Mechanicsburg United Methodist Church

Mechanicsburg United Methodist Church is a historic Methodist congregation in the village of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, United States. Founded in the early nineteenth century, it is the oldest church in the village, and as such it has played a part in the histories of other Mechanicsburg churches. Its fifth and present church, a Gothic Revival-style structure erected in the 1890s, has been named a historic site.Organic historyThe first settlers in Goshen Township arrived circa 1805, and Mechanicsburg was platted on 6 August 1814. Organized religion was rare in the earliest years; the first churches were established by circuit-riding preachers from the Methodist Episcopal Church, who founded small religious classes that met in settlers' log cabins. The Methodists formed Mechanicsburg's first church in 1814, and its members soon constructed a small log church building. In its early years, the church's membership benefited from successful camp meetings, each of which saw over a hundred people profess Christianity for the first time. The original church building was abandoned in 1819 when a much larger frame church was constructed a short distance to the east, and this building in turn was replaced in 1839 by a brick church building on the same site. This structure was abandoned after yet another one was erected in the village of Mechanicsburg in 1858.