Letter to Jasper County Chancery Clerk in reference to the property of Green Valley Congregational Methodist church:

October 8, 1999

Jasper County Chancery Clerk

Court Street

Bay Springs, MS 39422

Dear Sir or Madam:

I may have an unusual request but I am looking for a deed between the Green Valley Congregational Methodist Church (located near Rose Hill) and William Perry Massey. According to my family history, William Perry preached and lived behind the Church for many years. He gave grounds for the church and cemetery and the deed states that the property will revert to the Massey family, if at any time the use of the property was changed.

The location of the church is Section 20, Township 4 North, Range 13 East. I do not know when the deed was signed but it had to between 1860 and 1934. I am most interested in a copy. Please let me know if this possible and how much it would cost to have it mailed to me.

Sincerely,

Debi Langston

Response received:

Ms. Langston,

I am enclosing a copy of the only deed we have on file for Green Valley Church. When you read it, you will find an explanation as to what happened to prior deeds. I hope that will help. Dana

WHEREAS, Green Valley Congregational Methodist Church acquired titled to three acres of land in the SW corner of the NE and NW of Section 20, Township 4, Range 13, in Jasper County, Mississippi, more particularly described as follows:

Beginning at the SW corner of the said forty acre

Subdivision, of said section and run thence East

361.5 feet, thence North 361.5 feet, then West

361.5, thence South 361.5 feet to the point of

beginning.

Said title to said property having been acquired by and through a conveyance to said Church and its trustee, for the use and benefit of said Church, by Rev. George Ryan approximately seventy-five years ago, which said Deed of Conveyance was duly recorded on the Record of Deeds in the office of the Chancery Clerk of the First Chancery Court District of said County of Jasper at Paulding, Mississippi. Said Deed was afterwards lost or otherwise destroyed and can not now be found, and the record of said deed was destroyed when the Court House at Paulding, Mississippi, and the public records therein were burned in the year 1932, or about that time.

WHEREAS, the title to said three acres of land has also been acquired by said Church by adverse possession thereof for more than ten years, in fact, for more than fifty years and possibly seventy-five years, during which time, or the greater part of said time, said Church or the congregation thereof has kept said three acres of land partly under fence, and on which they have also maintained a Temple of Worship or Church building and cemetary wherein they have buried their dead, which is still being maintained by the Church or the congregation thereof. Which said Church organization acting by and through its duly authorized officers still retain title to said three acres of land, possession and control thereof. And whereas, it is now in order to elect trustees of said Church in keeping with the bi-laws, rules, and discipline of the Congregational Methodist Church of America, including the Green Valley Congregational Methodist Church, which is affiliated with the Congregational Methodist Church of America; due notice of the election of the trustees have been given, and the members of the congregation being fully qualified to elect the said trustees, with the Pastor, Rv. J.A. Cook, presiding and G.C. French acting as secretary, ballots have been counted, the following were elected as trustees of said Church, to-wit:

Mr. G.R. Chatham

Mr. R. E. Chatham

Mr. C. P Fowler

Said Trustees were duly elected as a Board of Trustees for said Church, and they are elected to hold office as said Trustees until their successors are duly elected and qualified to act as such. The Trustees, by unanimous vote of all the members of said congregation present and qualified to vote, the requirements of said discipline have been previously complied with in reference thereto, by unanimous vote authorized said Trustee to hold and preserve the Church title and possession in and to said property, and to exercise their own best judgment and discretion in reference to sale or disposing of timber situated thereon, and in the event of a sale of said timber or any part thereof, the proceeds of such sales shall be collected by the said Trustees with reasonable dispatch and turn the same over to the Treasure of said Church.

This meeting have been opened with scripture reading and prayer same was closed with prayer in said Church, on the 14 day of December, A.D., 1940.

J. A. Cook, Chairman

G. C. French, Secretary

(The following seal appears at the bottom of the document)

THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, JASPER COUNTY

I, Ruth S. Stockman, Chancery Clerk in and for said County and State, hereby certify that the within instrument was filed for record in this office at 10:00 o'clock a.m. on the 29 day of Jan 1976 and that the same was recorded on the 29 day of Jan 1976 in L/D Book 46 on page 470-471, now on file in this office.

Mrs. Ruth S. Stockman, Chancery Clerk