Churchtown United Methodist Church
Churchtown, Lancaster County, PA
Built in 1879
Churchtown United Methodist Church 2170 Main Street, Churchtown, PA 17555
History in Churches and Cemeteries
of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania:
Churchtown United Methodist Church
(Formerly a Methodist Episcopal Church)
ca. 1830 - Organized among workers at Windsor Forge. Church supported by the Evans and Jenkins families. First site at forge abandoned in favor of present location.
1838 - First stone church built on opposite side of road, in what is now the cemetery.
1879 - Present church built.
1880 - Chartered by the Lancaster County courts as Caernarvon Methodist Episcopal Church.
Source: Churches and Cemeteries of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, A. Hunter Rineer, 1993, page 52. LancasterHistory
Above: It’s one of the earliest Lancaster County churches designed in a Second Gothic style. It is constructed of local sandstone, and has a bell-cast spire.
Above: Pointed-arch Gothic windows, and sandstone laid in random-rubble courses.
Description in Our Present Past (1985)
By the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County:
“Churchtown Methodist Episcopal Church, Route 23, 1879, two story, three bay brownstone Second Gothic church, entry in added bell tower; cemetery across Route 23; 1880 datestone; Gothic stained glass windows; one of the earliest Second Gothic churches in Lancaster County. ” page 50, Our Present Past, Historic Preservation Trust, 1985.
Above: The sandstone is laid in random-rubble courses, finely crafted with beveled-ridge mortar joints.
Triassic Sandstone of Northern Lancaster County:
Above map detail: Geologic Map of Pennsylvania, by Berg, Edmonds, Geyer, etc., 1980. (Church icon added)
“The Triassic beds include brown, red, pink, gray, and greenish sandstone, and conglomerate with white quartz pebbles up to one inch in diameter. In some places these must occur close together for in Churchtown the Caernarvon Academy (1854) contains all of these. Perhaps the material was float or field stone and was not quarried. [This academy was demolished.]
The modern Methodist Episcopal Church in Churchtown [today’s United Methodist Church near this Bangor Episcopal Church] is all one tone brownstone in squared blocks… Perhaps this stone came from the red beds just north of the village.”
Quote: Building Stones of Pennsylvania, Ralph W. Stone, 1932, page 186.