Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 08/01/18
Summary
The Galatia Church was constructed in circa 1900 by members of the local community on land donated by the Lackey family in the 1880s.This structure is an important local testament to the history of the farming communities of the area at the turn of the 20th century.The Galatia Church is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, with local significance, as a structure associated with the settlement and early history of southern Baxter County.This property is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration A, as a property that was constructed by a religious group that derives its primary significance from its historical importance.
Elaboration
The Galatia Church is located in southern Baxter County, south of the town of Norfork, Arkansas.The area was settled by white settlers as early as the 1820s and was originally a part of Independence County, one of the original “mother” counties of Arkansas.The community of Liberty, a previous name for the town of Norfork, served as the territorial seat of government for Izard County from 1828 to 1836, after the county was created from part of Independence County.[1]After the Civil War, Governor Elisha Baxter created Baxter County out of portions of Fulton, Izard, Searcy, and Marion counties on March 24, 1873.[2]The current boundaries of the Baxter County were formalized in 1881.
The area around the Galatia Church and Cemetery is within the North Fork Township, named after the local North Fork River.Historically, there was a post office to the northeast of the Galatia Church property known as North Fork or Northfork from 1889 to 1892.[3]Directly to the south of the Galatia Church and Cemetery is a round mountain known as Naked Joe Knob.To the south of this rise in the landscape is the small historic community of Old Joe, which took its name from the nearby mountain.Several oral traditions have been recorded for the name of the mountain and historic community.One comes from oral stories of descendants of the Lackey family, who remembered stories of a young slave, known as Joe, who died after trying to round up farm stock during a thunderstorm.His body was discovered near the mountain; clothed only in tatters due to the ferocity of the storm, giving the area its name.[4]Other area histories indicate its naming after a local old man, known as Old Joe, who liked to walk around in the buff on his farm on the mountain.[5]Also, another story notes that the mountain was formerly named Old Joe Mountain, after a local, but that after an intense storm swept the trees off the mountain it was renamed Naked Old Joe.[6]In 1936, the local post-office was transferred from the nearby Hopewell community to the area at the foot of Naked Joe Knob.According to local tradition, the name of the new post office was submitted as Naked Old Joe, but this was denied by the post office and the name was eventually set as Old Joe.This post office name then became the local community’s formal name.[7]The post office at Old Joe existed until January of 1961, when the mail service was transferred to Norfork.[8]
Galatia Cemetery
Although adjacent to the Galatia Church, the Galatia Cemetery was created several decades before the construction of the first church building on the site.Since its creation, the cemetery has grown to include private family areas as well as additional acreage.The cemetery includes many new markers and several of the historic gravesites have been marked with replacement headstones.Also, there are is no defined historic section of graves within the cemetery.The cemetery also continues to be used.For these reasons, the cemetery was not included within the boundaries of this nomination.
According to local oral tradition, the cemetery was in use by members of the Lackey family in the mid-19th century.Two of the earliest marked gravesites within the cemetery are for Sarah R. Lackey (1854-1865) and John R. Lackey (1854-1867).These two Lackey children were twins, born on February 23, 1854, to parents, Robert Waid and Nancy B. Welch Lackey.The twin children both died in their teens.Also, local tradition notes that the cemetery was in use as early as the late 1850s and possibly included graves of slaves owned by the Lackey family.[9]
Robert Lackey was born in Tennessee in c. 1815.Robert Lackey married Nancy Welch, originally of South Carolina, in c. 1836 in Tennessee. Robert Lackey lived in Wayne County, Tennessee, with his wife and family by 1840, where he is recorded in the United States Federal Census as living with 4 other people and there is no record of any enslaved members of his household.In 1850, Robert and Nancy Lackey are shown as still living in Wayne County, Tennessee, with at least six children and Robert’s mother.[10]The Lackey family immigrated to the area sometime prior to 1860, when the area surrounding the Galatia Cemetery was patented by Robert Lackey.[11]By 1860, the Lackey family, including his wife Nancy and at least ten children, is in the area known as North Fork Township in what would become Baxter County, Arkansas.[12]The family is also recorded along with farm laborer John Lackey, who may have been a relative, farmer Hamilton Tally aged 23, and Rhoda Morris aged 85 who is listed as a “retired domestic”.None of these additional workers or members of the household are listed as any specific race.[13]Robert Lackey is not reported as a slave owner in the 1860 Federal Slave Census, but local tradition does indicate that he moved to the area with several slaves.After moving to Arkansas, Robert Lackey joined the 14th Regiment of the Arkansas Infantry, as a Private.He survived the war and returned to his home in what would soon become Baxter County.
Galatia Church
In February of 1886, only three years before his death in 1889, Robert Lackey deeded ten acres of land for a church and cemetery to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as a donation.[14]The land that Lackey deeded already included the family cemetery that would become the local community cemetery in the following years.In the years after the land was donated to the local community, a small church was built just to the northwest of where the current church structure stands.The name Galatia seems to have been associated with the church and cemetery since its creation.The name is most likely an echo of the region of north-central Anatolia, best-known because of the Apostle Paul’s letters to Christian converts living in the area.
In local oral histories collected by members of the Galatia Cemetery Association, the first church was described as being down the hill from the current church.In a hand-written history of the Galatia Methodist Church found in the Methodist Church Archives at Hendrix College, Willie Ernestine Dwelle recounted that a church was built on the land donated by Mr. Lackey by the Methodists in 1886.[15]She also related in an early note that she had been told that Ambrose Lane was the carpenter for the original church building.It was also stated that Mr. Lane hand-planed all of the wood that had been sawn for the first church building by Henry Wood.Her relatives, the Arnold and Dwelle families had been members of the church since at least the early 20th century.
The first church structure burned sometime before 1900, and the current church building was built further up the hill, overlooking the cemetery.The building was used for church services as well as other community activities and events, including the meetings of a literary society, pie suppers, funerals, and other social events.[16]In newspaper accounts in the local Baxter Bulletin, it was also noted that the Galatia Church was used a local school house, which was typical in the late 19th and early 20th century.Also, it was noted in a flashback article in the Baxter Bulletin newspaper that the nearby town of Devero, which eventually was renamed Norfork, sent their students to the school house at Galatia in 1906 as the Devero community didn’t have a school.[17]
The church’s membership continued to grow throughout the early 20th century and the congregation shared a pastor with the Methodist church in Norfork.After membership declined during the mid-1900s, the church was consolidated with the Norfork United Methodist Church during the 1970s.Interestingly, it appears from newspaper accounts and local histories that the current church was also used by the Church of Christ while also being used by the Methodist congregation.[18]
The Galatia Church was a typical building often found in rural communities, where the church and school were combined under one roof.[19]A summary of the conditions of education in Arkansas is included in the book Logan County, Arkansas:Its History and Its People produced by the Logan County Historical Society.The description of local schools found below fits the pattern seen in rural schools throughout the state and echoes the history of small school houses in many areas through the beginning decades of the 20th century:
Most schools in Arkansas during that period were established on an acre of land donated by a landowner for that purpose.Families pooled their resources to construct a building.The school was organized as a subscription school with parents paying a fee for each child attending school.These fees were used to purchase meager supplies and equipment and to pay the teacher.If the parent did not have the money for the fee, he was often allowed to pay with farm produce.As a result, many teachers found themselves in possession of pigs, chickens, and potatoes as compensation.Teachers received room and board provided by the parents in the district on a rotation basis; the teacher boarded with a family for a week or so and then moved in with another family for a similar period.
The school term lasted three to four months and was scheduled for the time of year when children were not needed for farm work.Children walked to school.The curriculum offered the basics, reading and writing and arithmetic.Older children assisted with the instruction.Qualifications for teachers consisted of mastery of basic skill and the ability to maintain order in the classroom.Public education continued in this manner for many years.[20]
The Galatia Cemetery Association was created in 1978, with Mr. Leo Pitchford serving as the group’s first president.This association now cares for the church and the surrounding cemetery.In 1984, a local resident approached the Methodist Church’s state administration to have the building deeded to the Galatia Cemetery Association.The North Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church deeded the property to the cemetery association in 1985.Soon after, Mauzee Pitchford, the president of the Galatia Cemetery Association, signed over the church building to the Galatia Church Association, a new organization that had formed to restore the church building.[21]During the mid-1980s, the building was restored for use by replacing the roof and several internal supporting rafters, adding vinyl siding, and adding the cover over the front porch.Also, the interior was painted, the floor and ceiling were repaired and possibly partially replaced, new double entry doors were installed, and a wood stove was re-installed.The wood stove has since been removed.Prior to the 1980s, the roof was covered with panels of sheet-iron as indicated in records kept by Ms. Sally Malone regarding the renovations carried out on the building in the 1980s.[22]
In 1993 a small group of people started the Galatia Christian Fellowship in the Galatia Church building.This group used the space until 1996, when they built a new church building on Jordan Road.After many years of standing empty, the church building was condemned by local officials in 2015.In 2017, the Galatia Church property was added to Preserve Arkansas’s list Most Endangered Places as a symbol of the importance of the small rural churches throughout Arkansas that are in danger of disappearing.
Statement of Significance
The Galatia Church is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, with local significance, as a structure associated with the settlement and early history of southern Baxter County.The church was constructed in circa 1900 by local members of the community on land donated by the Lackey family in the 1880s.This structure is an important local testament to the history of the local farming communities of the area at the turn of the 20th century.This property is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration A, as a property that was constructed by a religious group that derives its primary significance from its historical importance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andrewson, Jane.“Baxter County.”Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. Central Arkansas Library System, updated 12 March 2015. Web.www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net.accessed 1 June 2018.
Arkansas United Methodist Archives.Olin C. Bailey Library.Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas.
Baker, Russell Pierce.From Memdag to Norsk:A Historical Directory of Arkansas Post Office 1832-1971.Hot Springs, AR:Arkansas Genealogical Society.1988.
Berry, Earl.Pioneer Life and Pioneer Families of the Ozarks.Cassville, Missouri:Litho Printers, 1980.
Bradbury, Linda.ed.Old Galatia Church:Preserving Our Past.2018.(Self-published collection of copies of historic records, photographs, and family histories).
Dooley, Josh.“The Living Need Help With the Dead.”Baxter Bulletin.8 October 2015.www.baxterbulletin.com.
Logan County, Arkansas:Its History and Its People.Taylor Publishing Company.Logan County Historical Society, 1987.
National Park Service.U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865. [database on-line].Provo, UT, USA:Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.
“Old Naked Joe Mountain.”Atlas Obscura.https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/old-naked-joe-mountain. Accessed 1 June 2018.
Preserve Arkansas. “Galatia Church.”Arkansas’s Most Endangered Places, 2017. https://preservearkansas.org/
Teske, Steven.“Norfork (Baxter County).”Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. Central Arkansas Library System, updated 23 January 2017. Web.www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net.accessed 1 June 2018.
United States Federal Census Rolls:1840-1890.
[1] Jane Andrewson, “Baxter County,” Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, Central Arkansas Library System, updated 12 March 2015, www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net, accessed 1 June 2018.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Not to be confused with the city of Norfork to the northwest of the property, which was known as Liberty, then Devero, then Norfork by 1906.Russell Pierce Baker, From Memdag to Norsk:A Historical Directory of Arkansas Post Office 1832-1971, Hot Springs, AR:Arkansas Genealogical Society, 1988, p. 162.
[4] Linda Bradbury, ed., Old Galatia Church:Preserving Our Past, 2018.
[5] “Old Naked Joe Mountain,” Atlas Obscura, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/old-naked-joe-mountain, Accessed 1 June 2018.
[6] Ibid.
[7] There may have been a reference to a Joe Matthews as well, who is noted in the book Pioneer Life and Pioneer Families of the Ozarks by Earl Berry; however, no source for this information is given. Earl Berry, Pioneer Life and Pioneer Families of the Ozarks, Cassville, Missouri:Litho Printers, 1980, p. 36.
[8] Baker, From Memdag to Norsk:A Historical Directory of Arkansas Post Office 1832-1971.
[9] Linda Bradbury, ed., Old Galatia Church:Preserving Our Past, 2018.
[10] U.S. Federal Census, 1850.
[11] Bureau of Land Management, Government Land Office, Land Patent by Robert Lackey, Arkansas Volume 72, page 487, 1 May 1860.
[12] U.S. Federal Census, 1860.
[13] It seems like either all members of the community that were noted in the census were white, or the census taker just ignored the race column as the only notation in this township is “Ind.” on one line that seems to note the person is Native American from the Creek Nation known as Thomas Painter.U.S Federal Census, 1860.
[14] Linda Bradbury, ed., Old Galatia Church:Preserving Our Past, 2018.Book 34, Page 386, Baxter County Courthouse Deed Records, Mountain Home, Arkansas.
[15] Arkansas United Methodist Archives, Olin C. Bailey Library, Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas.
[16] Files of the Galatia Cemetery Association provided by Ms. Linda Branbury.
[17] Baxter Bulletin, Mountain Home, Arkansas, 12 October 1906.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Michael B. Dougan, "Elementary and Secondary Education," Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, Central Arkansas Library System, 7 July 2016, www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net, Accessed 1 June 2018.
[20]Logan County, Arkansas:Its History and Its People, Taylor Publishing Company, Logan County Historical Society, 1987, p.40.
[21] Files of the Galatia Cemetery Association provided by Ms. Linda Branbury.
[22] Ibid.