On this day in 1957, descendants of Elisha Thomas Horn (my 3x great-grandfather) gathered at Zion Hill Baptist Church to dedicate a monument to his memory. It was the centennial anniversary of his deeding property for Zion Hill Church, near Carthage, Leake County, Mississippi.
Gatherers prayed, sang the national anthem and two hymns, and had a time to visit and review family records. The governor of Mississippi, James Plemon Coleman, even addressed the crowd. (And they served dinner on the ground as all good Baptists — even the Primitives, I suppose — must do for an important occasion!) The monument was unveiled in the adjoining cemetery, and it still stands today. My father, oldest son, and I visited the monument in May 2013.
My “tree cousin” Susan Pollard Caldwell sent me a wonderful find in 2015 — a scan of the program distributed at the Centennial Celebration. It was among the papers of her uncle George Joshua McCauley, a keen genealogist, who she presumes attended the event. All four pages of the program are presented below:
Elisha Thomas Horn Centennial Celebration Committee, Program, 4 Jul 1957; privately held by Susan Pollard Caldwell, Memphis, Tennessee, from the papers of George Joshua McCauley. Received electronic scan 20 Oct 2015.
Zion Hill Cemetery (Coosa, Leake County, Mississippi), Elisha Thomas Horn monument, personally photographed, 23 May 2013.