Dear List, I haven't posted in a while and thought that I'd give an update on the construction of our church. We have broken ground on the new Sanctuary and should be moved in by the end of 48 weeks! I would like to invite anyone who has EVER had a connection with this church to send me a note regarding what your connection/memory is. I have searched everywhere imaginable for records to the church and think that whatever might have been are now lost. As I've posted before, the only history we have is on file at the Pitt Library at Emory University and is the remembrances of a gentleman who was a member in the 1950s. This remembrance is also on the Old Milton County website. I have traced and elaborated on much of this and have used it as a starting point to write the history of the church. I've been able to prove most of it. One thing I haven't had a clue about is that the church beginning as a Congregational Church in 1838 by a Reverend Darter. The only Darter in any census in Georgia that I can trace to the area was a merchant and owner of slaves and he wasn't here until 1850. What I DO have is that the first person buried in the Church cemetery on Taylor Road just off of Birmingham Highway in north Fulton was Jacob Hook. The original drawer in the Gold Lottery of this land was a Leverett who apparently never took occupation of it. I can't locate how it happened, but the next owner was John Nix who sold it to Jacob Hook. Jacob was dead by 1855 at which time his family donated the land to the Pleasant Hill Methodist Church for a burying ground. The original deed must have been burned in the fire of the Milton Courthouse in the late 1860s because a duplicate was written in the early 1890s when David Hook, a descendant of Jacob, donated the land to the Trustees of the Church. I have had the cemetery surveyed recently. A church member recently inquired as to whether any current members could be buried there, so I located a local funeral home. Their representatives met me there and determined that there could be well over 100 interred in the cemetery although only 20 some-odd are marked. If you have ANY idea anyone you know was buried there, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. The last known burial was in 1929 and was the wife of Jonathan Pruet.t I strongly suspect his father (Zachary T. Pruett) is buried just forward of Jonathan, but can't prove it. I have poured over obituaries and was overjoyed at the publication of Mr. Carver's extraction of obits from the Cherokee Advance. I have only added one burial that wasn't marked, a daughter of Jacob Hook. By 1871 the congregation moved near the intersection of B'Ham Highway and B'Ham Roads (Then known as Orange-Roswell Rd and Hickory Flat Rd.) on land sold for only $25 by a PJ Wilson. The current building is probably the fourth on the site. A large pine has the remnants of a hitching post for horses embedded into it. . Some of the surnames of members of the Church are: Hook, Pruett (Pruitt), Day, Westbrook, John H. Johnston (former state Senator, I have a great deal about him) Chamblee, Maxwell, Neese, and Merriman. I'd like to add many names to this list. I was involved this weekend in a youth retreat on the 62 acres of land that is a part of our Sanctuary. I was so moved that this land was in the hands of original church members and is now returned. As development encroaches in north Fulton, this land will be a Sanctuary to many for hopefully generations more. My goal is to write an accurate history of the Church and community and incorporate it into a time capsule in the new Sanctuary. I NEED YOUR HELP!!!!! Carole Johnson Trustee and Historian of Birmingham United Methodist Church ammcj@earthlink.net Why Wait? Move to EarthLink. Carole Johnson ammcj@earthlink.net Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.