Everheart Memorial Chapel

Canaan ca 1898

Between the towns of Bells and Whitewright, once was a little town called Canaan.  Canaan was about three miles north of Whitewright.  The town was named for the Canaan found in the Bible.  Webster's Dictionary describes Canaan as the ancient region at the south end of the Mediterranean Sea, extending eastward to the Jordan River, the biblical Promised Land (see Genesis 17:8).

Emmanuel and Rachel Montgomery Everheart arrived here in 1848 with their son, William, and other members of the Montgomery family.  By 1850 the Everhearts owned 3346 acres of land including the land where Everheart Cemetery is no.

A Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized at Kentuckytown in 1853.  There was a division in the Congregation in 1862; and those living north of Bois d' Arc Creek moved to Canaan, and the name of the Congregation from Pitman's Chapel (Batsell Cemetery area two miles north of Kentuckytown) moved to Canaan about the same time; and in 1864 Emanuel Everheart deeded the church grove at Canaan to the Church, and a building was erected and shared by the Cumberland Presbyterian and the Methodist Episcopal congregations.  The building was located almost a mile east of the cemetery on land in the Carpenter survey and in the village of Canaan.

The church, shown above, was built in 1898 by Jack Montgomery Everheart; the church, Everheart Memorial Chapel, was built across the road from Emanuel Everheart's home which was near the Everheart Cemetery.  The church was built on what is not Penny Road and is west of Hwy. 69, between Bells and Whitewright.

On April 9, 1919, a cyclone destroyed most of the town of Canaan.  People were killed and much property was destroyed by the cyclone in 1919.

Some published accounts of the cyclone at Canaan stated that the year of the cyclone was 1918.  But Billie Bow of Whitewright, in a written account, has set the record straight.  "My family lived west of Bells.  It was a stormy night, and we spent most of the night in the storm cellar.  The next day, we heard about the terrible storm in Canaan.  I was 4 years old at the time of the cyclone.  Two older sisters and I were playing around the storm house door when were told about the devastation of the night before.  I remember the house we lived in at the time, and I am certain of the year.  My brother, Floyd Reynolds, was born in October 1919.  That is the reason for my certainty."

Submitted by,

Bob M. DeBerry

Methodist Church Historian