United Methodist Church M. E. Church South Richmond, MO

Richmond United Methodist Church This church was organized about 1830, at which time it was one of the churches composing the Fishing River circuit of Missouri annual conference. For some years after its organization the church was without a building, and held divine worship in the court house at Richmond. Mrs. J. H. Morehead and Mrs. David H. Quesenberry; the former lady economizing her household expenditures that she might contribute the more liberally to that laudable undertaking. The example of these ladies was followed by others, and soon the proper preliminary steps were taken for the erection, in the town of Richmond, of a suitable edifice to be dedicated to the worship of the Almighty. By the quarterly conference held at Richmond, June 10, 1848, the following trustees were appointed to receive and hold in trust, any property that the church might acquire by donation or otherwise, viz.: Ephraim January, Henry Lile, David H. Quesenberry, Austin A. King, John H. Morehead, David Bullock and Daniel J. Branstetter. The first church edifice of the organization herein mentioned, was erected on the site of its present building about the year 1845. (1881, then located a few feet east of the present site, 2008) It was a frame building, of which we have been unable to obtain an accurate description… The first church house was subsequently supplanted by a more substantial brick structure, which, in 1869, was demolished by a storm. (The Christian Church, then in process of erection, was blown down by the same storm.) (Note: 1973 Ray County History states that it was destroyed by fire in 1889.) The present, 1881, edifice, a handsome and capacious brick, comfortably furnished, was erected shortly after the demolition of the other, at a cost of not less than six thousand dollars…. 1973 History: A third building was erected in 1891 (Photo) on the same site. In 1915 this structure was condemned as unsafe…. A modern stone structure was erected on the west side of the lot. The laying of the cornerstone occurred March 25, 1916. On March 1, 1970 the consecration service was held for the new educational building to the east of the church. In the year 1844 the Methodist Episcopal Church was, by the general conference in session in the city of New York, separated into a northern and a southern division, each to hold its own general conference, and the one to have no connection with the other. This division, as is well known, grew out of the question of slavery. … and in the fall of 1844 the church at Richmond, in quarterly meeting, appointed Amos Rees, Henry Lile, and David H. Quesenberry a committee to prepare a resolution in relation to the proceedings of the (then) late general conference in New York City…. The church united with the southern general conference, and has stood in connection therewith ever since (1881), under the name of the "Richmond M. E. Church South." Information from Ray County History 1881 & 1973

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