cemetery. ²⁹ Orlando and Olive Dodge borrowed $800.00 from a local bank ³⁰ and another $300 from the Sedalia Union Sunday School Ladies Missionary Society, ³¹ and pledged this $1100 towards the construction costs of the new church. Seeing these contributions, others came forward and strongly supported the project. Finally, on April 15, 1896, the Sedalia Union Sunday School made applica­tion to the Presbytery Board of Church Erection in Topeka to build a church in the Sedalia community. The application fee to the Presbytery was $500.00. ³² The Presbytery accepted the application.

         The application to the Presbyterian church rather than some other denomination was probably influenced greatly by the Cooper and Blythe families and Rev. Campbell. Rev. Campbell was minister of the Manhattan Presbyterian Church and both the Cooper and Blythe families were Scottish and devoutly Presbyterian. The community, however, was populated with a wide variety of different religious faiths.

         The Sedalia Sunday School board decided to build a stone church out of native limestone. ³³ They decided to quarry the rock during the fall and winter of 1897 and erect the church in the spring and summer of 1898. ³⁴

          The stone was cut from a quarry just south of the Silver Creek school house, just two miles from the church site. George Zeller's son, Uriah Zeller, is reported to have quarried the stone for the church. ³⁵ Will Cooper borrowed a big team of horses and a wagon and hauled the stones to the church site. He also hauled the windows and door frames from Manhattan. ³⁶

           Hugh Cooper was probably responsible for designing and supervising the building of the church. He had been a very successful carpenter in New York and Michigan before coming to Kansas. However, the 1885 census report states that Frank Pierce, one of the charter officers, was a stone mason. He, no doubt, also had an important role in the church's construction. ³⁷

           A disagreement arose over the church's design. Anna Cooper wanted a pointed roof on the church like the Presbyterian church she had attended in Sterling Valley, New York. The men on the committee thought that a pointed roof would be too expensive and that a flat roof would be better. Anna Cooper and Mary Blodgett persisted, however, and the church was built with a pointed roof. ³⁸

          The church was built directly across the road west from the school house and sits on a small hill. The front door faces south while the building itself runs east and west. The cemetery lies to the west of the church and surrounds a large circle of cedars. (See Figure 2). Along the north boundary line an eight foot high board fence was erected. Small stalls were then built along the south face of the fence to which the horses and buggies were tethered during services. Each stall had a name printed above it on the fence

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