said church wishes to use said land for such and no longer - - with the further privilege of free access to the spring for use of the congregation.” | |
| Our record of pastors begins in 1871 when Rev. Robert A. Hutsell was pastor of the Clinton Circuit. In 1880 the Church became part of Andersonville Circuit and Rev. Jacob R. Payne was appointed pastor. This relationship continued for the next 68 years except for brief periods when the alignment was in conjunction with other circuits in this part of . In 1957 Sinking Springs and were brought together as a two-point charge. In 1964 Sinking Springs, ’s Gap, and Heiskell formed a circuit, but the linkage with Norris as part of a two-point situation was resumed in 1969 and that continues today. | |
| The Sunday School’s official date of “reorganization” was and early leaders included W.A. Wallace, James R. Ray, S.D. Leinart, John Allen, J.B. Carden, W.H. McAdoo, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Leonhardt, and Miss Lizzie Kirkpatrick. | |
| The congregation occupied a one-room school very near the present location when its lay membership was led by J.C. Wallace, George and Ernest Taylor. A parcel of land was deeded to the system on , by Henry Irwin and in 1914, when Rev. William L. Dykes was pastor, after a cyclone had damaged a building used both by our Church and for a school, it was purchased from the County for $300 for church purposes. Two class rooms were added in 1940. | |
| When the unification of Methodist denominations occurred in 1939, ’s on joined with Sinking Springs the following year so that former northern and southern branches were indeed one. In 1948 a five-room parsonage was built near the Church while Rev. E.L. McConnell was the pastor. | |
The present Church edifice was constructed in 1951
by members of the church and under the supervision of Hill Brothers
Construction, which built many of the houses in the nearby community
of Norris. Rev. Ray F. Harris, then the pastor, drew the blueprints.
It is a brick and block building 36’ by 65’ , with a sanctuary,
seven classrooms, a Fellowship Hall and a kitchen. The mortgage was
paid off in 1961, the same year the auxiliary rooms were finished. The
first service held in the present building was in October 1951 and was
the funeral service for Mrs. Minnie Wallace.
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When nearby Norris Dam was built in 1936, many of
the families that lived in the area that was to be flooded by Norris
lake, moved their dearly departed to the cemetery at .
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From 1871 to 2002 there have been 60 pastors serve
at .
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