Crossroads Church, in section 9 of East Marion Township, has served two denominations. The people of the neighborhood have stood by it faithfully, all denominations mingling with true Christian spirit at its weekly Sunday school.
The first church services in the neighborhood were held in an old cotton gin. Tobacco and cotton were the products of the community in Civil war days. Dick Campbell owned a store, and bought what the farmers raised.
A Cumberland Presbyterian church was organized in 1867 by Rev. Lewis G. Simpson. Among the first members were the pastor’s wife, Rev. John N. Calvert, J. L. Calvert, Mr. and Mrs. William May, O. G. Campbell, and Clementine Parks.
When the Presbyterian Church in Marion dissolved about 1870, their building was taken down and part of the materials sold to the Cumberland group. This was the church built at a cost of $400 on a site donated by Rev. Nehemiah A. Hunt, who began his ministry at Marion in 1848. Rev. John Ingersoll, father of Robert G. Ingersoll, preached in this church during his Marion pastorate.
With the budding of their church, the congregation at Crossroads increased in numbers and activity. Among the new members were Mr. and Mrs. William M. Buckley (see Buckley Creek) who settled on a farm in section 9 during 1877. Their daughter and her husband, Rev. Frank M. Alexander, teach in Crossroads Sunday school during their summers at the family homestead, after years of service to Presbyterian churches throughout Southern Illinois.
Crossroads Church was bought by the Southern Methodist denomination and services continued under the supervision of the Marion church through this writing in 1939.
(Extracted from Pioneer Folks and Places, Barbara Barr Hubbs, 1939, on sale at the Williamson County Museum)