HISTORY
of the
PENNINGTON BEND
CHURCH OF CHRIST
As Compiled by
Mathilde Weaver Duke
and Published in
The Donelson Diary
Donelson, Tennessee
February 28, 1952
Down McGavock Road about three miles or so, beyond Sunset View signs, beyond several new houses on the ridge of a hill, beyond Mr. Waddy's sheep in the field, one arrives finally at Pennington Church of Christ, built on a bluff just beyond a deserted rock quarry. Compared to many of its rural cousins,country churches around here of real antiquity, its aura is one of fresh paint; for it is only 22 years old.
Six concrete steps up, the facade is unpretentious; it is simply a little white building on the side of a hill; the yard - mostly gravel roads and scrubby cedars, hackberry and thin soil where big rocks break through. A cable encloses additional parking area.
From the steps, the view is past Mr. Rutherford's barn and cowshed, past farmlands to the border of trees outlining the old Cumberland river. Sombody's tall white house dots the opposite bank and then there is Hayesboro to the right. Nearer, to the rear of a modern Gulf filling station and grocery, is a pastoral scene, straight from Palestine, grazing sheep, in a setting of green pastures. Immediately to the right is the useful little one room Pennington Bend Club House, neat in white curtains, where the Home Demonstration Club meets and the 4H Clubs and the Community Club.
To the rear of the church is the driveway again, with a wire fence separating it from Dr. Sutherland's lot. The County Rock Quarry, just below, was abandoned years ago for the rock was found to be too soft.
Pennington Bend Church of Christ came into being at a tent-meeting over on the "Forkum Place" back in 1929. Thomas Burton held the "Protractin' meeting". There were eight members: Mrs. Ray Lipscomb, Mrs. McCauley, Mr. & Mrs. W. R. Holman, Mrs. Fred Wakefield and Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Tidwell, all residences in this neighborhood.
For the year following, the little congregation met at the " Tidwell Place", now the Frank Rutherford home. In the summer, the meetings were in the yard. Next year the storebuilding was their place of worship, it was just across the road. Mrs. H
