Rolling Fork, Sharkey County, Mississippi, 1891
Rolling Fork, the county seat of Sharkey County, is located west of the
center of the county, and is a junction station on the Louisville, New Orleans &
Texas railway. It has four hundred inhabitants and does a good local and
shipping trade. Other towns in the county are Egremont, Smedes, Anguilla, Nitta
Yuma and McKinneyville.
The Methodists were the first to hold religious services within the present
limits of Sharkey County. In 1840 Rev. John Fullerton preached in a log
schoolhouse on the Rolling Fork plantation, built by Thomas Y. Chaney for his
private use as a schoolhouse. Here, in 1840, Mr. Fullerton founded the first
Methodist society in the county, known as Union church. This society afterward
held services in the Masonic hall till 1888, when it erected a frame building of
its own on Race street, Rolling Fork, the first church house in the county.
Soon after the war, under the influence of Colonel Ball, the Baptists organized
a society at Rolling Fork, and they held services in Masonic hall.
In 1886 J. C. Burruss organized a society of Universalists at Vickland Church,
which now has a membership of twenty-five.
In 1874 Bishop W. H. Green organized an Episcopal church at Rolling Fork, where
services are still held.
Back to: Mississippi Counties, Cities and Towns, 1891
Source: Biographical and Historical Memories of Mississippi, Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1891
