Church and Cemetery History

Sardis Church

The Methodist Episcopal Church at Sardis was established around the year 1861. James Strong Moffatt of Troy deeded one acre to the trustees of the “Sardis Church House,” including the land on which the church stood, on September 13th, 1871, noting that this tract had been originally deeded “just prior to the war” but that the record of this had been lost. By 1865, a cemetery had been established adjoining the church.

By the late nineteenth century, the Sardis church had grown substantially, at one point having an even larger membership than the Methodist Church at Troy. For some brief time in the early 1900s, Sardis was a part of the charge known as Obion, Rives, and Sardis. Prior to this, it had been a part of the Troy Circuit, and it rejoined this circuit in 1922 when it became known as the ”Troy, Rives, and Sardis Charge”.

By the early 1930s, Sardis’ membership had dropped down to 61 total. Seven years later, at the third quarterly conference of the Troy-Rives Charge on July 3rd, 1938, the Sardis Church was closed: “A motion by R. B. Andrews and seconded by W. S. Moultrie as follows, that the third quarterly conference of Troy & Rives Charge assembled at Sander’s Chapel July 3 1938 hereby grant the trustees of the Sardis Church the privilege of disposing of the Sardis Church property, building, land, pews, piano, etc. for cash at the highest bidder, said assessment so received to be kept in trust by Brown Sanders, hereby named a treasurer. The trustees are hereby given the privilege of disposing of this money as they see fit within the bounds of Troy & Rives charge, the trustees are R. B. Andrews, W. S. Moultrie & N. J. Myers.

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Sardis Cemetery

There is limited information available regarding the history of the Sardis Cemetery. The earliest confirmed burial occurred took place in 1865. Burials took place here often throughout out the late 19th century and early 20th century as this was the closest cemetery to the Polk Station community. Many of these graves remain unmarked. After Sardis Church closed in 1938, only around a half a dozen more burials took place. Around this time, the cemetery was abandoned and became overgrown. In 1948, Herbie Andrews and the Polk Community Club set out to restore and continually maintain the cemetery. However, these plans fell through within a year, and by the 1950s, the cemetery was once again abandoned. The last confirmed burial in this cemetery was in 1965 and there was probably a later one in the winter of 1969. In 1979, 28 gravestones were located. As of March 2021, there were only 13 remaining.