Savannah Methodist Church Cemetery

By Dwight Copper

Shenango Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania

The Savannah Church was organized in 1820 as a Methodist Episcopal Church. Among the founders of the congregation were Robert and Martha McCandless, Mr. and Mrs. Laban Joseph, Mr. and Mrs. John McMurray, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Lutton, Mr. and Mrs. J.P. Lutton, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Butler, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson McKee, Mr. and Mrs. Balzaleel Pitzer, Mr, and Mrs. Michael Pitzer, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Barge, Mr. and Mrs. John C. Reed, Miss Mary Iddings, Miss Lavinah Iddings, and a few others. Most of these we,re early settlers of the area which is now Shenango Township, Lawrence County. The Congregation worshipped for a time in the old Austin School House. Later they moved to the old Savannah School House near the site of the Cemetery. Their first permanent building was erected in 1851 on land donated by Robert and Martha McCandless.

According to the Church history, about 1890 a small Methodist Congregation that had been worshipping in the Lutton School House in the Snake Run district of Shenango Township (I believe the Congregation was called Mt. Pleasant), united with the Savannah Methodist Church. Thus an enlargement was necessary and another structure was erected in 1911 at a cost of $6,000. The building committee consisted of: William Mayberry, Louis Hasely, W.E. Geiger, John Wright, Harry Wright, Sylvester Sage, L.M. Reed,, E.P. Weinschenk and W.H. Weinschenk.

This building has since been razed and another structure erected a short distance from the present cemetery.

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