Clear Creek United Brethren In Christ Church and Clear Creek Chapel Cemetery (aka Null Cemetery) Local History By Ethel Beard Simons

Clear Creek United Brethren In Christ Church and

Clear Creek Chapel Cemetery (aka Null Cemetery)

Local History By Ethel Beard Simons

One of the Springboro’s earliest churches, dating from 1816, the Clear Creek United Brethren in Christ Church and Clear Creek Chapel Cemetery (still extant) were located approximately two miles south of the center of Springboro, on Red Lion-5 Points Road, about 75 rods southeast of the Null Cabin (which is in its original location on the south end of the Heatherwood Golf Course. Cemetery location: 39° 31' 43"N, 84° 13' 35"W)

The United Brethren in Christ Church was formed in Pennsylvania. in the late 1700's in Long's Barn in Lancaster Co. and the founders included the renowned Rev. Christian Newcomer who later visited Loudoun County, VA. where he visited "Old Mr. Fry" who must have been Johan Phillip Frey, brother of Rev. Heinrich (Henry) Joseph Fry. These Fry's changed from Lutheran to United Brethren. The church conferences were held in Chambersburg, and Rev. Fry and his son Phillip were reported to have attended. The Fry family along with Witterman, Boger, Miltonberger, Blin & Beck families migrated from Loudoun & Lebanon Counties to the Springboro area about 1816. (Rev. Fry’s wife was a Boger.)

The congregation first held services in Springboro (Clearcreek Twp) in Rev. Henry Fry's home which was referred to as Frey’s Meeting House. The house burned and was rebuilt on the same foundation. In 1823. Rev. Fry, his son Phillip, Christian Null and Christian Blinn purchased land from Adam Null and Henry Bowser for the church and cemetery. There are 2 deeds, one for the church, and the other for the cemetery, one from Adam Null. (Deed Book 10, P.244 & P.350.) The church was reported to have stood on the West side of Red Lion-5 Points Rd. opposite the cemetery. (The road may have followed a slightly different path than it does, today.) That may have been just next to Christian Null's land. Christian loved that church, hence he had a memorial stone placed there by his children, but according to traditional understanding he is buried about one mile southwest in the old Salem Church Cemetery (aka Eyer Cemetery) on Springboro Road, near the original Adam Blinn homestead.

I think it was in the 1870's that the stone church was taken down (the original church was a log building) and the stones incorporated in the sanctuary of the then United Brethren Church on North St. in Springboro (now the United Methodist Church.) There's an old United Brethren archive in Dayton that has some information on the goings on in this church.

A descendant of Rev. Fry's brother went to Franklin County, IN. where he established a United Brethren Church. The Wright Brothers descend from this family. A great deal of information has been donated to the Springboro Area Historical Society. Copies of the family histories were, also, sent to the Warren County Genealogical Society in Lebanon.

Stanley Fry, now deceased, who lived on Christian Fry, Jr.'s land remembered his father talking about going early to the old church in the cold Winter and chopping holes in the ice so the horses wouldn't slip when they pulled into the church lot.

(Thanks to Ethel Beard Simons for her extensive research into most of the families mentioned here, the United Brethren in Christ Church and her concurrent, large contributions to the history of early Springboro. She has donated numerous volumes of her work to the Springboro Area Historical Society where it is available for study. SAHS, 110 S. Main St, Springboro, OH, 45066 - 937-748-0916. Ethel Beard Simons donated genealogies of most of these families to the Warren County Genealogical Society.)

(End of part one.)