Philomath residents congregate to save church

<p>Regular services haven't been held at the Philomath Presbyterian Church since the 1960s.</p><p>But residents of this tiny Oglethorpe County community, site of the last Confederate war council, are banding together to save one of the town's best-known landmarks.</p><p>The building has stood for more than a century, and in Philomath _ more than 200 years old _ residents have a well-developed sense of history.</p><p>They say the landmark would make a good public building for the little community of about 48 households in southeastern Oglethorpe County near Wilkes and Taliaferro counties.</p><p>"I think it would make a nice little wedding chapel," said Sue Ellen Buckman, one of the leaders in the budding restoration effort.</p><p>Before anything like that can happen, the church is going to need an extensive makeover.</p><p>Outside, the paint is peeling and a few boards are warped. Inside, plaster has peeled away from walls in places and several small holes in stained glass windows, perhaps from pellet guns, are clearly visible.</p><p>It's liable to cost a lot of money, but Buckman and others working to raise it aren't worried about getting the job done.</p><p>"It's just going downhill, and as we talked to people, everybody said, we need to do something with the church," said John Buckman, Sue Ellen Buckman's husband. "It's a big part of the history of the community."</p><p>Although Philomath is small, history is big here.</p><p>The community's oldest house dates to 1802, and several other large houses visible to travelers speeding by on Ga. 22 were built before the Civil War.</p><p>The last meeting of the cabinet of Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis was held in Philomath in a house that still stands, said Burke Walker, a historical preservation specialist with the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Commission.</p><p>The young Woodrow Wilson was a frequent visitor when his father, a Presbyterian minister, visited Philomath to preach.</p><p>And before the Civil War, the village was home to a boys' boarding school, part of the reason the town's name was changed in the 19th century from Woodstock to Philomath, which means "love of learning."</p><p>"It was a center of scholarly and intellectual activity," said Walker. "There is a lot of deep history about Philomath."</p><p>The church restoration effort is one of several ongoing and planned projects in the rural county.</p><p>In Crawford, an Oglethorpe County performing arts group named Arts!Oglethorpe is restoring Crawford's century-old school building.</p><p>The group has raised more than $60,000 in a project that's projected to cost around $350,000 and plan to show off what's been done so far from July 6-10, when the group will stage a musical in the building.</p><p>Efforts are also getting off the ground to restore Crawford's old train depot and an Arnoldsville school gymnasium, said Tom Gresham, president of the group Historic Oglethorpe.</p><p>Since Oglethorpe County is rural, it hasn't lost buildings to modernization and parking lots, as cities like nearby Athens have.</p><p>"We lose structures because they are remote and have fallen into disrepair and neglect," said Tom Gresham, president of the group Historic Oglethorpe. "But overall I don't feel terrible about Oglethorpe County," he said.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1cde27c)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/6/144602