HORACE S. WIGGINTON

HORACE S. WIGGINTON served as the Twenty-Fifth pastor of the Green River Church in the period 1926-1927, but the exact dates when his ministry began and when it closed cannot be given due to the fact that the Record Book for 1924-1937 is missing or destroyed. The dates given are taken from the Association Minutes of Ohio County Association and show that the Church Clerk reported him as the pastor at that time. He was born in Ohio County, Kentucky, on November 26, 1878; being the son of F. J. Wigginton (b. November 27, 1838 - d. July 12, 1912) and Margaret Ann (Arvin) Wigginton (b. April 8, 1849 - d. November 3, 1925), who were married on March 3, 1863. Their remains lie buried in the Mt. Carmel Baptist Church Cemetery, Ohio County, Kentucky, near where they lived and near their home, where their son was born. Brother Wigginton had the privilege of attending Grade and High School and two years of College. For a number of years he was a farmer and followed that occupation. He was converted under the ministry of Dr. J. S. Coleman at Pleasant Ridge, Daviess County, Kentucky, and was baptized into the fellowship of the Mt. Carmel Church, in Ohio County, in December, 1892, in his fourteenth year. 

In the year 1910, at the age of thirty-two, he was licensed to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by the Mt. Carmel Church. Two years later, in 1912, he was ordained to the full Gospel Ministry by the Island Baptist Church through a Presbytery composed of Pastors John A. Bennett, O. M. Shultz, C. T. Brookshire, Norris Lashbrook, B. F. Jenkins and W. W. Williams. For the next twenty-five years he served Baptist Churches in McLean, Daviess, Ohio, Butler and Muhlenberg Counties. He served the Basin Church and the Buttonsbury Mission of the Island Church, in McLean County; Brushy Fork, Curdsville, Sugar Grove, Hopewell, Karn's Grove, all in Daviess County. He also served the Rumsey Church in McLean County. For several years he served the Church at Rochester, in Butler County. In 1926, 1932 and 1936 he preached the Annual Sermon before the Gasper River Association, and also served as a member of the Kentucky Baptist State Board of Missions from that same Association. A new House of Worship was erected at the Hopewell Church while he served there. A new building was also erected for the Buttonsberry Mission while he served there, too. Brethren R. P. Brown, Dave Bunch and Hubert White began their ministry under his preaching. Due to ill health, his ministry was greatly curtailed after 1937. He died on November 17, 1958, in his 79th year, and is buried in Island Baptist Church Cemetery.

Bro. Wigginton was married to Miss Hallie M. Wood, on November 24, 1897. She was the daughter of George and Mary Wood. Their children were: Ethel, Albert, Addie, Frank and Sarah Wigginton. Frank became a Baptist Minister and served in Detroit and Western Kentucky. Mrs. Wigginton died on September 28, 1961, in her 81st year. She, too, is buried at Island. Brother Wigginton witnessed more than one thousand conversions and baptisms during his ministry. He also authored a tract entitled: "Twenty-Five Reasons Why The Believer Can Never Lose His Salvation." The Tract sets forth the great Scripture truth concerning the safety and security of the true Believer in our Lord Jesus Christ and exposes the evils and falsity of the view of apostasy wich [sic] teaches that the true Christian can and will so sin as to forfeit and lose his salvation and be lost again.

A Sesquicentennial History of the Green River Missionary Baptist Church 1836 - 1986, Written and Compiled by Wendell Holmes Rone, Sr., For the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Church, 1987.