The History of County Line UMC
In the 1840’s a Methodist Circuit Rider preacher traveling from South Carolina headed west would stop at any community or any home that would feed and let him sleep and put his horses up with feed and water and this preacher would hold services for a day or a week or as long as the people wanted him. These church meetings were held in homes, in vacant buildings, under a brush arbor or any place where the people would gather. Under these conditions, was when County Line was first organized in 1849.
In the early 1890’s William J. Elder who lived on Hammond Road just northeast of our Church sold some land to the Church and the “new” church was completed in 1894. The old building was sold to J. H. Elder for forty five dollars. Mr. Elder preached the first sermon on Saturday, March 3, 1894 on the 1st Psalm and sang “Come Thou Fount”. The regular preacher, Rev. Wright, was sick.
Construction of our facility in the 1890’s was during a time before there were modern equipment, and only the best supplies were used. Original construction can still be seen in the attic, where the walls, floor and ceiling were put together with tongue and groove joints.
The first major addition to the one room building was in 1955 when the sanctuary was turned around from facing the road to facing north just as it does today. The new Church is part of our present church but the two windows that face the road were the two front doors. The back door is now gone but the steps are still in place. The Church had about a fourteen foot ceiling and the pulpit was about where the organ now sits with the potbellied stove about where our present pulpit now stands. The Church had pews on either side with longer pews down the middle. Some of the old slatted pews are still in use in some of the Sunday School rooms. The Aladdin lamps hung down the middle of the Church, but a lamp could not be hung over the pulpit because the bugs would get in the preacher’s way during a hot summer night with all the windows raised. By turning the sanctuary around, we created four Sunday School rooms, a choir loft and storage rooms behind the choir which was later used as a Sunday School room by the men’s class. Electric lights were added in about 1938 and the bill was one dollar a month.
In 1972 a brick addition was added to the South side of the Church which gave us Sunday School rooms upstairs, a kitchen a dining room and the greatest part of all, a well across the road and two bathrooms. At this time we did away with the path.
In 1984 the fellowship hall with a big modern kitchen was built under the direction of the late Mont Steele. Of all the expansions we have had I expect this was the best thing we ever did. It gave us a facility for use of special events, yard sales and was a place for all of our many good covered dish dinners.
1998 our latest addition was built under the direction of Billy Wesley. Ralph Griffin says “Regardless of what some of you might think, I was not present when the circuit riders came through and I was not present when the Rev. John Elder preached the first sermon in our new Church in 1895, but I have been present at all the additions that began in 1955 when we turned the sanctuary around and I can assure you that this has been the greatest part of my life in being associated with people who love the Lord, who love each other, who put their money where their mouth is and by using County Line United Methodist Church to make this a better world for our children who will follow us and someday in the not too far future will make another addition to County Line”.
Click HERE for a listing of burials in the Cemetery Update July 2017.
Pastors of County Line United Methodist Church
1867-1868 Habersham J. Adams
1870 Arminius Wright
1871 John W. Heidt
1872 William H. Graham, elder 1873 William W. Lumpkin
1874-1875 Cierco A. Mitchell
1878-1880 T. R. Kendall
1881 G. W. Hardaway
1882 S. P. Richardson
1883 A. C. Thomas
1884-1886 W. F. Cook
1887-1889 H. S. Bradley
1890-1891 B. M. Sasnett
1892-1893 H. M. Quillian
1894-1895 John Elder
1939 Timothy W. Holbrook 1940 Julian Franklin Thompson
1941-1944 F. D. Smith
1945-1946 W. W. Bylington
1947-1950 J. R. Thompson
1951-1952 C. E. “Buck” Spier, Jr.
1953-1955 Roy A. Fiske
1956-1957 Gerald T. McCray
1958-1959 E. R. Casebier
1960-1961 Darold N. Storm
1962-1963 Joseph Wagner
1964-1965 John O. Brown
1966-1967 Donald L. Calhoun, Jr.
1968-1970 Ronald Gaines
1971-1975 Syd Whiteman
1976-1977 Guy Kent
1978-1981 Maurice “Bud” Moore
1982-1985 Leo Rappe’
1985-2002 Eugene Walton
2003-2008 Edward Bradford
2008-2012 Joe Peabody, Jr.
2012-2020 Edward Swehla
2020-2023 Katie Mattox