| Last Updated
6-13-2006
Part 1 - Early
Days
The earliest meetings began in 1831 under the
encouragement of the Rev. John Griffing. They first met in homes. Then
it was proposed that a church be built in the same manner so many early
Vestal log cabin homes have been built, by holding a "church
raising party". It is possible that one of the founders - Dan
Foster and wife Abigail - offered a site on their land across the road
from the log school house where this first meeting could also well have
been held.
Whatever the facts, we know that between 1831
and 1834 a new log Methodist Episcopal Chapel (they spelled it Chappell)
was constructed on the west side of Choconut Creek Road in what today is
the Main Street parking lot of the Vestal Medical Arts Building.
The land was originally for one acre of land sold to the Trustees for
$100 by Daniel and Abigail Foster. The old deed describes the land
as an acre eight rods wide and twenty rods deep.
Nothing fancy. Everything practical. A meeting
place of logs with hand hewn slab benches for twenty-five or so. A floor
of planks cut in one of our several local saw mills. And in front, a
lovingly designed simple log pulpit. And outside a churchyard equipped
with posts and fence to which one might tie his horse and buggy.
Next
Taken from Vestal United Methodist Church,
1831-1981, Laurence E. Leamer, May 1981
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