140th Anniversary | Snapshot Of Our Heritage

140th Anniversary
Snapshot of Our Heritage

Long Lake Friends Church

prepared by Pastor Jared
September 27, 2020, 10 am

Our History

Long Lake Friends Church (LLFC) was started by Friends (Quakers) from Randolph County, Indiana, who moved to Grand Traverse County in the late 1870’s as loggers. Paul Collins, our Presiding Clerk, is a descendant of one of these families.

Another family of loggers moved here in 1883. The Penningtons were from Amo, IN. They had 10 children, and their 6th child was Levi T. Pennington. He grew up and started a career as a teacher and a reporter. Eventually, he was called to Indiana to pastor. From there he became the President of Pacific College, not far from Portland, Oregon. Pacific College eventually became George Fox University, one of the most respected Evangelical schools on the West Coast.

LLFC was the 1st Friends church to be established in the GT Bay Area and has been in the Indiana Yearly Meeting (IYM) ever since.

Early on, there were many Friends churches in our region. We had churches in Traverse City, Maple City, Port Oneida, Cedar, Manton, Arthur Center, Onaway, and South Forest.

Our Pastors

1 Mead A. Kelsey | 1891-92

2 Leverett Rugg | 1894

3 Jonathan Hodgin | 1897

4 Estella Hammond | 1900-04

5 Frederick E. Carter | 1904

6 James Carter | 1904-05

7 Franklin & Mary Meredith | 1906

8 Fred Carter | 1907-08

9 Avera Adams

10 Gervas Carey | 1908-11

11 Carl F. Miller | 1910-12

12 Franklin & Mary Meredith | 1913-14

13 Joseph Phillips | 1915-17

14 Will S. Abram | 1918-19

15 Charles M. Elliott | 1919-20

16 Russell Burkett | 1921

17 Alice C. Lawrence | 1921-1922

18 Olive Harris | 1923-25

19 Gervas Carey | 1925-27

20 Orville Chance | 1927-29

21 John Wright | 1939-58

22 John Thomas | 1958-60

23 Lester Figgins | 1960-69

24 J. Bartram Shields | 1969-80

25 Dennis K. Mote | 1980-83

26 Keith Huffman | 1983-89

27 Ric Shultze | 1989-90

28 Marc Jackson | 1990-93

29 Stephen McKinney | 1993-95

30 Keith Huffman | 1996-2008

31 Dan Downer | 2009-10

32 Tom White | 2010-15

33 Christopher Cox | 2016-19

34 Jared Ingle | 2019 – Present

1st Pastor | Mead Kelsey

LLFC was already gathering. However, Mead Kelsey is considered to be our first vocational pastor in 1891.

2nd Pastor | Leverett Rugg

In his time, we had a youth group of 80.

3rd Pastor | Jonathan Hogdin (or Hogsdon)

He was a minister from Indiana. He pastored LLFC, but also had 6 congregations total from Maple City to Traverse City, so he was like a circuit-rider. He walked many miles each Sunday, with multiple services throughout the day. He focused on ministering person-to-person, rather than pastor-to-parishioner. His meetings grew because of this simplicity of spreading the Gospel through the efforts of everybody.

5th Pastor | Fred Carter

He later became Superintendent of IYM. He pastored in 1904 and from 1907-08.

10th Pastor | Gervas Carey

He was one of the 4 founding pastors of the Long Lake Quarterly Meeting, an organization including Long Lake, Manton, Maple City, and Traverse City. Gervas eventually became a Professor at Friends University in Kansas. He later became a Professor at Pacific College in Oregon, and then President. While he was President, the name was changed to George Fox University. He eventually returned to Pastor LLFC from 1925-27.

22nd Pastor | John Thomas

He and his wife Josephine helped establish our Scouts. Troop 27 is the largest Scout Troop north of Grand Rapids. We are grateful that since that time LLFC has found many ways to be of service to our community.

26th Pastor | Keith Huffman

He served from 1983-89 and from 1996-2008. During his seasons of stability many of our ministries flourished and many of our leaders were developed. We’re still experiencing the fruits of Keith’s ministry. Some of our parishioners remain in contact with him to this day.

Our Meetinghouses

Early Meetings | mid-1800’s

There is some question as to the origins of our meeting. We may have started in a school house or in a log cabin church, or both. When LLFC began, Perry Hannah was alive, one of Traverse City’s founding fathers. He was building our town during his logging boom, so perhaps some of the LLFC settlers were employed by him. He was offering land grants and building log cabin public and religious buildings. It is possible that our original log cabin on the corner of Cedar Run was one of his gifts.

Meetinghouse | 1880

The church was located on this property. It was a classic white church, complete with a belltower. Over the course of time, it was remodeled several times to meet the needs of our growing meeting. At one point, before it tragically burned down, LLFC was running 2 services on Sundays to minister to everyone.

Our Church | 1968

When our current church was constructed, many people considered it to be a miracle. Since the first church had burned down, our community pulled together to support the new construction, both with workers and finances. Our church was paid off in record time. Many of our current parishioners and their parents were not only there during that time, their fingerprints are all over our building because they were part of the construction. Every disagreement in the process (and there can be many in construction) is said to have been put to rest by our congregation’s ability to wait on the Lord for total agreement. We still have the bell from our first Meetinghouse. It rings every Sunday at the start of service.