Mill Creek borough, Brady township

The Baptist meetinghouse at Mill Creek

The Rev. Samuel Lane was preaching around Mill Creek as early as 1790, according to J. Simpson Africa's 1883 county history. Services were held at Lane's house and in groves, and one of his favorite places to preach was beneath two fine oak trees. About 1800 he urged his neighbors, regardless of church, to build a house of worship, and together they put up a log meetinghouse on Mill Creek, two miles from its mouth. Africa says the Mill Creek Baptist Church was formed in that house shortly afterward. John W. Jordan's 1913 history of the Juniata Valley differs a little, saying the Baptists had organized before 1800.

A new meetinghouse followed in 1835. In March 1853 it was voted to ask the Legislature for trustees with power to sell the old meetinghouse. Africa explains that a place of worship was wanted in the village of Mill Creek, which was then beginning to assume importance. In February 1856 the Huntingdon Globe carried a notice asking for proposals to build a meetinghouse for the Regular Baptist Church in the village, with the plans to be seen at Mill Creek Furnace. Africa dates the brick house to 1857, and Jordan gives the same year for the church's third house. The Globe of July 28, 1858, announced that the meetinghouse would be dedicated on Sunday, August 8, with the Rev. W. T. Bunker to preach. Africa lists a Rev. W. T. Bunker as the church's pastor from 1843 to 1845. He records a membership of sixty-two in the year after the house was occupied, and thirty-six in 1880.

The sources differ on how the old house came to the Lutherans. Africa says it was still standing, repaired and in use by them, and that the congregation obtained the right to it by lease in 1858. Jordan gives the 1858 lease in his account of the Lutherans, but in his account of the Baptists he says the old house was sold to the Lutherans. The Globe of July 19, 1870, points to a later date. Its notice does not call the building Baptist. It says the Old Church above Mill Creek station had stood deserted, that the church and its long neglected burying ground had been leased to the Mill Creek Evangelical Lutheran Congregation and nicely repaired, and that the church was dedicated on June 26, 1870. The notice says the congregation was organized in 1868.

Checked against the record. We read J. Simpson Africa's 1883 county history and John W. Jordan's 1913 history on the printed pages, and three newspaper notices in the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive. The 1857 date rests on Africa and Jordan, and Jordan may be following Africa. The notices of 1856 and 1858 show a building planned and then announced for dedication. We have not seen a report of the dedication itself or the church's own minutes. We have not settled how or when the Lutherans came to the old house. Africa's printed page gives the lease as 1858. The 1870 notice gives no lease date, describes the church as leased and repaired before its June 1870 dedication, and dates the congregation's organization to 1868. Milton Scott Lytle's 1876 history has a minister who came to Huntingdon in June 1867 and later preached at Mill Creek, which fits the later date without ruling out the earlier one. We take the Old Church of the 1870 notice to be the old Baptist house, because Africa places the Lutherans there, but the notice does not say so. Whether either building still stands is open.

Sources

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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