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Desecration
of Bible
Recalled by Woman, 83
The Coshocton Tribune, Wednesday, September 27, 1939
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The
log-cabin Early’s Church, built in the 1840’s about five miles
south of Newcomerstown, was the scene of desecration of a Bible,
which today is on exhibition at the historical museum conducted
by the Civic League of Women’s Clubs at the Chamber of Commerce
room.
 Here it was, according to Mrs. L. M. Castor, 335 West Canal
Street [Newcomerstown, Ohio] that “agents of the devil,” namely wayward young men of
the vicinity, entered the church one night and desecrated the
church Bible, a document printed in 1851. The men slaughtered a
lamb and placed the dripping carcass on the opened Bible,
soaking its pages with blood.
Mrs. Castor, her powers of recollection dimmed by her 83 years,
could not recall what year the act was committed but said it
happened while she was a small girl.
“I
remember when it happened, tho,” she said at her home this week.
“I know the boys who did it. Sinful boys they were, always into
mischief.”
According to Mrs. Castor, the deed was not discovered until the
following Sunday morning when the church doors were opened for
the congregation to enter. The odor of the dead animal presaged
the evil that met the horrified eyes of the congregation in
front of the church. Blood from the slain lamb had stained the
Bible, stains that remain easily visible yet today at the
museum.
Records, according to Mrs. Castor, reveal that both boys, and
even their father, came to “dreadful ends” because of the act
against God. Mrs. Castor recalls that one boy was afflicted by
blindness early in life, while the father died of delirium
tremens. The second boy disappeared it was reported. |
