The history of the Brethren Church west of the Green River in Western Kentucky in the early 1800s is replete with unanswered questions. In 1830, Joseph Roland, elder at the Drakes Creek congregation in Simpson (then Warren) County, Kentucky, wrote a short history of the churches which he personally established, which was published in 1908 by the Southern District of Illinois. He says that he "constituted" the church in Grayson County, KY, on October 2, 1814, the church in Muhlenberg County, KY, on June 8,1814, and the church on Long Creek, Muhlenberg County, KY, on September 20, 1826. The first unanswered question has to do with the church in Grayson County. Other than Roland's claim that there was such a church, I and others have been unable to find out anything about it. The second unanswered question comes from David B. Eller's Ph.D. dissertation of 1976, p. 102, in which he questioned the 1814 and 1826 years of the organization of the two churches in Muhlenberg County, given that there was considerable Brethren activity in Muhlenberg going back to the beginning of the century. I think this second question may have an easy answer: Historically, a Brethren congregation starts out with a central location from which distant preaching points are added as the membership expands from its central location. Over time, as a preaching point becomes sufficiently large, it spins off from the mother church and establishes itself as its own congregation. This happened over and over in Lancaster County with the Conestoga Congregation, which was organized in 1724. For example, the Little Swatara Church was "founded" in 1757, but it did not grow and break off from the larger Swatara Congregation until 1798 or 1800. Prior to that, the Swatara Church, itself, did not grow and break off from the mother Conestoga Congregation until 1772. I think that the same sort of thing happened in Kentucky. The Drakes Creek Congregation was the mother church. The Brethren in Muhlenberg County gave rise to distant preaching points fanning out from Drakes Creek. The organization of the Muhlenberg County Congregation in 1814 came after the members reached a critical size to warrant having their own minister and elder-in-charge. So who was put in charge of the Muhlenberg County Brethren in 1814? Probably not Samuel Donner who came later. Probably not Benjamin Coffman who, although in the right place at the right time, was not a minister. My guess is that it was John Dick. He moved into Muhlenberg County in 1814 where his brother Peter had settled in 1799, and where his brother Conrad also lived. John Dick became certified by the county officials, in early 1816, as a Brethren minister to perform marriages, Benjamin Coffman and Henry Shutt posting bond of 500 pounds. He married John Shutt and Catherine Gates in 1819. He married Jacob Noftsinger and Mary Noftsinger in 1820. During the 1820s, John Dick's son, Daniel lived and paid taxes in Muhlenberg County while Daniel was still single. Daniel Dick married Susan Gates in 1830. I assume that his father, Elder John Dick, stayed with his son while in Muhlenberg. In 1820, John Dick lived in Simpson County, close to the action of the Drakes Creek Church. Muhlenberg and Simpson were not particularly far apart, especially for circuit riding ministers who were used to serving distant preaching points. John Dick was certainly an up-and-around elder. He worked in both Tennessee and in Kentucky. If I am correct, the Muhlenberg County church established in 1814 was the so-called "Dutch Settlement" on Cypress Creek, near Bremen, in the northern part of the county. Members of this church included, among others, Benjamin Coffman, Samuel Danner, Jacob Garst, the seven Gish brothers, John Gossett, Rudolph Kittinger, the three Noffsinger/Noftsinger brothers, Michael Frantz III, the Landis families, and the Shavers. Most, if not all, of these were from Botetourt and Franklin Counties, Virginia. Although also in Muhlenberg County, the Long Creek Brethren, who lived in the south of the county, were probably a preaching point until they grew sufficiently large to be organized into their own church in 1826. This church was headed by Isham Gibson, who was baptized by John Dick in 1823, and ordained by Joseph Roland as a "bishop" in 1826. He was non-German and from Middle Tennessee. He was immediately appointed by Joseph Roland to head the newly established Long Creek Church. There he met Elizabeth Gates, marrying her in 1830. Just about the time that the Long Creek Church was established, the Brethren in this part of Kentucky, including Drakes Creek as well as Long Creek, were "cut off" (expelled) for not obeying the edicts of Annual Meeting. Those who stayed joined other denominations. Some followed their leaders--Joseph Roland, John Dick, and Isham Gibson--and moved to Central Illinois, where they thought they could be left alone, but, as things turned out, not for very many years. By 1870, the Far Western Brethren were outnumbered by Eastern Brethren from Ohio. Elder Isham Gibson was disfellowshipped by his own church in 1869. Dwayne Wrightsman