Serving the Glade Community Since 1880
When Methodists in Polksville District organized in 1880, they elected trustees. On March 4, 1880 an acre of ground was deeded to the trustees of Polksville Church and their successors (for the sum of one dollar) by Frederick M. Gowder for his concern "for the cause of Christ and from an earnest desire to promote his heritage on earth." It was around this time a two-story sanctuary was built.
This Sanctuary burned, leaving the Polksville congregation without a home. They joined with the Holly Springs Baptist Church, whose sanctuary had also burned, to build a meeting house called Sunshine. In this season, Rev. Charles Ross Clemons, a Methodist Local Pastor, solicited donations from the community and directed volunteers to construct the new building, debt-free. Then on December 17, 1903 Albert Goud Jennings, Cecilia D. Jennings, and Marie W. Jennings deeded three acres to Clemons Chapel for its new location.
It was at this time members of Sunshine (Methodist) left and reformed the Polksville Church as the Clemons Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The remainder of the Methodist Congregation at Sunshine merged with Williams Chapel to form Trinity, which is still in existence today as Trinity United Methodist Church, Clermont.
Clemons Chapel has known the rise and fall of attendance as children grew to adulthood and moved away. Few full time farmers remain as former cotton fields are now dairy or wooded areas. With each generation the worship services, revivals, fellowship occasions, Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School of Clemons Chapel have revived its outreach to the families of the Glade community.
This Sanctuary burned, leaving the Polksville congregation without a home. They joined with the Holly Springs Baptist Church, whose sanctuary had also burned, to build a meeting house called Sunshine. In this season, Rev. Charles Ross Clemons, a Methodist Local Pastor, solicited donations from the community and directed volunteers to construct the new building, debt-free. Then on December 17, 1903 Albert Goud Jennings, Cecilia D. Jennings, and Marie W. Jennings deeded three acres to Clemons Chapel for its new location.
It was at this time members of Sunshine (Methodist) left and reformed the Polksville Church as the Clemons Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The remainder of the Methodist Congregation at Sunshine merged with Williams Chapel to form Trinity, which is still in existence today as Trinity United Methodist Church, Clermont.
Clemons Chapel has known the rise and fall of attendance as children grew to adulthood and moved away. Few full time farmers remain as former cotton fields are now dairy or wooded areas. With each generation the worship services, revivals, fellowship occasions, Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School of Clemons Chapel have revived its outreach to the families of the Glade community.
Our Namesake
A Life Redeemed by Christ
Rev. Charles Ross Clemons was born in 1827 in India, the son of a Major in the British Army. He died 74 years later in Hall County in 1901, after serving in the area for many years. How did Rev. Clemons go from India to rural North Georgia? An obituary written in 1901 provides a fascinating story...
"The other day a man in an obscure little Georgia settlement passed quietly to his reward among the people for whom he had prayed and labored for twenty, still, fruitful years, a man who almost, if not quite, changed the destiny of a great nation. His name was Charles Ross Clemons, and he was of very fine English birth which gave him the right to a title which he never assumed. Fifty-three years ago, when young Clemons was winning high honors at Oxford, his father, Major Charles Clemons, was ordered by his commanding chief to plant the flag of his country on the fortress of Kimedine, Rangoon, which was then savagely hostile to English invasion. The major knew the mandate to mean certain death to him, but he met his fate bravely and uncomplainingly wrote a letter of affectionate farewell to his wife and sons and went to meet his doom as a soldier should, without hesitation or fear. His mission was successful. Kimedine surrendered Lo the English almost immediately and the major got his death wound while placing the victorious flag on the fortress tower.
The service was gratefully remembered by Major Clemon's compatriots who set themselves to secure a good commission for the son Charles who was still distinguishing himself at Oxford. He sailed for India at once and upon arriving there immediately took up the study of the Hindustani and Urdu languages which he mastered with amazing ease. He soon displayed remarkable diplomatic clever. ness in his dealings with the natives and after a year of service he was appointed interpreter at the most important station in the Punjab which was then in open revolt against English authority.
So valuable did young Clemons make himself to the English government that he was advanced by rapid strides to the exalted position of governor to the Punjab—an exceedingly arduous honor, since he had to cope with the warlike Singh’s who then occupied ruler dominions with the grim intention of holding them at any cost and in their own way. All 'India was practically in revolt. The natives were dissatisfied with the land tenures; their laws of succession had been overruled. notable cases by the strange new government, and many grave mistakes of judgment had stirred up a wide-spread rebellion which broke out in open mutiny, as all the world knows. Governor Clemons was a rock of defense during that terrible period of devastation, when the situation in the Punjab was so darkly threatening that the terrified populace fled hourly. It devolved upon him to avoid a murderous outbreak of the Singhs as well as to aid in his country's defense of outlying posts. He could not, with all his cleverness and vigilance, effect a bloodless adjustment between the warring powers but he did all in his power to protect his subjects both English and native. The Sepoy Horror. After the horror of Cawnpore came vengeance. It was Governor Clemons who sent hundreds of the old Sepoy warriors to their dreadful doom at the cannon's mouth, wrought to a white hot frenzy by the outrages suffered by innocent women and children through the native allies of that arch-fiend Nana Sahib...Governor Clemons spoke of it long afterward as an ordeal too awful to be described.
Immediately after peace had been restored Governor Clemons withdrew from the governorship to a less conspicuous but equally arduous post and in the meantime he married the daughter of a gallant old soldier who rode to the relief of Lucknow. A year later the young wife fell ill with a seasonal fever from which she seemed unable to rally; the husband obtained leave of absence and set sail for England with the invalid, hoping that the sea voyage would affect a cure. They left their four-weeks-old son in the care of a faithful native woman who had been Mrs. Clemons's maid for years. The sea voyage failed of its purpose. Mrs. Clemons died within two days of the English coast and was buried at sea in accordance with her own wish. The bereaved husband, having communicated with a brother in Australia whom he had not seen for years, felt it his duty to wait in England for the brother's promised visit, so he stayed quietly near his old home until the appointed day when he went to a seaside hotel where they had agreed to meet. He was two hours ahead of time so he waited on the veranda where he could watch all arrivals and in the meantime he noticed an unusual stir among the guests and attendants who hurried about with grave faces. When Mr. Clemons finally inquired what the matter was he was told that a gentleman from Australia who had arrived at the hotel that morning had been seized with a cramp while surf bathing and drowned within an hour of his arrival. The unfortunate man was to have met a brother from India whose arrival they expected hourly. Doubly bereaved by that unexpected blow close upon the crushing event of his wife's death, Mr. Clemons took passage for India with the first out-going steamer and went at once to the little peaceful village where he had left his son. Not a trace of it remained except a pall of ashes for the dreaded cholera had broken out during his absence and the frightened villagers fled, no one knew where, while the English authorities burned the village to prevent a spread of the pest. No word of the little son could be obtained for the nurse had been totally submerged in. the horde of nameless refugees that flocked to the four winds seeking sustenance and safety. A long, tedious search for the white baby ended where it began—in absolute mystery... The grief-stricken father never knew whether his son had died of the cholera or been brought up by friendly natives.
It would seem after such heart-breaking bereavements that life had little further to offer the brilliant young diplomat, but his country needed his services sorely during the readjustment period when the dissolution of The East India Company had wrought many changes that affected the general prosperity of the country, so he resumed his zealous, patient work in spite of his failing health and would probably have ended his days in Indian services had not the tragic death of his younger brother—his only remaining relative—broken his valiant spirit to such a degree that he felt himself unequal to further activities. The young brother, who had lately been appointed to Indian service, was devoured by a shark while bathing in the Godavari River.
Mr. Clemons went back to England to the lasting regret of all who knew him; but he did not stay in his native land which reminded him; too painfully of his bereavements. Early in the eighties he went to America where he met a gentleman of large means who was then interested in the gold districts of Northeast Georgia and who offered Mr. Clemons a pleasant position as overseer or secretary of his valuable properties in Hall County, which the ex-governor accepted as a refuge from active life. It was soon after that that his brilliant mind turned to the subject of immortality. He interested himself in local meetings which were of a fervid but primitive order and presently fell into the knack of exhortation.
His discourses interested his listeners exceedingly because he was able to illustrate them strikingly with graphic stories about heathen India, and finally his increasing zeal for Christ's kingdom on earth led him to procure a preacher's license and from that hour he preached regularly, from half a dozen local pulpits. Mr. Clemons retained his inbred courtesy and soldierly bearing which made him a noticeable figure...Year by year the ex-governor labored in that humble vineyard, spending his salary in relief of poverty, visiting the people, living with them and at last dying with them in the guise of meek humility which never revealed any glimpse of his brilliant past. In a little hillside graveyard in Hall County, Georgia, is a simple marble slab which bears the name of a valiant hero...Charles Ross Clemons."