A footnote to Chariton's Methodist history

I'm a big fan of footnotes, so was happy a few weeks ago to add this one to my collection --- in the form of a brief "obituary" for Chariton's first church building, published in The Democrat of Nov. 3, 1887, under the headline, "An Old Landmark Gone."

Barnard Bros. commenced on Monday to tear down the old Woolen Mills, near the Foundry, preparatory to building a fine brick barn on the lot. The old mill was built as the first Methodist Church of this city. Rev. E.L. Briggs, of Knoxville, being the pastor in 1852. It was used to hold court in when Judge Townsend, of Albia, was on the bench. Much of interest in the early history of Chariton centers around the old building. Twenty years ago, it was the maid public school building of the town, and later on was used as a machine shop and woolen mill, and now having served its usefulness, will give place to a fine brick structure to be used in the extensive horse business of Barnard Brothers.

Here's another reference to the building, included by Dan Baker six years earlier in his local history section of Lucas County's 1881 history book:

The Methodist Episcopal Church, the first in Chariton, was organized by Reverend E.L. Briggs about the year 1851. It was partly under the direction of the Home Missionary Society of that church.

There were but three or four members to begin with, and the meetings were held, as all public meetings at that time were, in the new log courthouse on the east side of the public square. The society prospered from the start, so that in 1854 they felt themselves able to erect a house of worship. The building erected was a substantial frame, twenty-four by thirty-six feet, on the west side of block 3 and cost about a thousand dollars. The building was afterward used by the school district for a school house and, in 1869, it was converted by Henry Whiting into a machine shop. Shortly afterward it had a second story put on it, and was made into a woolen mill. It still stands on its original site and is used for a warehouse.

The image here is a portion of the 1893 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Chariton. The old church building reportedly stood on the current site of Johnson Machine Works headquarters, as noted. The Methodists constructed their second building, a substantial brick structure, a block slightly southeast of the first at the intersection of North Main Street and Roland Avenue, where the current 1903 building stands today.

There was nothing remarkable, apparently, about that early church building --- other than the fact it was the first. But I was struck by how thoroughly it had been used, recycled and used again, during it's fairly brief 30-year history. And I'm guessing that when it was torn down, the lumber was salvaged and used elsewhere.

Today, the whole thing would be bulldozed and hauled away to a landfill.

There's no sign, by the way, that the Barnard Brothers ever built the planned "fine brick structure." During 1893, at least, the prime building spot on the lot appears to be vacant and other structures on it are shaded yellow, indicating that they were of frame rather than brick construction.