FLEMINGSBURG — The First Presbyterian Church of Flemingsburg will be celebrating its 200th anniversary Sunday morning.
Flemingsburg City Council Member Ricky Hurst, who is minister for the church, said the celebration is open to anyone who wishes to attend.
“It is the exact date, it was the first service on Aug. 25, 1819 and there’s going to be a lot of people there,” he said, “We’ve got people from all over the state and all over several states to come and see.”
Hurst said the celebration will include special music with a dinner following afterward.
“We’ve got proclamations coming from the governor, from senators, from the House of Representatives, from the mayor to the county judge,” he said.
The First Presbyterian Church was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. According to the nomination form used to induct the church into the register, it is one of the oldest Presbyterian meeting houses in the state, and is the major known surviving work of local architect-builders Samuel Stockwell and John Eckles.
“The original church started where the Flemingsburg Cemetery is now” Hurst said, “and they outgrew the church and they bought the land where this church is now. The building was built for $180.”
Now, 200 years later, the church still has its doors open, welcoming and serving members from inside and outside the community who wish to visit.
“It’s a beautiful, beautiful building and a lot of people just come just to take pictures,” Hurst said. “We open it up for the prom, we open it up for whatever, and the people can come in and tour. We’ve had concerts there; the church itself has no sound system or anything like that in it, but we had a group here from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and they said it was the best acoustic building they’d ever played in.”
Being a minister for the church for around 10 years, Hurst said it is a unique experience to hold a service and celebration for a building with so much staying power.
“There’s something to be said about (the church) being 200 years old,” he said. “As a pastor, I thought, ‘well, I’ll go on the internet and I’ll find somebody that’s had a 200 year celebration that I can get some ideas of what I want to say and that kind of stuff.’ Guess what, there’s not very many places that’s lasted 200 years. So when this church was opened, James Monroe was the president, and Henry Clay was the Speaker of the House, so that tells you what you’re looking at.“
Hurst said the celebration for the Flemingsburg First Presbyterian Church will start at 10:45 on Sunday. The celebration will be held at the church, located at 204 West Main Street in Flemingsburg.
