Randolph County’s religious roots reveal a deeply tolerant and progressive community. Beginning in 1814, members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, first worshiped collectively in the area, while other frontier believers worshiped before the preaching of Methodist circuit-riding ministers. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, an African American congregation, held services near Modoc as early as 1831. Followers of the Church of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, also settled in the county in the early 1830s, and Mormon founder Joseph Smith visited Randolph County in 1834 and baptized believers in the Mississinewa River near Deerfield. From the 1820s to the late 1850s, strong abolitionist beliefs among Randolph County citizens led many residents to provide safe haven to escaped slaves from the South en route to Canada as part of the Underground Railroad, and the path through Randolph County was often called the Quaker Trace. Christian evangelist Billy Sunday preached in Randolph County in 1922. Today, nearly 100 churches of various denominations are found in Randolph County’s towns and countryside, including Baptist, Catholic, Congregational Christian, Disciples of Christ, Society of Friends, Jehovah Witness, Lutheran, Nazarene, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Wesleyan, and many other independent, non-denominational congregations. In recent years, the settlement of Mexican migrants has increased the county’s bilingual and Catholic populations.