REV. AUGUSTUS H. MECKLIN
1862-1913
Augustus Hervey was born in Abbeville District, SC, December 2, 1834 to John Anderson Mecklin and Elizabeth Allen Simpson, both from South Carolina. The family emigrated to Mississippi in 1845 or 1846 and settled on Big Poplar Creek, within the bounds of the present Montgomery county. These worthy parents were staunch Presbyterians, honest, industrious, pious, and unpretentious.
Young Mecklin took his preparatory course of education, at the celebrated Milton Academy, in Carroll County, then under the care of Rev. William Harris. Afterwards he taught school in the eastern part of that county for a year or two and then began teaching at Poplar Creek, where he built up a large and successful high school. In the fall of 1856, he entered the junior class at the Presbyterian Synodical College at LaGrange, TN, graduating in the summer of 1858. He then went to Columbia Theological Seminary in Columbia, SC, graduating in the summer of 1860. He was licensed to preach by Presbytery of Tombigbee in the fall of the same year and was asked to supply Poplar Creek and French Camp Churches.
But when the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, Mecklin enlisted as a private in Company I of the 15th Mississippi Regiment. He fought in the battles of Fishing Creek and Shiloh. Then the churches he had served, at the suggestion of Presbytery, asked for a discharge from the army that he might care for the souls of the people in this area. The request was granted, and Mecklin returned home to the churches which he had left.
In 1862 Rev. Mecklin was ordained and installed as their Pastor. Residing with his parents at Poplar Creek, he pastored the two churches and taught at the Poplar Creek Academy. On October 27, 1869, he married Judith I. Naylor, daughter of Rev. James A. Naylor of Marshall County.
That same year, 1869, the congregation in French Camp changed its name from Olney to French Camp Presbyterian Church, and plans were set in motion to build their own church building. It was finally accomplished in 1874. The church was located just to the right of where the Central Mississippi Institute would later be built. It was an oblong building, painted white, with green shutters, and said to be “very neat and comfortable.”
In 1879, Rev. Mecklin moved to French Camp, MS, and, in partnership with his brother, Rev. James A. Mecklin, D.D., set afoot the movement which culminated in the establishment of the Central Mississippi Institute for girls and French Camp Academy for boys, both founded in 1885.
In the sunset years of Mecklin’s ministry, after Frank McCue had become president of the Academy (1904), French Camp Presbyterian Church began construction in 1910 on their second house of worship. The elders meeting room behind the pulpit was given by Miss Mattie Sanderson, a long-time teacher at the Academy. The Ladies Aid Society raised the money for the seats and the acetylene lights. The new church was completed in 1912 and is still in use to this day.
Despite the Stubblefield family’s giving land in the town of French Camp for a new church building, an alternate site (the Luckett property) was given to the church by Rev. McCue. This property lay just to the south of and adjacent to the A.H. Mecklin residence. Thus, the church was built where it stands today halfway between the town and French Camp Academy on the corner of School Street and Mecklin Avenue.
Rev. Mecklin was deeply loved by the people of French Camp and his work in the church and schools continued unceasingly up to nearly the time of his death. He was always a preacher of superior power. The beloved pastor and educator departed this life at age 79 on October 29, 1913, and was buried in the French Camp Cemetery, Choctaw County, MS. He had faithfully served here for over 50 years.
