A train of one hundred wagons from Kentucky arrived on the Allison Prairie, northwest of Vincennes in June of 1815. At the time of their arrival in the territory of Illinois (it was not yet a state) these pioneers were investigating and searching the scriptures. They had been led to do this through the ministry of Barton W. Stone of eastern Kentucky who had in conjunction with several other ministers, left the Presbyterian Church and helped to form fifteen or twenty congregations called “Christian” in that area and in southern Ohio.
These Christians (sometimes called Stonites) were destined to come into contact with the reforming Baptists (sometimes called Campbellites by their mockers) here on the frontier and the two groups joined forces. Beginning at Lexington, Kentucky, in January of 1832, hundreds of congregations merged and thousands of “Christians” and “Reformers” came into fellowship with each other. Those “Stonite” churches that did not merge with the Campbell movement developed into the “Congregational-Christians” churches, many of which are still to be found in this part of Illinois.
The two oldest churches of “Christians” in Lawrence County, Allison Prairie and Springhill, were originally of the Stonite persuasion, but both became wholly New Testament congregations within a few years, adopting weekly communion and the name “Church of Christ” as signs of their conversion. They became the mother churches of most of the other congregations that exist under the divine name new.