The Old Brick Church at Lost Creek

By S. Thomas Bond

During my childhood, every Saturday — known to us as the Sabbath — we would dress in our best clothes and go to church. The church my parents, sisters, and I attended was the Lost Creek Seventh Day Baptist Church, and both of my parents could trace their paternal lines and memberships in the church back to shortly after the Revolutionary War. The church still serves, located a mile north of Lost Creek in southern Harrison County. It is visible from I-79, looking toward the east perhaps 300 yards.

By local standards, the church is very old. They celebrated the sesquicentennial in 1955, when I was 21, and the bicentennial in 2005. My direct ancestor, Richard Bond, and his family were among the founding members of the church in 1805. The Lost Creek area was raw frontier, and the founders numbered only 10, but seven more members were added in the first six weeks. The first log church was built in 1806 on land that is now within the town limits of Lost Creek. The building standing today by the road from Lost Creek to Mount Claire is a plain, rectangular brick church. It has a high ceiling and is large enough to seat about 70 congregants. It was dedicated in 1872. The use of brick for church construction was unusual in this area at that time, and people immediately began referring to it as the “Brick Church.” Though other brick-built churches can now be seen in the vicinity, local people still know this original building as the “Old Brick Church.”

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