This church was known to be an Underground RR stop. My great-grandfather’s 1st wife was a member at the time of her death in 1874 & the entire congregation was invited to her funeral in their home. The congregation at that time was said to be both black & white. (That’s even unusual today!) In fact today it is a 2nd Baptist Church and I can guarantee you there are very few, if any, white faces. In 1874 it was 2nd Presbyterian. I have never found her gravesite. Someone told me there were some buried on site, & that their graves were later moved to Fairview cemetary, but I have looked for her there to no avail. Her name was Mary Caroline (Gross) Agnew. She and James had 2 daughters (see previous entry). I do not know who raised them after their mother’s death, because James married my great-grandmother Carrie Bybee in 1879, who was 19 years his junior, and I never see those girls with them. However, they both lived to adulthood.
I like to think my great-grandfather James knew about the church being an underground RR stop and agreed with the abolitionist movement. I like to think both black and white members came to his first wife’s funeral in their home. But I do not know this. In New Albany, no one I have yet spoken with seems to know of records kept of the history of this place. No one seems to know where old membership records would be kept. There seems to be a lack of organized files and history for this extremely fascinating and epic place, that served to hide many souls coming north to freedom!
Doctor Grandma 