Summit stems back in history to the years following 1770, when families of Brethren people
came into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia from Pennsylvania and Maryland, settling in
Rockingham and Augusta Counties. From these settlers developed the Middle River
Congregation. We are told by 1850 the membership at Middle River had increased
to more than five hundred members, scattered over a large territory. Out of the need for
other places of worship, the Pleasant Valley Church was built in 1854 and the Barren Ridge
Church was erected in 1856. During the early eighteen-seventies the western side of the Valley
Congregation was divided into two other church communities, where the Summit (organized in 1874) and Lebanon
church houses were built. Five or six Brethren families living in the community had already
met in the first old Harmony school house near Seawright Springs, where preaching services
were held. Interest increased and the church grew.
Prior to the erection of the Summit Church house there was discussion around the Milnesville
Community as to where to build. The people finally decided upon a location in a
grove of trees on top of a hill, two miles east of Milnesville, which is now called Centerville. |
