By Elaine Rassel
When I was given information on the new roof on the church at the Marcus Fairgrounds, I thought it would be interesting to find out some history of this church. The church hadn’t always been at the place on the Fairgrounds_so, where did it come from?
The Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church of Tilden Township was established on an acre of land donated by John Williams that was two miles east of the Fielding store. At the time, the church was adjacent to the Tilden #7 school. Services were held in the school before the church was constructed.
A meeting was held on September 3, 1891 at the United Presbyterian Church in Quimby, with Rev. John Mc Allister as moderator. The purpose of this meeting was to see if there was enough interest to organize a church in Tilden Township. Yes! there was an interest! The church was to be called Mount Pleasant Church. Just a short distance north of the church, there is a Mount Pleasant cemetery.
It didn’t take long for the church to become a reality. It was completed and dedicated on January 1, 1892 at a cost of $2,250 that was paid in full. At a cost of $137.80, a bell was added to the church. However, not everything was always good about this church. Lightning hit the church building in 1917 and left the building unusable. Now the congregation had no place to worship. They weren’t going to let this stop them from having a church to worship in. By 1921, they had reopened the church.
In 1922, a full basement, kitchen, furnace, rainwater pump from a cistern, and a Delco light plant under the basement steps were new additions to the remodeling of the church. New windows were installed in 1948 and in 1950, a kitchen was added to the north end of the basement with two Sunday school rooms above it. In 1963, the kitchen had new improvements, again.
Everything seemed to going well for this congregation up to this point. However, like many rural churches (also city churches), the pew population just wasn’t like it had been in previous years. This church was no exception. It had become a church with older people as the congregation; the young people had left the area. Those who were left of the congregation didn’t want the church to be sold for a grain bin or worse yet, to be left standing empty but inviting for vandalism. One of the members, Ed Schlenger asked the Marcus Fair Board if they would accept this church on their grounds if the congregation would be responsible for its move.
On February 26, 2004 the Mount Pleasant Church was moved approximately 12 miles from its place of origin to a final place waiting at the Marcus Fair grounds, located north of the Historic Society building. It was quite a sight to see this church going across a muddy field (west of Marcus) to go straight across the field and to its final resting place.
Since 2004, the church has had many improvements and the Marcus Fair Board has made use of this facility for storage, etc. they never had before. The church has a youth group that meets in the basement, has had weddings, and on the Fair days, has had many exhibits in the building.
All this sounds wonderful but things do wear out and now this church had a problem of needing a new roof. At this time the Marcus Fair Board applied for a Legacy Grant. The Fair Board wishes to thank them for the Legacy Grant of $5,000! Once again the church is ready for the rains we have been waiting for!