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cddmuhg HANCOCK COUNTY
Religion has a rich and diverse history in county
page
BY METRIC DOCK1NS
THE SUN HERALD
From the days of the French explorers who first discovered the Coast and brought with them their Catholicism influ-:nce, religion has played a major role in the lives of its kthabitants.
Notable churches in Hancock County have included the blowing:
•	Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church, 228 S. Beach Mvd., Bay St. Louis — Founded Aug. 8, 1847, and complet-ji and blessed on Aug. 19, 1849, the Gothic-styled structure
irned Nov. 16, 1907, but was back in service the following iar. It was one of the few major beachfront buik^ings left datively undamaged by Hurricane Camille in August 1969.
•	First Baptist Church of Bay St. Louis, 141 Main St. —
- roots date to 1846 though it was not officially organized htil 1896 and was situated at Easterbrook and Toulme freets. A surplus chapel at Camp Van Dorn in Centerville
■s bought from the Army for $1,250 and was reassembled n the Main Street site in 1947. The reconstruction and dckwork took six months. The youth center was added in ‘59 and the education building in 1969. A fire severely imaged the sanctuary in 1977, but it was quickly repaired.
•	Main Street United Methodist Church, comer of Main £1 Second streets, Bay St. Louis — Services on the site can I traced back to 1852 although a structure was not built icre until 1895. Mayor John B. Toulme donated the first nurch grounds, and his son and later Mayor John V. Toulme mated the adjoining land for a parsonage in 1892. The lucation/daycare center was built in 1973; the multipur-
1-e/special services building in 1993; and new offices and novations in 1998.
•	St. Rose De Lima Catholic Church, 301 Necaise Ave., Bay St. Louis — The church was built in 1926 as an outgrowth of the school of the same name begun in 1868 for black children. Since the summer of 1991, a mural of a black Christ has adorned the wall behind the altar. The pulpit and various altar tables are fashioned mostly from pieces of driftwood from the Bay of St. Louis and the Mississippi Sound.
•	Valena C. Jones United Methodist Church,
246 Sycamore St., Bay St. Louis — Its roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church on the Coast can be traced to 1880 with the founding of St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church on Washington Street. Two years later, it relocated to a new building on Good Children Street, which later became Sycamore Street. In 1926, the current building was erected on a site purchased and dedicated to the memory Valena C. Jones, who had died in 1917. She was a native of Bay St. Louis and had been the wife of Bishop Robert E. Jones of the New Orleans area.
•	St. Augustine Seminary, 199 Seminary Drive, Bay St. Louis — The Divine Word Seminary, St. Augustine, was founded in 1920 to train and ordain African-American men to be priests.
•	Gulfside United Methodist Assembly, 950 S.
Beach Blvd., Waveland — Gulfside was originally called the Gulfside Chautauqua and Camp Meeting Ground, having been founded as a mission in 1923 by Methodist Episcopal Bishop Robert E. Jones to train blacks as Christian missionaries.
•	St. Clare Catholic Church, 236 S. Beach
Blvd., Waveland — The roots of St. Clare date back to 1881 when a small wooden church was erected on the beach road; however, the church was served from Our Lady of the Gulf parish in Bay St. Louis. The St. Clare parish was not established until 1919.
St. Augustine Seminary was founded in 1920 to train and ordain African-American men to be priests.