The Old Union Church was established in 1820.  Its founders were members of the Salem Regular Baptist Church of the New Salem Association.  William Tackett, who became moderator of the new church once it was established, and a few others took an arm and started it on Indian Creek near the present junction of Highways 122 and 610.

            In 1859, the 39-year-old church became the Union Association.  It is believed that the name Union was chosen because the majority of its members supported the idea of an undivided nation during those years when the future Confederate states were threatening to secede over the issue of slavery.

            During the Civil War, in March of 1862, Colonel James A. Garfield led a force of Federal soldiers from Pikeville to Pound Gap over what was called the State Road.  Marching up Island Creek and across the mountain onto Sookeys Creek, Garfield later wrote that his men covered 15 miles the first day.  Their campground for the night would have placed them in the same location as the Old Union Church.  Two days later, Garfield’s men defeated the Confederates during the Battle of Pound Gap.

            After several years on Indian Creek, church minutes indicate that Old Union was moved a short distance up Long Fork for a few years.  During its time on Indian Creek, and maybe Long Fork, other churches took an arm and went up Shelby Creek and into Virginia.  Therefore, Old Union is the mother church of the Union Association.

            Sometime in the late 1800s the church moved again.  This time it went to the upper, or southern, end of what is now Jonancy, Kentucky.  When the Sandy Valley and Elkhorn Railroad was built up Shelby Creek in 1911 and 1912, the location was called Elwood Station.  It was opposite and diagonally upstream from the mouth of what is now called Doc Bill Hollow.  The church was located on property owned by its moderator, Sherwood Osborne, the forefather of most all of the Osbornes in the Jonancy and Virgie area.  The structure was originally built without a floor.  Hazel Little can remember her grandmother, Phenia Hall, telling about leveling the floor using eyed hoes, then having everybody stomp until it was firmly packed.

            This writer’s father was born in 1890.  One of his favorite stories for his family was telling about Sherwood Osborne preaching there during the days when it still had no wooden floor.  He could remember attending services there and seeing Osborne preach barefoot on the dirt floor of the Old Union Church at Elwood Station.

            Our present church building is located at the mouth of Elswick Branch in Jonancy.  On June 20, 1904, the Pike County Board of Education purchased this property from Mary F. and W.H.C. Johnson, better known as Dr. Bill Johnson.  Soon thereafter, a two-room schoolhouse was built.  For over 35 years the children of Jonancy and Elwood, as well as some who walked across the mountain and down Elswick Branch from Booker Fork of Caney, learned the three Rs in that school.  It closed in 1940 when a new one was built in Virgie.

            On September 12, 1944, Mahlon Burke, moderator and trustee of Old Union, along with trustees Mahlon Hall and Edward Burke, purchased the building and property for $1,065.  With the help of the Lord, they and its other members turned the old schoolhouse into a church.  It has served its purpose well for some 60 years.

            This building is now over 100 years old.  There are many fond memories for many people in that old church, and they are still being formed today.  Like people who are blessed with long lives, the age of the old building is now its worst enemy.  We are being forced to build a new home for our congregation.

            As God has blessed this church so many times before, Ira Edsel Branham and his brother, Randall Osborne, gave the Old Union Church their parents’ home and property following the death of their mother in 1998.  Both Ira Branham, the father of Ira Edsel, and Gladys (Riddle) Osborne Branham, the mother of both boys, were members of Old Union.

            As the Lord would have it, this property is located just across the county road from the site of our present church.  The Old Union Church has sold the Branham home and vacant property and are in the process of building a new church house.  We think we owe this to future generations to do this in the name of the Lord because, beginning with William Tackett and his brethren in 1820, past generations have done it for us.

            Our church today is small in numbers, but we think God will help us as he always has.  The church has gone in debt several thousand dollars for this building and now it needs your help.  We know that God will bless you for your donations, so will you please help us complete this structure of wood and stone so it might stand for the next 100 years, just as our old schoolhouse-turned-church did for a century before?

            Feel welcome to come and worship with us on the second Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday of each month as well as on all odd Sundays during those months which have five.

            Singing starts at 9:30 AM and services begin at 10:00.  Join us as we look forward to celebrating what will be, in only 13 more years, the 200-year anniversary of our old church in its new home and, more importantly, nearly 2,000 years of salvation for mankind in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Thank You
and
May God Bless You
	
Old Union Regular Baptist Church
Post Office Box 43
Jonancy, Kentucky 41538