The "little white church on the flat" was built by the neighborhood congregation of the Church of God (with headquarters in Andersonville, Indiana). Mr. Charles S. Summers, while in a partnership with a Mr. Hopkins in a sawmill in Daisy, sawed the lumber and delivered it for the church at $10 a thousand. Construction started in 1902 and was completed in 1903. The land for the church and cemetery site was donated by Chat Gardiner who lived on the adjacent farm to the north. Some of the other pioneers who were active in the church during that period were the families of John Clemons, Uriah Eslick, Sam Fulgham, Belia Eddings, Arthur Stringham, Wallace Cooper, Garrett Winings, Josiah Potts and William Maxwell.

Two early pastors of this church were Houston Eddings and Dan Rice. The church was commonly known as the Saints' Church and the area where the church was located became known as Saints' Flat. Around 1912 a number of the families involved in the church were part of a northward migration to Alberta, Canada. The congregation dwindled and services in the church were eventually discontinued.

The church remained vacant for a number of years until Ralph and Myrtle Stewart began holding a community Sunday school in 1940. During the next 11 years, four pastors under the auspices of the Pilgrim Holiness Church held services in the church: Rev. C.E. Dietz, Rev. Carl Bennett, John Kennedy, and Rev. Davidson.

The date of the first burial in the cemetery is not known. The markers have been destroyed on a few known graves and existing records do not show names or dates of the burials. Several graves were moved to the Fairview Cemetery from an earlier small neighborhood cemetery on the extreme south end of the flat.

During the period when the church was vacant, the Fairview Cemetery Association was started. The first meeting minutes on record are from 1918. The association was incorporated 28 May 1924 for the purpose of maintaining the cemetery grounds. The first elected trustees of this newly-formed association were Frank Bradeen, S. V. Richey, William Pierce, F. L. Green and Ralph Stewart.

Meetings of the Fairview Cemetery Association are held each year at the church on the Saturday preceding the Memorial Day holiday for the purpose of working on the grounds, electing officers and taking care of any business matters. Any interested persons are invited to attend these meetings for work and fellowship. Membership in the association may be obtained with the payment of $1.00 to the association secretary.

Further information may be obtained regarding the church or cemetery by contacting:

[email protected]
The Floyd family
3210 Daisy Mine Road
Rice, WA 99167 (first house south of the cemetery)
509.738.6307