"
Orange Township has been for fifty years [from 1907] the field of
religious labor of the Bailiffs--Robert, Thomas and Thomas C., grandfather, father and son.
No better or more conscientious man ever lived in Clark County than dear old Uncle Robert Bailiff.
His son Thomas was also a long and earnest laborer in the field of the Lord,
and Rev. Thomas C. Bailiff, son of Thomas and grandson of Robert, of West York, Illinois,
is [in 1907] faithfully following in the footsteps of his sires and still preaching without money and without price to the people of Melrose, Orange and Johnson Townships.
A better, more conscientious and universally liked man does not live in Clark County today.
The Bailiffs have always been Cumberland Presbyterians.
A church was built many years ago, first of logs, and then a frame structure near the lifelong residence of Robert Bailiff,
in the southeastern part of
Melrose Township, and called the
Bailiff Church.
In these churches Robert Bailiff, his son Thomas and his grandson Thomas C. Bailiff have respectively preached and prayed and sang for more than half a century.
Nearby is the Bailiff Cemetery, where peacefully rests the father and son and where, in the course of time, will sleep the grandson--
thus completing the three generations of preachers. Robert Bailiff came to Clark County in 1831 and after a life spent in doing good sank peacefully to rest in the year 1879."
**
See Also:
Bailiff Family
Items - from various newspapers
