| Friendship United Methodist Church | ||
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| 1853:
"From the time the church was built until 1853, the gallery remained in an unfinished state, only the frame work being in position. No changes have been made in the interior of the church since 1853, and while the necessary labor was being performed then, the congregation, far from forsaking the worship of God, and true to their character as a live church, continued divine services in the school house, which stood then on the same lot where public School, No. 3, of this township, now stands. The work of repair and alteration was begun in the fall of 1853, and finished in June, 1854, and the occasion was made a time of rejoicing and reconsecration. "As for the cemetery, in the old days before the church was built, there were a number of private burial grounds in this vicinity, probably three or four, the principal one was about a mile east of the church and quite a number were buried there, but after the church grounds were opened, they began to be used quite generally, not only by residents of this neighborhood, but also people from Millville, Weymouth, May’s Landing, and other villages and neighborhoods; even nowadays, funerals of non-residents are not infrequent, though the dead are usually those who have lived in the vicinity at one time, or they are related to the families of former residents. "Speaking of the cemetery, recalls the fact that in the old days the
duties of the office of sexton or janitor rather, were performed in turn
by the members of the congregation, without pay. A collection was taken
up from time to time to defray expenses for candles, etc., etc. These sextons
or janitors did not usually dig the graves."
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