Elder John Phillips and wife Ruth (Gifford) Phillips moved
from Turtle Creek Township, Warren Co., Ohio to their farm at the Big Spring
near Graysville, Indiana shortly after 1860.
Elder Phillips was a “New Light” minister associated with the
Big Spring Christian Church (Christian Connexion). This congregation had direct
ties to the formation of the Union Christian College (UCC), which existed from 1858 through 1924 at Merom, Indiana. The Rev. E. W. Humphreys first establish a small
academy in Merom in 1854, a year in which Humphreys was also a founding member
of the Big Spring congregation. Upon
returning from a trip to Europe in 1858, Humphreys began promoting formation of
a formal liberal arts college at Merom to be under control of the Christian
Church. The resulting campus and the old College Hall (built in 1859) are now
part of the Merom Conference Center operated by the United Church of
Christ.
Elder John Phillips of Ohio, well regarded as a business
agent and a proven solicitor, was recruited by the group at Merom to help coordinate
their campaign. Their competitive proposal won out over other pledges from much
bigger towns; including: Lebanon, Kokomo, Logansport, Peru, Anderson, Attica, Richmond
and Sullivan. During formation of the school's charter, it was determined that the school would be coeducational, and that women could take any course that was available to the men. UCC was one of the earliest colleges to formally adopt this policy.
Once the Merom proposal was accepted, John Phillips moved
his family from Ohio and established a 640-acre farm near Graysville in Turman Twp.,
Sullivan Co., Indiana. Elder John served as a trustee during the
formation of at the new college at Merom, and also served on the board of
trustees for Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
The Big Spring Christian Church building was completed in
1868, located on property adjoining the Phillips’ farm. That same year,
Elder John Phillips was fatally injured, having been thrown from his horse
while returning from the Sullivan County Fair. His son John T. Phillips later
served as pastor of the Big Spring Christian Church and was on the Executive
Committee of the Union Christian College. Another son Leander Phillips lived along
the lane that ran south from the church building back to the Big Spring grove. (Leander
was the grandfather of Leo S Phillips and great-grandfather of Robert H
Phillips.) The Phillips family members are buried in the Mann-Turman Cemetery.
Elder Phillips had been previously engaged in the formation
of Antioch College
at Yellow Springs, Ohio, founded in 1850; where he served on their first board
of trustees. John Phillips was on “The Committee on the Plan for a College,” formed
to undertake the founding of the college, and to make decisions regarding the
name of the school, the endowment, fundraising, faculty, and administration.
This committee decided that the college "shall afford equal privileges to
students of both sexes"; a radical idea in 1850.
In the 1850s, two African American girls, residents of
Yellow Springs, enrolled at Antioch Preparatory School, which was then an
official part of the College. A member of the board of trustees quit in protest
and removed his own children from the school, but the Hunster sisters stayed in the school. In 1863, Antioch trustee John Phillips proposed a formal resolution
stating "the Trustees of Antioch College cannot, according to the Charter,
reject persons on account of color." The resolution passed with nine
trustees in favor and four opposed. However, there were no black students at
Antioch for many decades until Edythe Scott was admitted in 1943 with a full
scholarship under a new racial integration policy. Two years later Coretta
Scott (King) followed her sister Edythe as a student at Antioch.
Wabash Valley Visions & Voices - Sullivan County Public Library WV3
collection
Ref: Records
from the Merom Conference Center, which include minutes and church membership
records of Big Spring Christian Church from 1867-1961, are archived at the
Indiana Historical Society library in Indianapolis.
