Mann's Chapel

South of Rossville, Illinois, lies Mann's Chapel, Vermilion County's most famous pioneer church. The lovely little church resembles a rural English chapel. It was constructed from bricks made from the subsoil on the Abraham Mann farm. These bricks were the very bricks with which he had planned to build his own home. Instead, he donated them for construction of the sanctuary. Other bricks used in the building's construction were hauled from Attica, Indiana, by recently arrived English immigrant James Cornell. A brick with "1855" scratched upon its surface can still be seen facing upside down above the north window on the east wall of the church.

When construction was complete, the first sermon was given by Samuell Elliott, circuit preacher, citing Matthew 16:18: "...upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Regular church services were discontinued in 1926. It was not until 1959 that the women of the Rossville Women's club formed the Mann's Chapel Restoration Committee and the chapel was restored in preparation for Rossville's Centennial.

The oldest burial ground in the Rossville area is adjacent to the chapel.The first person buried in the cemetery was the 11-day-old grandson of Samuel Gilbert. The first Justice of the Peace and first Postmaster of Ross Township, Gilbert donated the land on which the chapel and school were built. After the church was built in 1857, the cemetery became known as Mann's Chapel Cemetery.

My ancestor Dawson Seals is buried in Mann's Chapel Cemetery. Several other members of the Seals and Reynolds families are also buried there.