This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: BARNES, HOAG Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/4NB.2ACI/73 Message Board Post: Greetings, I hope someone can help me. I am researching the earliest ordained women in American Congregationalism. One of them was ordained in Castle, MT. According to the 1897 Congregational Year Book, which contained statistics from the year previous, Mrs. A. S. Barnes was ordained in Castle, MT on September 12, 1896. The Congregational church in Castle was "gathered" in 1891. ALICE S. N. BARNES was called to serve it, beginning in 1891. In 1896 that church had 6 members and 40 people in its Sunday School, representing 8 families. The Clerk of the church was: Deacon J. D. BAKER. At the time, it was one of 12 Congregational churches in Montana, the earliest having been gathered in Billings in 1882. Alice left the Castle church about 1900. From 1902-1906 she is said to have served the Congregational church in Columbus, Montana. She died in Long Beach, CA in 1924. It has been said that she was born as Alice Nichols in 1841 in Winthrop, Maine. I appreciate any help. Apparently she remarried someone with the surname Hoag, sometime after her ordination. Thus far, I don't know the first names of either of her husbands, etc. I would like to know more about her life and her ministry. Thank you, Rev. Dr. Doug Showalter