Pleasant Hill Church stands south of Baker’s crossroads in section 28 of Grassy Township. Among its charter members were Mr. and Mrs. James S. Childress, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Baker, Mr. and Mrs. David Baker. One of the last was Margaret Elizabeth (Noel) Cannon Davis, a resident of Cottage Home for more than seventy years at her death in 1938, aged ninety-six. Other early members were Mr. and Mrs. James N. Sanders (he was postmaster at Cottage Home) and Mr. and Mrs. David R. Sanders. Elder David R. Sanders was ordained at Pleasant Hill church and was its pastor many years.
William Pinckney Throgmorton entered the service of the Baptist church at Pleasant Hill. After the deaths of his parents, he came to Grassy with an uncle, J. P. Throgmorton. Miss Nettie Taylor was teaching at the Baker schoolhouse, now the site of the church. Young Throgmorton attended, and in the summer of 1866 he taught a subscription school in the same building. For the fall he contracted to teach the Oaks School, where he met his wife, one of the family of Baker’s crossroads.
The young teacher returned to Pleasant Hill for the terms of 1870 and 1872, and joined the church July 3, 1870. Elder David R. Sanders baptized him into the fellowship of the church, and one month later he was licensed to preach. Elders Sanders and David Culp ordained him to the ministry in December, 1871 by authority of Pleasant Hill Baptist church. His many pastorates in southern Illinois and his work as editor of the Illinois Baptist made Rev. Mr. Throgmorton the leader of his denomination. His library now fills a memorial reading room in the First Baptist church of Marion, where he was pastor.
As an example of the value of this country church, take the meeting held in 1876 by Elder Sanders with T. W. Chamness, pastor of Palestine church at Wolf creek. Among the young people baptized at that service were John Morton Kilbreth, foster son of charter members Mr. and Mrs. James S. Childress, and Anna Lence, daughter of the blacksmith and postmaster at Wolf Creek. Four years later the young couple was married, and from their home came Allen and Jimmy Kilbreth to be community leaders in the new towns of Clifford and Energy.
(Extracted from Pioneer Folks and Places, Barbara Barr Hubbs, 1939, which is on sale at the Williamson County Museum)