History

The United Presbyterians and Baptists had already organized, and the Presbyterians formed another church a year later. In 1839, Frenchtown became incorporated as Reynoldsburg, named after businessman James C. Reynolds, who operated a dry goods and grocery store in a log cabin for the benefit of the road construction crews.

That same year, 1839, the Reynoldsburg Methodist Episcopal Church became part of a circuit with Rev. James Gilruth and Rev. Uriah Heath as pastors. The circuit included Pickerington, Canal Winchester, and Lithopolis. It was called the Pickerington charge until 1866, when it became known as the Reynoldsburg circuit.

The years 1869-71 were significant in the development of the church. A four week revival meeting was begun on Christmas Day, 1869. It produced about 40 applications for membership, “of which a goodly amount continued faithful,” according to church records.

The revival meeting also gave impetus to a new church building. A subscription was started, a lot secured, and other steps taken under the leadership of Rev. Charles W. Bethhauser. The site on East Main Street was purchased from Vincent Hutson in 1870 and the one room brick church was completed the following year. It still stands, as the Olde Reynoldsburg Office Building.

In 1871, the quarterly conference decided to split the circuit in half. Reynoldsburg, Pickerington, and Taylor Station were in the northern half, and Canal Winchester, Lithopolis, Asbury, and Powells were placed in the southern half.

Records indicate that the Rev. William H. Mitchell, pastor from 1889-92, led the church through “one of the greatest revivals ever witnessed in the community.” Ministers usually served only two or three years before they were assigned to another charge. The church had 21 different head ministers between 1839 and 1869, and 38 more during the next 80 years. In the past 53 years, however, there have been only seven senior ministers – an average of almost eight years for each.

Shortly after the turn of the century, the Interurban railway from Columbus to Newark and Zanesville came through Reynoldsburg. “Now a person can get a car every hour, east or west,” wrote the Chamber of Commerce in 1909. A further distraction was developed with the invention of the motorcar which, in the memory of some oldtimers, “sort of wrecked the evening vesper services.” People liked to drive around, or else they took the interurban railway to Buckeye Lake in the summertime and didn’t get back in time for evening services. Those were dropped, but the growth of the church was later to require two and even three Sunday morning services.

Mrs. Nelson Hickman recalled arriving in 1915. Her father, Rev. H. S. Bailey, served as pastor for three years, and her husband’s grandmother, Mary A. Hickman, widely known in the community as “Grandma Hickman,” had already been a member since the early 1870’s and was to continue for another 20 years.

Church services attracted between 100 and 150 people on a Sunday, and another 50 to 85 attended a half-dozen Sunday School classes, recalled Mrs. Hickman. The Women’s Foreign Missionary Service raised money. So did the Ladies’ Aid Society, which put on one or two dinners a year and made quilts for a penny a yard!

The church, built in 1871, had already been condemned when Mrs. Hickman and her family arrived, but a change in the village administration reversed that decision and the building was declared “perfectly sound.” Dispite periodic warnings from fire inspectors, it remained in use, was expanded, and still stands today.

The original parsonage at Lancaster Avenue and Broadwyn Drive was built in the 1830s and lasted until the mid-1950’s, although it left much to be desired.

“One thing we will not forget about it,” said Dr. David H. Markle, pastor in 1929, “was its lock on one door – it had a key large enough to lock up the Ohio Penitentiary.” It also had a furnace that often went out at night, running water, and newly installed electric lights, but no bathroom, “so it was necessary to travel a little path to a small building in the rear bedecked with hibiscus and morning glories.” The kitchen floor, reported Dr. Markle, “had a nice slope to it, so the water ran all to one side of the room, making it very convenient to mop.”

Church picnics, traveling evangelists, Ladies’ Aid, classes for young married couples, the Epworth League (forerunner of the MYF and described by one church elder as a “dating society”) – those were all part of the Methodist Church of the 1920’s.

“The Ladies’ Aid served meals at farm sales;” remembered Dr. Markle. “Usually the meal consisted of soup and homemade doughnuts. One sale I recall, the crowd was exceptionally large, and the soup gradually began to get thinner and thinner as more and more water was added to the kettle. By the time the sale was over, the people were buying soup that was mostly flavored water.”

Spirit ran high in those years, recalled Markle. The church was celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, and asked for use of the Old Memorial Hall in Columbus. “They were told there were not enough people in the state of Ohio interested in foreign missions to fill the hall or even one of the churches,” said Dr. Markle. “They had to swallow their words when, on the opening night, the hall was filled and it was necessary to open Old Central Church to care for the overflow.” During the week-long celebration, a 3 1/2 hour communion service was held, and people began to gather in the rain at 4:00 A.M. to get into the church for the 7:00 A.M. service! Such was the ardor of Methodists of the 1920’s.