Friday, March 2, 2012

Halifax Farmers Harvest 'God's Plat', 1935

March, 1935, issue of the Carolina Co-Operator (formerly The Carolina Cotton Grower), the official publication of the N.C. Cotton Growers Co-Operative Association, the Farmers Co-Operative Exchange, and the N.C. State Grange.

A pride to any town would be rural Bear Swamp Church, erected by farmers in one section of Halifax County at a cost of more than $15,000. It is equipped with its own lighting plant, has a seating capacity of 450 and in addition has nine Sunday school rooms.

During the depression the church was not giving as much as formerly to the missionary, educational, and benevolent objects and had also allowed a small debt to accumulate.

But Bear Swamp Church members who had built such a beautiful temple were determined to keep the church going. Last spring, in response to a suggestion of the pastor, more than a dozen heads of families agreed to cultivate an acre or some  part of an acre and devoted to the church all the proceeds from the crops on this “God’s Plat”. Five bales of cotton were harvested from the land devoted to God.

At the suggestion of A.G. Wilcox, treasurer and deacon of the church, this cotton was pooled with the Cotton Association. Mr. Wilcox has been an active member of the cotton Association from its beginning. “I suggested that the church pool its cotton because I was anxious that we get every dollar possible for it,” said Mr. Wilcox.

The local debts of the church have been paid and it is again contributing freely to religious causes. “I commend the ‘God’s Plat’ plan to other rural church,” said E.R. Nelson, pastor.

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