Gifts to the Church Now Recalled
Property
The first title to property on which to build a church was granted in 1848. The first church evidently stood in property to which the church did not hold title. Mr. Allen Urquhart “sold” (the $100.00 of the transaction seems to have been given by Mr. Urquhart) to the Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the town of Jefferson the lot on which the present church stands. Construction of the brick church must have started shortly, for many older residents of Jefferson today state that “the Methodist Church was the first church in town.”
Mrs. Mamie Tullis Smith remembers hearing a former slave of her father tell how her father put him to work wheeling brick and mortar and how tired he became. He spoke, however, of what a great honor to him it was to work on the Methodist Church.
The lots on which the parsonage was later built were acquired in 1866. One lot was purchased fer $100.00 from a Mr. and Mrs. Rooks. The second was “purchased” from Mr. F. A. Schluter for $500.00, the money being given by Mr. Schluter himself. It was this honored resident and pioneer Methodist who served as one of the trustees in 1848 when the church lot was acquired and who gave the whole $1500.00 in Mexican silver dollars to go into the bell. Mr. J. C. Murphy, a wholesaler with a great business, likewise served on this Board of Trustees, and it was he who carried the dollars on a steamer to New Orleans for shipment to New York.
The Gas Heating System
There is a bronze plate hanging on the wall of the church with the following inscription:
THE GAS HEATING EQUIPMENT
IN THIS CHURCH
WAS GIVEN
BY
MISS BERTIE TAYLOR
IN MEMORY OF
HER BROTHER
WARD TAYLOR
On the opposite wall rests this inscription:
THE ELECTRIC FANS
IN THIS CHURCH
WERE GIVEN
BY
D. WURTSBAUGH
IN MEMORY OF
HIS WIFE
MRS. LUVENIA CLEMENTINE WURTSBAUGH