Missionary Baptist Claims Regarding a
Three-Way Split in Big Creek Church, and
the Exclusion of Elder Adam McCool
Harvestime on the Prairie, 1996, by Myron D. Dillow, pages 99-100.
"The Big Creek Church disappeared from the records of the Muddy River Association after 1836. That year the church reported eleven members. It appears that the church was caught up in the mission and Campbellite controversy at that time, and apparently experienced a three-way split. One group went with Adam McCool and formed a Campbellite church named Stone Chapel (after Barton Stone of that movement) on July 28, 1833. This was the first Church of Christ in the county. [Achilles] Coffey referred to Adam McCool: "In 1832 at the April term of Big Creek church meeting, the following query was asked: 'Is it agreeable to the word of God to fellowship a preacher that is called a brother, when denying the faith?' Answered, 'Not right.' During the same year several charges were preferred against Elder McCool. Among the rest he was charged with having denied their articles of faith and the doctrine of special atonement. He was called upon to answer to those charges, plead guilty, and the church finally excluded him. About the time of the division among the Baptists, he joined the Reformers, or Campbellites, and preached for them as long as he remained in this country."A second group, of the antimission party, including the clerk, joined the old Grand Pier Church. The third part of the split, the remnant of the old Big Creek Church, which was organized on "United" or missionary Baptist principles, although severely reduced in number, apparently weathered the storm and continued. When Stephen Stilley (as reported in the Muddy River minutes for 1837) was "excluded from Island Ripple Church," he was still a member of the Big Creek Church (he still had his letter)."
