ACKWORTH FRIENDS CHURCH

109 YEARS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
(Source - Indianola Record-Herald, Date about 1956
Information contributed by Virginia Wheeldon)

     It was June 5, 1852, when the first South River Meeting was set up at what is now Ackworth. Five years before that the members of or those with a leaning to the Quaker faith had begun holding meetings in homes about the neighborhood.
     So, the Ackworth church was just past 109 years old when the Ackworth annual homecoming service was held June 10, 1956. From a beginning when Iowa was only a year old and two years before Warren county was organized the Society of Friends four and a half miles east of Indianola has carried on and is still active and the dominant social force in the community.
     In 1869 an academy building was erected, containing a room for public worship, and the old log church was abandoned. The walls of the old academy building still serve as the walls of today's modern church.
     The academy was named Ackworth, a namesake of the oldest "Friends" school in England. The village surrounding it was then named Ackworth 10 years before the Chariton, Des Moines & Southern Railroad built a line from Chariton to Indianola (soon thereafter to be taken over by the Burlington) and established a station at Ackworth.
     The academy was closed about 1900, when high schools became general over the state. Nevertheless the influence of the Ackworth academy and the Ackworth church has been potent all over east central Warren county for more than 100 years. It is not necessary to repeat now what the Record-Herald has printed before, the names of people sprung from or influenced by the Ackworth church which have become will known in state and nation. Few communities the size of Ackworth can point to as many distinguished former citizens.
     The Haworths, the Hockets, the Clarks, the Cravens, names which made early Ackworth, are gone; but the Ackworth church goes on making for better citizenship, better homes, better people in the community it serves.
    The present pastor is Roger Crews, a young man who preaches the same gospel proclaimed by the pioneers, still potent, still based on a firm faith in God and the Man of Gallilee.