The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Dexter history filled with faith
Baptists, now gone, were always willing to help those in need
By Elaine Owsley, The Dexter Leader
PUBLISHED: July 10, 2008
The Dexter Baptists were always ready to help their Christian brethren in those early days. Up to, and including, loaning their church building for the use of congregations temporarily out of their own.
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When another church burned - like St. James or the Methodist Church - the Baptists opened their doors. Not that they required the Episcopalians and the Methodists to attend their services; no, they turned over their sanctuary to each church to hold its own worship.
But then, they sort of disappeared. The congregation dwindled and then vanished. The church was torn down and the site leveled.
We know, from Dexter history, that Ed Stacy did the leveling and John Lesser built a brick combination home and office on the site.
The original church, a good sized brick edifice with large windows, sat on a rise at the corner of Fifth and Broad. When the ground was leveled, the building, now known as Fifth Street Dentistry, replaced it.
Originally, the church was on a level with the brick buildingjust to the east, which was the second Dexter School building and is now a private residence.
Why the properties were elevated originally is missing from the historical data. It appears to be more artificial than a natural geographical happening.
At the time, there also were Presbyterians in the village, but they, too, disappeared. Some combination of the two smaller congregations worshipped together for awhile.
The small church just off the corner of Fifth and Central housed those folks. The combined congregations later became the Dexter Gospel Church and moved to the large church complex south of the Village on Baker Road.
The little church became a combination residence and art studio in the 1970's and then, with the death of that artist, it became just a studio for local artist and University Professor John Rush.
It remains a perfect miniature church building in appearance, if not in use. While many of the churches from those early days have remained in approximately their original location, if not the original building, like St. Andrew's and St. James, the Methodists moved to Huron RiverDrive and St. Joseph Catholic Church moved its major operations to the new edifice on North Territorial at Mast in recent times.
The Methodist Church became a dentist's office - not unlike the location of the original Baptist church, and Mass and other celebrations are still held at the old St. Joseph Church on Fourth.At one time, in the late 1800's and early 1900's there were ninecongregations worshiping in Dexter in one location or another.
At around the same time, according to local history, there were 11 saloons in operation in the Village. Perhaps it was an attempt to balance "evil" with "good"?
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