St. Michael's Catholic Church is a historic

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

church near Cedar Hill, Tennessee, United States. St. Michael's is the oldest Catholic church in continuous operation in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. Its building incorporates a log cabin structure built in 1842 that is the oldest Catholic church building in the state. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History

The founding congregants of the church were four families who settled near Turnersville between 1838 and 1840. They bought an acre (0.40 ha) of land from the nearby Wessyngton plantation to build a church. The original log meetinghouse, which measured by , was completed in 1842 and dedicated on the Feast of the Apparition of St. Michael, May 8, 1842. When the church was built, its location was a stagecoach stop on the route between Nashville and Clarksville. From 1846 to 1855, the church operated a boarding school, Saint Michael's Male and Female Academy, located near the church. In 1864–5, the priest who served the church was Father

Abram Ryan Abram Joseph Ryan (February 5, 1838 – April 22, 1886) was an American poet, Catholic priest, Catholic newspaper editor, orator, and former Vincentian. An active proponent of the Confederate States of America, he has been called the "Poet-Priest ...

, who has been called "the poet-priest of the Confederacy". In 1934–5, the log structure was sheathed with

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

siding obtained from the dismantlement of an Episcopal church at Glen Raven and the building received a major addition, giving it a T-shaped plan. A bell tower was added to the front of the building in 1942, the church's centennial year. The bell that hangs in the tower came from the same church that provided the siding. St. Michael's was the only Roman Catholic parish in Robertson County until 1944, when Our Lady of Lourdes church was formed in Springfield. St. Michael's now operates as a mission church of Our Lady of Lourdes. The church building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on August 10, 1973.

References

External links

Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Michael official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michaels Catholic Church (Cedar Hill, Tennessee) Buildings and structures in Robertson County, Tennessee Roman Catholic churches completed in 1842 Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Roman Catholic churches in Tennessee Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville National Register of Historic Places in Robertson County, Tennessee 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States