“Although a Baptist Church was erected in 1857 (in Perote, Alabama) and this denomination flourished for a while, its membership decreased to such an extent that services were no longer held. The Starks, Miles, Carrols, Davis, Highs, and Iveys were members of the Baptist Church. Some of the Baptists joined the Methodist Church and their church was sold to C. W, Rumph, Jr., who used it for a storage house for cattle feed.
The Ivey family drove to church in a closed carriage with silver trimmings, pulled by a pair of bays, negro coachman in black suit, white shirt, black tie and tall beaver hat sat on top. Mr. Ivey owned 100 slaves, failed in business, took the bankrupt law and put all of his property in his wife’s name. She enjoyed speaking of my land etc. The daughters rode horseback, with side saddles, riding habits that almost touched the ground and tall hats, to town every day for the mail.
Behind the house now owned by Mrs. J. G. Main, Mr. Stamps, a Baptist preacher lived (about 1885-1886). His wife was an invalid. They owned a buggy but no horse and when she wanted to go any place he would pull her in the buggy.
Presbyterian Church
Five miles north of Perote at the Scotland community is the Bethel Presbyterian Church built about 1835. The Dan and Sam Hixons, with their families, the James Harpers and Mose Johnsons joined the Scotch Presbyterians. Neither heat nor cold kept them from loading their families in wagons and driving to Bethel Church to preaching on the second Sunday in the month. Prominent members of this church were the McKays, McMillans, McSwains, McNeils, and McKinnons of Inverness, McGradys, McNairs, Cades, Camerons, Blues, Boyds, McGeans, Segrests, Pattersons, Mathersons, Bristows, and others. About 1883 or ’84 Rev. Clagett held a series of meetings at Bethel Church. It lasted two or three weeks. As the members from Perote and some from Union Springs could not attend often, they camped in the large school building just south-east of the church. Booths made of quilts separated the families, made next to the wall on each side of the building. Meals were served on a long table in the middle of the building. They were cooked in the large fireplace at the east end. All enjoyed it. The people of the community still (1908) have Sunday school, missionary society, and preaching twice a month.
The lack of religious activity among the white inhabitants of Perote is the fact that the population has decreased so much and the young people have gone elsewhere to make their living, leaving behind those who cannot take active part in church work.
Perote, Bullock County, Alabama (landsofamerica.com)
The negro population outnumbers that of the white and the colored people regularly attend their Methodist church which is located on the south side of the business section or their Baptist church which was formally known as the back street, north & west of the business area. They come from miles around during revival time and can be heard singing and shouting. Not as much though as in former years.
iCatherine Elizabeth (Hixon) Rumph was born in Bullock County and has lived during her entire life time there. She is the daughter of a Confederate Veteran who was some time a prisoner at Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi and grew up in the environment of the small country village about which she writes and among interesting Confederate associates, Mrs. Rumph has collected Americana, folk lore and historical data and contributed in no small way to the life of this rural community
SOURCE
The Alabama Historical Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 03, Fall Issue 1958
Discordance: The Cottinghams Inspired by true events and the Cottingham family that resided in 17th century Somerset, Maryland, and Delaware, colonial America comes alive with pirate attacks, religious discord, and governmental disagreements in the pre-Revolutionary War days of America.
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