FOREST CHAPEL.
Forest Chapel, as is suggested by its name, was located in the large and dense oak forest along Red river eight miles south of Wheelock. Its post office has been successively, Wheelock, Fowlerville, Parsons and since 1906 Millerton. The Forest church was organized by Parson Stewart about 1886, and was served by him once a month the next seven years. In 1898 it became a remote part of the field of Rev. William Butler of Eagletown, who also endeavored to visit it once a month.
The chapel was a lonely, dingy and dilapidated building, inside as well as outside. It was about 20 by 30 feet and was built entirely of rough lumber. The side walls consisted of one thickness of wide inch boards, nailed at the top and bottom, and having a thin strip over the cracks on the outside. The roof was covered with long, split, oak clapboards, that invariably look black and rough at the end of a year. The pulpit consisted of a box-like arrangement that stood on a small platform at the center of one end. The seats consisted of a half dozen rough benches without backs, that could be arranged around the stove in cold weather, or in three fold groups for a picnic dinner, the middle one being used for a table on such occasions and the other two for seats around it. No paint or even white wash ever found a place on this building. It was the largest and best building in the neighborhood, and the popular resort for all of their social gatherings.
The leading men of the congregation consisted of two elders, both venerable and devout survivors of the slavery period, neither of whom could read, and a deacon, who was one of the only two of the older people who could read a little.
LIFTING THE COLLECTION
It was regarded as the duty of the deacon to "lift the collection" at the Sabbath services. This gave him a very prominent part in the services, for the collection is not lifted by passing the hat or basket, but each contributor, after the general call brings their offering and lays it either on the pulpit or a little stand near it. However novel this arrangement may at first appear to those unaccustomed to it, it must be remembered that a method somewhat similar to this was in use in the Temple in Jerusalem, when our Lord Jesus, taking his seat opposite the treasury, saw the poor widow cast in her two mites and commended her very highly.
It was not unusual for the deacon to announce before hand the amount needed and then, as the offerings are presented, to state the amount received from time to time, until finally the whole amount is obtained. This part of the service was always enlivened by singing some soul-stirring songs, that everybody could sing. Occasionally it would take the form of a good natured rivalry, as to which could appear the most happy and joyous, the deacon, vociferously announcing from time to time as their offerings came in, the latest result of the collection, or, the people, whose merry singing would occasionally develop into a shout of ecstatic enjoyment, on the part of one or more of their number.
PRIMITIVE MID-WEEK MEETINGS
The early preachers, having monthly appointments, were always very faithful in exhorting and encouraging the elders of their distant congregations to maintain regular Sabbath services, for the study of the Bible and Catechism, and a mid-week meeting for praise and prayer. The people were encouraged to attend all these meetings and cordially co-operate with the elders in making them interesting and instructive.
The older generation at Forest was one that had a foretaste of slavery in their early days, but not a day of school privileges, except as the Bible was read or taught at their meetings on the Sabbath. The lack of school privileges in the neighborhood and its remote seclusion from the outside world, had the effect of leaving these colored people to continue their primitive ways and methods of doing things, to a later date than in many other more highly favored communities.