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Special to the Journal

Friends and family recently gathered at the Ebenezer Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Jessamine County. The church comes to life only once a year for the Annual Picnic which is held the second Sunday in September.

The church was organized by Reverend Adam Rankin in about 1793. Some accounts place the founding date as early as 1785, a time when native American encounters were common, and Kentucky had not yet gained its statehood. For the sum of ten dollars, Ephraim January and his wife Sarah deeded one and one-half acre of their Revolutionary War bounty land to establish the church. The church property straddles the Jessamine-Woodford County border in a wooded area just off Keene-Troy Road. 

Many of the headstones in the old cemetery surrounding the church are etched with birthdates from the 1700s. The present-day stone church was built in 1803 and restored in 1953. Read more about the Ebenezer Church at www.raisemyebenezer.com.