Itinerant minister James Meacham wrote in his diary that he had preached in the “Charles City New chapel” on September 10, 1791, documenting Chapel’s place as the first Methodist meeting house in the county. The founding trustees included Rev. John Bowry, William Parrish, James Parrish, James Bullifant, Isaac Hill and James Hill. The structure pictured here was built in 1855 to replace an earlier one lost to fire. The two front doors were for the separate entry and seating of men and women. The side door was for the entry of persons of color who sat in the balcony, or "servants’ gallery."
Oral tradition in the church has long held that Micah was the first Methodist meeting house established in the county. The tradition is only partially correct. The first Methodists in the county appear to have met in the home of Rev. Benjamin Dancy, a local pastor who lived in the Micah neighborhood, and thus Micah’s congregation was the first in the county, but not the first to own a church. The congregation later acquired a meeting house known by the name El Bethel. In the mid nineteenth century El Bethel’s congregation chose to leave the Methodist Episcopal Church and join the Methodist Protestant denomination. Micah was established as a Methodist Protestant Church in 1850. This structure, erected in 1897, was the only one of the old churches that did not have two front entry doors.
Mt. Pleasant Church was consecrated and opened for services in July of 1877, making it the youngest of the surviving churches consolidated to form Memorial. A group from Trinity Church in Richmond attended and sang for the consecration service.
Salem
Salem was established in 1810, making it the second oldest Methodist church in the county. The founding trustees were William Willis, George Keezee, George Raglan, James Woodfin and Rev. Edward Folkes . During the early years Salem was served by Rev. Folkes, a local pastor who emancipated his slaves by his will. The building pictured was erected in 1846 and stood until the old churches were dismantled in the 1950’s.
Memorial United Methodist Church is the only church in the Virginia Conference that serves an entire county. It was created in 1948 out of the union of four struggling country churches as a living memorial to those churches and their congregations which had been worshipping "in the Methodist way" since the Revolutionary War. The congregations of Chapel, Micah, Mt. Pleasant and Salem decided to close their churches and build a new facility in the center of the county so that their "grandchildren might have a church." Rev. Alexander Berry, Jr. led this revolutionary merger of churches, and his visionary approach was taught to divinity school students as an example of how such a consolidation might be accomplished.