| Background The history of the present day Middletown United Methodist Church is actually the story of two of the valley's oldest congregations. Both the Methodist Episcopal and the United Brethren in Christ congregations worked and conducted joint worship services together for almost two hundred years. The first Methodist preacher came to the city of Frederick in 1770. Members worshiped in private homes until their first church was erected on West Church Street in 1792. The first documented evidence of Methodists in the Middletown Valley is recorded in the journal of Monsieur Ferdinand Bayard, a Frenchman, who was traveling from Baltimore to Winchester. In the summer of 1791 he visited a home in what is now the Middletown Valley during the time Conrad Crone was selling lots for his new town. Monsieur Bayard recorded "The Methodist, who had preceded, informed the people of Middletown that the servants of the Lord communicated with them sacred things with which they might edify the faithful. These traveling preachers had a large audience, and among these they had pleased was our hostess, an aged woman." In 1800 the Rev. Philip William Otterbein and some of his associates organized, near the city of Frederick, the denomination now known as the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. Middletown's own Rev. Jacob Baulus, who had joined the fellowship of Rev. Otterbein in 1795, was present at the founding of this new denomination. In 1801 Rev. Baulus was given the task of erecting a chapel in Middletown to be used by the United Brethren and the Methodist. In 1805 Sgt. Lawrence Everhart, also of Middletown, was licensed to preach as a minister in the United Brethren Pennsylvania Conference. One of the first Methodist preachers in the area was Sgt. Lawrence Everhart who "was visited by a vision of the Holy Ghost while plowing his Middletown tobacco field one day." Sgt. Everhart, who was a hero of the American Revolution and is credited with saving the life of Colonel Washington at the Battle of Cowpens, promptly joined the Methodist Church and became a powerful preacher, famous for stripping down to his shirt sleeves and proudly proclaiming that he was done fighting for his country and was now fighting for King Jesus. Rev. Everhart was ordained by Bishop Asbury in 1808. According to the history of the United Brethren Pennsylvania Conference it was not considered improper in those days to be associated with more than one denomination. It appears that Rev. Everhart continued to serve both "societies" at the same time until his death in August 1840 at the age of ninety-five years. |
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Questions about Middletown United Methodist Church should be sent to the Church Office. |
7108 Fern Circle · Middletown, MD 21769 |