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The Pleasant Hill Methodist Episcopal Church community was active for at least twenty years, and their building was completed in 1852 [22], three years after the land donation, but it is not known how long it remained active after that.

In the early 1850’s, the railroad came to Coatesville, and a new Methodist Episcopal church was being formed there [23a]; by 1854, Daniel and Phebe (Pike) McAninch had joined that church [23b], along with Elias Grimes, Jacob Mann, and Jeremiah Smith, and their families [23b]. The 1861 and 1862 membership records of the (new) Coatesville M. E. Church show Daniel and Phebe McAninch, his brother John W. McAninch, and John’s wife Martha Ann (Smith), as residents of Pleasant Hill (not Coatesville), and those records also show that John W. McAninch as the leader of ‘Class No. 6’ that meets in Pleasant Hill [26].

Since the last known burial date in the cemetery was John King, in 1868 [1] [2] [3], the Pleasant Hill M. E. Church was probably still active at that time, for a total span of about 35 years. After the Civil War, though, people moved to the new towns on the railroad, like Coatesville and Amo, and to the new lands available in other states, especially Iowa, and then the Pleasant Hill Methodist Episcopal church and cemetery would have become just another abandoned place in the countryside.

Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ McAninch (1817-1892), and ‘Amelia’ (Permelia Catherine) McAninch (1826-1891),

were spinster daughters of Samuel and (Mary) Polly (Skidmore) McAninch. Neither Betsy nor

Ameila ever married, and the two lived together in Franklin Township. Amelia, who died in 1891, and

Betsy, who died in 1892, are both buried in the Stilesville cemetery [5f], and not at Pleasant Hill, which

indicates that the Pleasant Hill cemetery was no longer being used at that time, in the early 1890’s.

In 1963, Louise McAninch speculated that Betsy and Amelia might have lived in the old house next

to the cemetery [photo, 4a6] [letter, 4e]. However, their land, Lots 3 and 4 in the 1861 partition [27],

and “E. & P. McIninch” [sic] on the 1878 map [29a], was in the north half of Samuel’s land, and the

church and cemetery were at the south edge of Samuel’s land, Lot 12, over a quarter of a mile away.

At this time, nothing more is known about the old house adjacent to the cemetery [photo, 4a6], but

there is no reason to believe that Elizabeth ‘Betsey’ and Permelia ‘Amelia’ McAninch lived there.

The next section presents historical information about the land donated for the Pleasant Hill Cemetery.

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