History of Methodism in Greene County

METHODISTS: (Source: History of Methodism in Alabama & W. Florida)

The Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Church, which included Alabama, met in Washington, MS in December 1825 and announced a new "Marengo Circuit" in the AL District, which included Marengo County and parts of Dallas and Wilcox Counties. The new circuit minister for 1826 was Rev. John Collier, a native of VA. During his ministry and that of his successors, the circuit was enlarged to include parts of Sumter, Greene, Perry and Clarke Counties. Later in 1826, Collier moved on and was replaced by Rev. J.G. Jones and, mid-year in 1827, was assisted by Rev. T.S. Abernethy in this growing circuit. The most prominent families in the Canebrake Region of the Marengo circuit in that year were the Cades, Easleys, Glovers, Gwinns, Bennetts, and Christians. An early church was the Mt. Zion Church in Old Spring Hill, where the Boyd, Curtis, Grayson, James, McAlister, McCarty, Tagart and Wilson families lived. In 1828, the ministers were Revs. T.S. Abernathy and J. A. Cotton; For 1829- Hugh McPhail & John Bilbo; For 1830- D.D. Brewer & Joseph P. Sneed; For 1831- E.V. LeVert & Ewell Petty; For 1832- Daniel Monaghan & Hazelwood B. Farish.

The Greene Circuit was formed in December 1830 to cover Greene County North into Pickens County. (Note that Sumter and Hale Counties had not yet been formed.) and staffed in 1831 with R.L. Kennon as Presiding Elder and Rev. Ralph G. Christopher as Minister. There were 6 churches in this new circuit: Ebenezer, Salem, Thompson’s, Springfield, Ray’s and Everett’s. Ebenezer Church was the largest and oldest, located 2 miles from Forkland. (The obituary of Mrs. Elizabeth C. Bullock in 1855 said she joined that church in 1823.) The 1839 deed to the church land was made by James Kirkpatrick, father-in-law of John Russell Lambuth, to the Trustees of the Greene Circuit: William Massie, Charles C. Jordan, John McKee, William Daniel, Basil Crawford, Ferdinand Sealy, Isaac Gregory, Samuel O. Gordon and George W. Hill. In 1853, this church moved to Forkland and became the Forkland Church, until 1954, when it was renamed the Lambuth Memorial Church. Springfield Church was 2 miles Northeast of Eutaw and was later absorbed by the Eutaw Church. Salem Church "attached" to the Eutaw Church in 1956 and the other early churches no longer exist. As the Greene Circuit grew, it added the Hargrove’s Chapel in Pickens County and a congregation that met in the home of James Monette in Erie (then in Greene County, but now in Hale County.) In 1820 Edward Clement moved his family to Greenesboro,(then in Greene County, but now in Hale County, where he built a large house he named the "Planter’s Inn." This is where the first Methodist congregation in Greenesboro met for services in 1823. He formed the first Methodist Society, there, and he, his wife, Margaret Montgomery Clement, two of their daughters and two others were Charter Members. Other early members were Thomas and Eliza Johnson, Robert Dickens, Dr. William Jones and John DuBois. The earliest church deed for the Greenesboro Methodist Church was made on 12 March 1836 by John May, Francis Thomas and James Yeates, town commissioners to Trustees: Andrews Walker, William Jones, Thomas M. Johnson and Robert Dickens.