I started driving and exploring my surroundings during my senior year of high school. It’s been years, but I remember the impetus clearly: I asked my mom if I could take the girl I was dating to a soccer game at Delta High School, just northeast of town near where two highways intersected. Mom responded with a key question that got right to the point: “Do you even know the way to get there?”
Oof. I didn’t.
We ended up not going, but that random interaction set me off on a long-standing compunction to go explore whatever there was to see in East Central Indiana! The years that followed led to my acquaintance with Eaton-Wheeling Pike, and a drive down it has become a favorite jaunt. I’ve been infatuated with the old Mt. Zion Methodist Episcopal Church, which has stood on the road since 1867, ever since I first passed it.
I eventually got a drone. One day, I whipped out the DJI Mavic Mini as I drove past. I didn’t know it at the time, but Mt. Zion is the oldest remaining religious building in Delaware County. The Richwood Evangelical Lutheran Church at Cross Roads in Salem Township was erected the following year, and the oldest sanctuary in Muncie proper -the former Wesleyan Chapel Church at 600 West Jackson Street- was built in 1875.
Mt. Zion was founded in 1840. At first, it was a combination of Methodist Episcopal classes held in the homes of Tristan Starbuck and John Ginn. Larger quarters were necessary after their merger, so the combined group built a log church and set aside land for a cemetery along Eaton-Wheeling Pike. In those days, the turnpike was part of a major thoroughfare between Ohio and the Wabash Canal.
The extant structure was built 155 years ago at a cost of around $2,000. As for the building itself, the one-room replacement for the old log structure measures 46 by 36 feet. Its foundation was constructed of rough Indiana limestone that reaches a foot above the surrounding land. The rest of the church was built with common-bond brick.
The church’s asphalt roof is a replacement of the original that’s supported by timber framing. An exact duplicate of the original cupola tops it, featuring its original brackets and bell. Overall, the building looks like a schoolhouse! At least I always thought it did until I got more savvy: For starters, the church -at 1656 square feet- is substantially larger and taller than most old schools we’re likely to encounter.
The Mt. Zion M.E. church near Eaton served the spiritual, social, and political needs of rural Union Township residents until 1926, when its congregation consolidated with Eaton’s Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1930, the church and cemetery were awarded to the Mount Zion Cemetery Association. Several decades later, a renovation paid for by the family of its earliest congregants ensured that the building would remain viable despite its disuse.
Unfortunately, those efforts eventually dropped off. Thankfully, 1996 saw several boosters form the Mount Zion Foundation, Inc., group with the goal of restoring the structure. It was! In its present configuration, the interior of the church features an exposed pine floor in the main aisle, which separates fifteen remaining poplar pews with walnut crests.
Two iron stoves once stood near an axial cross-aisle, but one was stolen over the years. The walls of the sanctuary are bare plaster, and the 14-foot roof is covered by drywall. A rope dangles through the church’s single entrance, by which the bell can be rung.
In addition to the church itself, the cemetery is notable for being the final resting place of many of Union Township’s earliest settlers. That includes seven veterans of the Civil War! Many Nixons, Craws, Ervins, Kirkwoods, and other families are buried there, but the earliest headstone I found was Julia A. Craw’s. Sadly, she was a seven-year-old who died in 1839.
I’ll never forget the first time I drove past the old Mt. Zion Church. It’s been an Eaton-Wheeling Pike landmark for nearly 200 years! The rest of the road is worth a drive, too, since it features three old schoolhouses, a ghost town, prominent homes, and an old dairy. The Mt. Zion Methodist Episcopal Church is just one of the tales its road has to tell, but it’s a whopper.
