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Church celebrates its 200th year

September marks the high point of festivities for the Darrtown congregation.

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 11:16 PM Saturday, August 28, 2010

DARRTOWN — The exact origins of the Darrtown United Methodist Church — and exactly what happened to the first building and its early members — remain something of a mystery.

But according to local historian and DUMC member Marna Evans, the church got its start in a group of log cabins built along Four Mile Creek in Oxford Twp., a community known as the Beeler Settlement.

“An itinerant Methodist circuit rider, Moses Crume, often came with Bible in hand to spread his message,” Evans said, and in 1810, a log church, called “the Zion Meeting House,” was erected in the settlement with burial grounds nearby.

“No one knows the exact spot today, but it is here that our church was born,” she said.

While records exist that identify the founders of the church and some 40 settlers were buried in the cemetery, the church itself and the graves have been lost to history.

“It is an unsolved mystery to tell if fire or flood waters destroyed what the Methodists had built,” Evans said.

What is known is that the congregation headed to the recently laid out village of Darrtown and had services in the Town Hall and other temporary buildings. And by 1871, the Methodists built the sanctuary of the present church.

The congregation has been celebrating its bicentennial all year, but September will mark the high point of the festivities.

Services will be at 9 a.m. every Sunday, except Sept. 26, when they begin at 10:30 a.m.

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