Plymouth Congregational Church (Louisville, Ky.) Records, ca. 1916-1977, 1992
Held by The Filson Historical Society
Creator: Plymouth Congregational Church (Louisville, Ky.)
Title: Records, ca. 1916-1977, 1992
Rights: For information regarding literary and copyright interest for these papers, contact the Collections Department.
Size of Collection: 0.5 cubic foot, 1 boxed volume
Location Number: Mss. BA P738
Historical Note
Plymouth Congregational Church was founded in Louisville, Kentucky in 1877, when a group of congregants broke off from Center Street Church and identified themselves as Congregational Methodist. Services were first held on Jefferson Street between Ninth and Tenth and later in a former synagogue on Preston Street and then back to a location on Ninth Street.
In 1891, the National Council of Congregational Churches’ American Missionary Association sent Rev. E. G. Harris, a recent graduate of Howard Divinity School, to Plymouth. Rev. Harris arranged the purchase of property for the church at the corner of Seventeenth and West Chestnut streets. Rev. Harris was a member of the Interracial Commission, served as board president for the Colored Orphans’ Home, and married Rachel Davis, a librarian at the Western Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library. He helped direct fundraising for the construction of a new Gothic Revival style church at Seventeenth and West Chestnut, completed in 1929. Plymouth Congregational Church membership was primarily made up of Black middle- and upper-class families and included prominent figures in Louisville and Kentucky civil rights struggles, such as Dr. James Bond, Lyman T. Johnson, and Hortense Houston Young.
Rev. Harris oversaw the establishment of the Plymouth Settlement House, which opened next door to the church in 1917 and served as an extension of the church’s mission. It was outfitted with offices, classrooms, a kitchen, a large auditorium, and a dormitory on the third floor for young Black women who came to Louisville to work as domestic laborers. Programs at the settlement house over time included a theater group, a Boy Scouts troop, camps, activities for teenagers and for senior citizens, childcare services, and family counseling. Morris F. X. Jeff, Jr. served as executive director of the Plymouth Settlement House in 1966-1972 and organized free adult education courses, campaigns to oppose housing segregation laws, and voter registration drives. In 1973, the name of the institution was changed to Plymouth Urban Center.
Members of a Sunday school operated by the German St. Peter’s Evangelical Church formed the West Louisville Evangelical Church in 1915. The congregation built a church in the Shawnee neighborhood at 245 South 41st Street in 1916. A new sanctuary was constructed circa 1926-1927. In 1957, the church changed its name to West Louisville United Church of Christ. In 1986, the West Louisville United Church of Christ closed due to declining membership caused by white flight and problems maintaining the property. The remaining congregation became members of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ.
Sources:
Benjamin D. Berry Jr., “The Plymouth Congregational Church of Louisville, Kentucky,” Phylon, 42 (1981), 224-32
Plymouth Complex Individual Landmark draft designation report, Metro Historic Landmarks and Preservation Districts Commission, March 19, 2020, https://louisvilleky.gov/document/pds20-landmark-0002plymouthdraftdesignationreportpdf
Clarence Matthews, “Church going out of Existence after 71 years in West End,” Louisville Courier Journal, 24 November 1986.
Scope and Content Note
The collection consists of twentieth-century records of Plymouth Congregational Church, founded in 1877 in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Plymouth Settlement House, which opened in 1917 as an extension of the church’s mission. The church and settlement house were located next to each other in the Russell neighborhood at the corner of Seventeenth and West Chestnut streets. The church’s membership was primarily made up of middle- and upper-class Black families, and the settlement house provided social services to neighborhood residents. Included in the collection are board minutes, correspondence, annual reports, and publications. The collection also includes a register of the West Louisville Evangelical Church in the Shawnee neighborhood at 245 South 41st Street.
Folders 1-8 contain Plymouth Congregational Church records. Early-twentieth-century records include a ca. 1917 property map and board minutes and financial records from 1923-1936. Correspondence from Rev. E. G. Harris and other church officials to Hattie Bishop Speed document fundraising for and construction of the new church building completed in 1929. Annual reports and publications from 1941-1977 provide information about church leadership, membership, financial accounts, and church activities. The annual reports also discuss programs at the Plymouth Settlement House. A 1977 publication commemorating the centennial anniversary of the church includes historical information and images of church buildings, pastors, and members. In the centennial publication, an image with the identifying information, “Typical of earlier church picnics,” was taken at the entrance to Mammoth Cave and includes the Black guide Matt Bransford lying down in front of the church group. Correspondence and miscellaneous records from the 1960s-1970s relate to fundraising and budgets, a dispute over requests for the resignation of Rev. A. D. Pickney, a sermon by Rev. Benjamin D. Berry addressing the meaning of “Black Power,” and relations with neighborhood residents.
Folders 9 and 10 contain Plymouth Settlement House records. Reports from 1938-1939 and ca. 1970 and board minutes from 1967-1971 detail the settlement house’s programs for neighborhood residents, including dormitories for “working girls,” activities for teens and senior citizens, a childcare center, family counseling, day and residential camps, a theater group, adult education classes, and a community health kitchen.
Volume 11 is an oversized ledger used by West Louisville Evangelical Church in the Shawnee neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, to register marriages, baptisms, confirmation classes, and deaths among its mostly white members from 1916-1945. Members’ attendance at communion services is also recorded for 1964-1966. Loose inserts in the back of the ledger include a 1935 license to solemnize marriages for Rev. Rausch, a 1968 request for a baptism record, and a 1992 Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ bulletin. A digitized version of the register can be found here.
Folder List
Box 1
Folder 1: Church and settlement house miscellaneous records, 1916-1917, ca. 1943
Folder 2: Church board minutes and financial records ledger, 1923-1936
Folder 3: Correspondence to Hattie Bishop Speed, 1928-1930
Folder 4: Church annual reports and publications, 1938-1961
Folder 5: Church annual reports and publications, 1964-1969
Folder 6: Church annual reports and publications, 1970-1977
Folder 7: Church miscellaneous records, ca. 1959-1967
Folder 8: Church miscellaneous records, ca. 1967-1977
Folder 9: Settlement house publications, 1928-1939, ca. 1970
Folder 10: Settlement house board minutes and miscellaneous records, 1967-1971
Oversize
Volume 11: West Louisville Evangelical Church register, 1916-1946, 1964-1968, 1992 [boxed]
Subject Headings
African American children – Kentucky – Louisville.
African American churches – Kentucky – Louisville.
African American clergy – Kentucky – Louisville.
African American household employees – Kentucky – Louisville.
African American neighborhoods – Kentucky – Louisville.
African Americans – Kentucky – Louisville.
Baptismal records – Kentucky – Louisville.
Black power – United States.
Bond, Dr. James, 1863-1929.
Boy Scouts of America – Kentucky – Louisville.
Camps – Kentucky – Louisville.
Children – Services for – Kentucky – Louisville.
Church buildings – Kentucky – Louisville.
Churches – Kentucky – Louisville.
Community centers – Kentucky – Louisville.
Community theater – Kentucky – Louisville.
Day care centers – Kentucky – Louisville.
Deacons – Kentucky – Louisville.
Deaconesses – Kentucky – Louisville.
Discrimination in housing – Kentucky – Louisville.
Faith based human services – Kentucky – Louisville.
Family counseling – Kentucky – Louisville.
Fund raising – Kentucky – Louisville.
Harris, Rev. Everett G., 1866-1936.
Harris, Rachel Davis, 1869-1969.
Housing – Kentucky – Louisville.
Johnson, Lyman T., 1906-1997.
Koinonia Farm.
Louisville (Ky.) – History.
Louisville Municipal College.
Mammoth Cave (Ky.)
Marriage records – Kentucky – Louisville.
Older people – Services for – Kentucky – Louisville.
Plymouth Settlement House (Louisville, Ky.)
Race relations.
Racism – Kentucky – Louisville.
Sigma Pi Phi.
Social settlements – Kentucky – Louisville.
Speed, Hattie Bishop, 1858-1942.
United Church of Christ.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 – Veterans.
West Louisville Evangelical Church (Louisville, Ky.)
Women volunteers – Kentucky – Louisville.
Young, Hortense Houston, 1903-1977.
Youth – Services for – Kentucky – Louisville.
