Dear Shirley, The Walshville Baptist Church records only go back until 1893. However, it is the oldest church in the area, and in fact is celebrating it's 180th anniversary today. We stopped there on our way to read the Lemen Cemetery this week. I hope to post the list of names we found in the cemetery tomorrow. Some of you may be interested in a little history of the church and cemetery. According to an article written by Cullen E. Cline in 1915, his grandparents, William and Jane Cline (she was a neice of William Cullen Bryant) came from NC to IL in 1818. They settled about 1 1/2 mi. Southeast of the present village of Walshville on government land, where they built a house on a hill with a good spring next to it, planted orchards, and remained the rest of their lives. Nicholas Voils/Viles and Melchoir Fogelman came at about the same time, and John Fogelman was the first child born in the area, about 1 mi. north of Cline's. The Cline's were Missionary Baptists, and it is believed that the first sermon in the county was preached in their home in early 1819, by Rev. Lynn Craig (Rev. Craig is buried in Lemen cemetery). William Cline set aside a piece of his farm for a burial ground where most of his family and many of the early pioneers are buried. Here a plain log Baptist church was also built. Many came from great distances to meetings there, including the Rev. John M. Peck, and the Lemens, 5 brothers who were Baptist preachers out of the church at New Design, and Rev. William Burge. Emil Claussen, (my ancestor, newly arrived from Denmark), taught the first school in that part of Montgomery County in this church about 1835 or 36. Cullen E. Cline remembered attending school there in the 1850's. Reuben H. Cline, oldest son of William, became the pastor and was also Justice of the Peace until he died in 1856. The Rev. Moses Lemen became the second pastor. The congregation moved their church (not the log building) into the town of Walshville in 1852. Their building in Walshville was destroyed shortly thereafter by fire, but was rebuilt with funds provided primarily by Reuben Cline, Henry Sanders, Wm. Simpson, and Hugh Rogers. The original log structure next to the cemetery is no longer there, and the cemetery has been sadly neglected. The current members of Walshville Baptist Church are mostly elderly, and cannot keep it up. The road to the cemetery, although a township road, is not kept up because the only place it goes is to the cemetery, which is in a grove of trees and brush in the middle of farm fields. We could drive down the dirt rode in my SUV only so far. We then walked about 1/2 or 3/4 of a mile and had to cross a creek hopping from rock to rock to get to the cemetery. As you come up to the cemetery, you would never know it was there, it is so hidden in the woods. The grave stone of the most well known person in the cemetery, Rev. Moses Lemen for whom it is named, we had to dig out of a huge thorn brambel that completely obscured the grave and stone. Other stones were flat on the ground and buried under 4 inches of dirt and had to be dug out. It is very sad, that this place where early pioneers and those that helped to found the Baptist Church in the state of Illinois lie in such a neglected place. We are going to try to organize a work crew for mid-March to go back and clear it, repair stones, and record the ones we were unable to find in the brush. Juli Claussen