Robert Van Hook
Robert Wooley Van Hook (born November 7, 1856 in Pulaski County, Kentucky; died August 21, 1893 in Birmingham) was the first minister of First Christian Church.
In 1882, after graduating from College of the Bible, a Christian Church-affiliated seminary in Lexington, Kentucky, Van Hook came south to Greene County, Alabama to preach for the Mt Hebron Christian Church. He was a supporter of the cooperative efforts then gaining momentum among the Christian Churches in the Black Belt. He served as State Evangelist for the Christian Churches for the year 1885. During that term he helped to establish churches in Cottondale, Anniston, and Birmingham.
In April 1885, Van Hook held a protracted meeting in Birmingham. This meeting resulted in the reorganization of First Christian Church with approximately twenty members. By the summer of 1886 he was able to locate in Birmingham permanently and in December of that same year he married Mary Starnes Jolly, daughter of Colonel J. J. Jolly. By 1887, the membership of the church had grown to one hundred. In 1888, the church built a "little wooden tabernacle" and moved out of the courthouse.
In the fall of 1889, Van Hook resigned to accept a call to the pastorate of the Christian Church in Danville, Virginia. He served there until November 1892, when he was called to the pulpit of Third Christian Church in Richmond, Virginia. He had been there only a few months when he came down with tuberculosis. He returned to Birmingham in the April of 1893 thinking that the change of climate might help him. It did not and he died the next August. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Birmingham.
References
- Bishop, R. M. (October 24, 1889) "Alabama." Missionary Weekly. P. 6
- Harsh, G. R. (September 7, 1893) "Van Hook." Christian-Evangelist. Vol. 30, No. 36, p. 575
- Moore, A. R. (1888) "Dedication of the Birmingham Church." Christian-Evangelist Vol. 25, p. 396
- Watson, George & Mildred (1965) History of the Christian Churches in the Alabama Area. St Louis, Missouri: Bethany Press