by Nancy VanArendonk
The Franklin Township Historical Society’s “Meeting House” at 6510 S. Franklin Road — the former Big Run Baptist Church — will be celebrating its sesquicentennial with special events from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 7th. The 150-year-old building is listed on the National Historic Register.
Events at the celebration, which will be free and open to the public, will include music played on the church’s antique pump organ, tours of the Meeting House with information about its contents, short presentations about the history of the building and about the local families that founded and participated in the Big Run church, and more. Refreshments will be available, as will publications about Franklin Township history. Visitors may come and go at any time during the three hours of the celebration. Parking will be available in the building’s lot and also at the south end of the parking lot next door belonging to The Creek, which has given permission for its use.
The building was built in 1871 out of bricks handmade and baked in kilns on site. The structure was built to replace an earlier wood frame church used by the congregation, which had been meeting since 1848. An old note from the church states that “The decision to build a new house of worship was made at the business meeting of December 1870. The frame building which [the church] had been using was too small to accommodate the congregation. The frame building was moved across the road and continued to serve as a meeting house until this structure was completed.”
The congregation used to hold “basket dinners” in the basement of the new building after services. The structure was originally heated with stoves, but in later years a furnace was added. There was never any running water or plumbing on the site during its years as a church, and that is still true today.
The congregation celebrated its 125th anniversary in 1973, but because membership had dwindled and the congregation was concerned about the future of its building, after 129 years of existence the Big Run Baptist Church was officially dissolved on October 30, 1977 and the building sold that same month to the Historical Society with certain stipulations, including that the Society would keep the interior of the structure set up as it was when used as a church. The building still houses the original wooden pews and pulpit.
The 501(C)-3 nonprofit Franklin Township Historical Society preserves and promotes the history of Franklin Township and shares this information with students and many others. The Society has published a wide variety of books about township history, documenting it back almost 200 years, and maintains in the Meeting House a museum that includes an early schoolroom, Hoosier cabinet, farm tools, clothing, artifacts, ledgers, household articles, and more.
Additional information about the Society and its activities can be found on its website, FTHS.org, and on its Facebook page, Facebook.com/FranklinTownshipHistoricalSociety.
