When this congregation split in 1809, the smaller group took with them the name "Mill Creek Baptist" and the church records to that date. In their care, the "Book of records for the church of Christ on the head of the Big Barren at Mill Creek" became a treasured piece of Monroe County history. The book, written with pokeberry ink on lambskin more than 200 years ago, remains in remarkable condition despite tattered, water-soiled pages, difficult handwriting, and challenging spelling. Its most severely deteriorated pages are those containing the "Church Covenant," but those contents are known because the church adopted the covenant of Big Pigeon Church in Cocke County, Tennessee. Although the membership list has also been damaged and the clerk was not meticulous, the book still provides historians and genealogists with extensive information about membership, association meetings, church discipline, and other church business. Its cover reads "made July the 11th 1799 Phillip Mulkey," though the first entry is dated September 11, 1798. The volume records the church's business rather than its services, usually in monthly meetings, and includes gaps and errors such as unnamed members and entries reading "All Lost" or "Minutes Lost." Even so, it gives a detailed account of church business through December 1806, after which the next surviving record is dated August 1809 in a new taller ledger, just in time to record the proceedings that led to the congregation's split.