In 1830 the foundation was laid for the first church building proper in Jersey Shore. The "Little Brick Church," as it was called, was erected (on Smith Street) at the site where Town Hall now stands. The structure was about 35 feet square with seating capacity of approximately 150 persons. Here the four well-attended classes of the people called Methodists met weekly to tell each other their experiences of the mercy and goodness of God. We are told how "its walls were wont to resound with the shouts, prayers and songs of the redeemed mingled with the tears and pleadings of the penitent". In this building the congregation worshipped until 1846, when they moved to the basement of the present building, whose foundation had been begun in 1845.

The entrance to the second story originally was where the front window now is, being reached by a flight of steps from the outside, a place of danger when ice-coated in the winter and of no special attraction when decorated with the village loafers in the summer. Inside there was a gallery opposite the pulpit. In the basement were two offices fronting on Main Street, one occupied by a lawyer and the other by a tailor. Thus both the Law and the Gospel were combined under one roof. The entrance to the basement was from Thompson Street at the second window from Main Street. There were four classrooms with a center hall. There has been some conjecture as to why there never was a steeple. Some say that Grandfather Rich, noticing the framework of the steeple, said that if it was taken down he would double his subscription. Others affirm that a storm twisted the frame so that it had to be removed and there was not sufficient money to replace and complete the steeple. Most of the timber was given by converts in a meeting held some months previous at English Center, and was floated down Pine Creek and the river. The dedicatory sermon was preached in 1847 by Reverend Samuel Bryson, the Presiding Elder. 

Evidently, the builders expected this building to stand for generations to come, for the brick walls are two (2) feet thick up to the second floor, from that up, one foot thick.