The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints built a church in section twenty-two, near the present residence of Ed Green in Clay township in the summer of 1897. This is a plain building twenty-eight by thirty-six feet and appearing about like the average country church. The building cost about one thousand two hundred dollars.
The local organization or "branch" at the time, had about fifty members, widely scattered throughout Jones and Jackson counties. Other branches have been organized within the same territory, and members in each case have united with the nearest church. At the present time there are about forty-seven members, many of these still widely scattered.
The following are some of the early members: Mr. and Mrs. James Johnson; Mrs. Louisa Myatt. Mariner Maudsley, Edwin Lowe, Miss Lizzie Haller, Mrs. Maria Kelsall, Mr. and Mrs. O. E. Green, Rachel M. Green, Susan Green, Willard Thomas, Amelia Thomas, John Wier. Cora Wier and D. J. Dierks.
The church has always depended largely upon missionaries sent out bv the general church for its ministers. Among these were the following: John S. Roth, of Grinnell. Iowa; William T. Maitland, of Des Moines, Iowa; O. B. Thomas, of Lamoni, Iowa; John W. Peterson, Lamoni, Iowa; Oscar Case, Morehead, Iowa; Fred Farr, of Greene. Iowa; J. B. Wildermuth, Osterdock, Iowa; James McKerman. Muscatine, Iowa.
The church was dedicated by Joseph Smith and J. W. Peterson. The former is president of the reorganized church and a son of the original founder of the church established in 1830. A large congregation of people from all the surrounding country gathered to hear the man whose name had become famous because of its association with the Orientalism of Utah.
