A circuit rider inspired local
residents to organize a Methodist congregation in 1846. The charter
members were Willis McElroy, Lewis Phillips, William Terell, Silas Phifer,
Cephus Adams, and their wives. The first pastor, Rev. Daniel S. Watkins,
was appointed at the inaugural meeting of the Louisiana Annual Conference
in 1847. In the same year that the city was incorporated, the DeSoto
Parish police jury donated a lot to the Methodists. A frame church
was soon built on the land. By the next year, membership included
98 whites and 49 blacks. The church was ceiled and repaired so that
the Annual Conference could be held in Mansfield in 1853. That was
the first of several Annual Conferences to be held in Mansfield..
In 1869, a new church was built.
The new church, at 36x64, was twenty feet longer than the original church.
The frame building with a steeple was located about 200 feet south of Polk
Street near an oak tree on Monroe Street.
In 1907, several church leaders
felt that a new church was needed. Property on the corner of Polk
and Monroe Streets was purchased. The $15,000 structure was built
in 1908. The pipe organ was the largest of its kind in the state.
The road in front of the church was made by 300 convicts who dug and hauled
away the dirt. The old church was sold and moved to Louisiana Street.
An education annex was added
in 1915. The South Mansfield Church merged with Mansfield in 1930.
That year, the Mansfield Female College closed down.
Judge Lees home next to the
church was purchased in September 1947. It was used as the parsonage,
while the old parsonage (the Curran home) was converted into an education
building.
In 1953, the Naborton congregation
merged with Mansfield.
The parsonage was renovated
in 1977 while Rev. G. Eldred Blakely served as pastor. In 1984, a
multi-purpose family activities building was built under the leadership
of Rev. C. Gerald Richardson.
Source: History of The First United Methodist Church,
Wilber Helen Lewis |
