"Where the River Flows: Finding Faith in Rockingham County, Virginia, 1726-1876."

by Robert R. Hewett III

Published by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities for the Margaret Grattan Weaver Foundation, this beautiful book that covers the development of churches and religion in Rockingham County is distributed by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society.

To understand the importance of religion and the differences in outlook among the groups, the reader needs to understand the early history of these churches. Therefore, the book begins with "Headwaters," the origins of the churches in Europe to 1750.

It continues with "Confluence" with the period 1750-1800 in Rockingham County. By then, settlers were coming in considerable numbers from Pennsylvania and other points but were desperately in need of ministers for the sparse settlements.

The book continues through the "Rapids" of 1800-1850 and concludes with the "Cataracts" from 1850 to 1876.

Although not an easy topic to research, the author does a great job of explaining how the religious groups worked with each other (and sometimes against each other), growing from services in homes to building church buildings and even schools. Individual congregations and even denominations split over disagreements with each other and often came back together after a number of years. The Revolutionary War and Civil War were very difficult times for the peace churches, and he has stories of incidents that happened during those times.

The book is beautifully laid out with glossy paper, 280 pages, and has a separate map of the county showing the locations of the churches in the first 200 years of county history. There are old photographs of some of the early churches, like Bethlehem Church, Elk Run Meeting house, and the Tunker house. There are reproductions of paintings of early church leaders, like Johannes Braun, German Reformed minister, John Bear (Methodist), William Otterbein (United Brethren)

A professional photographer took photos of old churches that are still standing in the county, several of the streams that were influential in the settlement of the county, artifacts such as Elder John Kline's hat and saddlebags, communion cup of Thomas Giffin from 1727, and rural scenes. Many of the photos are full color.

The book is $50 plus $4 for shipping and handling.