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Decker Chapel Church & Cemetery and Decker School
By: Jim Kolb, Princeton, Indiana
The Decker Chapel Church and Cemetery may be familiar to many of you, the Church and Decker School stood at the intersection of 410 N and 175 E. I don’t remember the school building, but Dad and Uncle Chester talked about the school and which children attended Decker School and which went to Number 10 School.
Number 10 School was located on the east side of the Patoka River, just across from the John “Cam” Moore home. Number 10 School was later rebuilt on the west side of the river just across the road from Uncle Chester and Aunt Hazel Kolb’s house. The Decker School was in White River Township, but just barely. Actually the Decker Chapel Church, Cemetery and the School were just across the road from Washington Township. There is jog in the county road where the church and school sat that indicates a township line. The road on the east side of the cemetery separates Washington and White River Townships.
The church, cemetery and school all got their name from my Grandmother Kolb’s Aunt Chris. Aunt Chris, as I always heard her called, would have been a daughter of the original Henry Alexander Phillips and Catherine Sloan Phillips, whose mother’s maiden name was Decker This helps explain the connection between the Phillips, Sloan and Kolb families. Aunt Chris married a man named Riley Decker, who was a veteran of the Civil War and was older than Aunt Chris. They lived in the house that sat where Keith and Patti Kolb live now, this also where Aunt Beulah and John Stewart lived.
Aunt Chris inherited that property from her father and donated the land for the Decker Chapel Church, the Decker School and the Decker Chapel Cemetery. Mr. Decker died when Aunt Chris was still fairly young and she remarried to George Hays. They lived at that house for a while before moving to Princeton.
The Decker School served students in that area and some were Washington Township students. For some students it was a shorter distance to walk than #10 School. Clarence and Lester Kolb went to Decker School for all eight grades. Dad and Uncle Chester always mentioned a pump and watering trough sat near the road for watering horses. They said the well served the school kids and those attending church with a dipper that hung from the pump.
I remember the Decker Chapel Church growing up as a boy, but don’t remember ever attending services there. The story was that at one time the church congregation had a disagreement and divided into two groups. Neither group wanted the other to use the church, so one group put a padlock on the church door, the next day the other group put their padlock on the church door. This pretty well shut the church down.
I remember Calvin “Cub” Turpin telling about him and his brother Dickie Turpin taking their dog into Decker Chapel Church for refuge from Dr. Cunningham. Dr. Cunningham owned the property were the “Brick” house stands and had a policy that any dog that came on his property was to be shot. The Turpin’s dog “ Rover” went onto his property and Doc was after Rover, Dickie and Cub took their dog “Rover” to the Decker Chapel Church and hid, Doc Cunningham came to the church door and opened it. Cub said Dickie held the dog’s muzzle and they all prayed, including the dog he thinks, Doc looked around inside the doorway, muttered something and slammed the door. Rover was kept close to home after that.
The church burned in the late 50’s or early 60’s. Aunt Lily Kolb and her daughter Leota Barnett were cleaning the church and the yard for a revival when a spark from burning trash caught the church on fire. The church was as dry as tinder and went up in flames very fast. They felt terrible about the fire, but it was just one of those accidents that happens.
I talked to JoEllen Bingham about the Decker Chapel Church and she told me her mother Nancy Kolb Wilson was born in the house just across the road from the church.
The Decker Chapel Cemetery is just south of where the church and school stood. This is the cemetery where many in the Patoka and Pond Run community are buried or will be buried. Some day Judy and I will be there. The cemetery has been taken care of by the Sloan, Phillips & Kolb families in the area for as long as I can remember.
I was lucky enough to be the Clerk Treasurer of the Cemetery when we were out of space. Bobby Joe Barnett sold several acres to the cemetery. Several people were instrumental in integrating this new space into the cemetery, Paul “Shorty” Stone, Dickie Turpin, Uncle Chester, my Dad and many others all put in a lot of time. Shorty used a Bulldozer to remove the old fencing and level up some of the new areas. There is a section of the cemetery that has no gravestones, but this is the pauper’s graves area of the cemetery. My wife asks if an Indians were buried in the pauper graves part of the cemetery. The native American Indians were gone from this area before the cemetery was started, but they would not have been buried there because the Indians had there own burial ceremonies.
The Sloan, Phillips and Kolb families have always taken a big part in the administration of the cemetery. The present Decker Cemetery Board of Trustees are: Ron Hudson Clerk Treasurer, Bobby Stone, Mark Berry and Jim Kolb.