Memories of a Kentucky Country Church Camp Ground (Beech Fork) Methodist Church

Memories of a Kentucky Country Church Camp Ground (Beech Fork) Methodist Church
A Hidden Kentucky Icon
by Anne Greer Denner

Map for Camp Ground (Beech Fork) Methodist Church.

If you look at the internet for Camp Ground Church, you find many nationwide and even several in Kentucky. My Camp Ground is located about five miles south of Bloomfield near Maud (Nelson County), Kentucky. It and its associated cemetery are nestled in the woods off a back country road. I would never go there by myself because I would never get out! I can barely make it in and out with competent help. However, I have never been there that the grounds of the cemetery were not beautifully mowed and the areas around the stones carefully trimmed.

The steps of the church lead to two front doors. One door was for the men and the other for the women and children. The single back door was the "fast escape" route for the minister just in case his sermon had stomped too many toes! I remember going there many times as a child.

Once, about 1955, we took my grandfather and two of my aunts. I have pictures of that trip. I am not sure why they went unless it was to find the grave of a Jury aunt who died at a young age. Of course, it was probably really because my Daddy was driving and that is where he wanted to go on this particular Sunday afternoon ride.

This cemetery holds just about as many memories as Poplar Flat does for me. I don’t think we have quite as many relatives buried here though as in Poplar Flat. At rest here are many of my distant Shehan relatives as well as Milton and Adahline Greer (my great grandparents), and two of their children..... little Harriet Elizabeth who died of the croup at about age 3 years and also Francis Foster Greer who died from complications of the measles and pneumonia at age 20 years. They were their oldest daughter and son, respectively.... how sad....

The walls of Camp Ground Church are brick and since the church has been restored, oil stoves have replaced the pot bellied ones and electric lights have replaced the old chandeliers which held kerosene lanterns.. The original church was log and was used as a camping facility for those who wished to come, stay and pray for several days. I suspect this must be the origin of the poplar nickname of the church and, maybe, of all Camp Grounds.

Sunday mornings in the mid 1880's meant that the Bodines, the Briggs, the Browns, the Greers, the Humphries, the Shehans, the Wakefields and many others came by foot, buggy or horse back to attend the services at the Old Camp Ground Church. They sang songs from books which held verses but no music and listened to ministers preach "fire and brimstone" sermons. I often wonder if baskets of food weren’t spread after church on those beautiful grounds. It would have made for a perfect Sunday afternoon. (Information similar to this as well as a picture of Camp Ground Church can be found in Sarah Smith’s Historic Nelson County written in 1971).

According to Miss Parrish and Mrs Crume, one member of the church was Mr. Sanford Bishop. He always occupied "his" seat and carried a whale bone umbrella whether it was hot or cold, dry and wet. Mr. William Humphrey, another member of the church, was Superintendent of the Sunday school. I am not sure what all the responsibilities of this job are but Isaac Greer, Jr. held this position at the Bardstown United Methodist Church for many years. I know he went from room to room to take attendance for Sunday School (an easy job at Camp Ground), counted Sunday School collections, and made reports for the church but what else I don’t know. Country churches all over our land were known for their "Amen Corners". and Camp Ground was no different. The "corner" was formed by six or seven old men who nodded their agreement with the minister. Long after their deaths, the walls retained the greasy spots where they rested their heads. (The church history portion of this narrative about Camp Ground Church was originally written by Miss Verlie Parrish and Mrs. Thelma Crume, Camp Ground Church historians. There is no date on my document but I obtained it about 1996.)

I often wondered why my Mother and Daddy didn’t know very much about the history of their families. It wasn’t that they weren’t interested but .....If you had as many brothers and sisters as they did and first cousins as I do, you probably wouldn’t worry about second cousins or other more distantly related persons either. And, in later years, my mother thoroughly enjoyed discussing her family history and exchanging letters with a fellow from Illinois who was interested in Marks genealogy. Mother, thankfully, spent many hours with me identifying many of her old pictures. Therefore, the love was there; but, like so many of us, she just needed the time to express it.