Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. 1800
   Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Francis Asbury visits Chapel Hill and the university

   Bishop Francis Asbury stopped at Chapel Hill in 1800 and recorded a warm welcome from Joseph Caldwell, the students and people from the village and countryside. Nicholas Snethen, traveling with him, preached in the village, and Asbury baptized some children afterward.

3. 1850
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill Samuel Milton Frost is assigned as pastor of the Chapel Hill Methodists

   The Annual Conference had named no pastor for Chapel Hill from 1847 through 1849. After his ordination as elder at the 1850 conference in Warrenton, the university student Samuel Milton Frost was given the congregation, which grew under him to 72 white and 16 Black members by 1851.

4. November 1854
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Methodist church is made a charge separate from Hillsborough

   In 1852 the Annual Conference had joined Chapel Hill with the Hillsborough Methodist church as one station under J. L. Fisher. In 1854 it separated the two and sent Peter Doub to Chapel Hill, which then counted 124 white and 36 Black members.

5. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

6. 1869 to 1871
   Statistic or record · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill Most Black members leave the Chapel Hill Methodist church after the war

   When Black members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, withdrew in 1869 and 1870 to form a separate church, the Chapel Hill congregation lost nearly all of its Black membership, which had peaked at 81 in 1864 and stood at 8 in 1871.

7. August 6, 1878
   Property or economic transaction · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Methodist trustees buy a Franklin Street lot from Thomas A. and Zoa A. Long

   Looking ahead to a larger church, the trustees of the Chapel Hill Methodist Episcopal Church, South, paid $500 for about an acre on Franklin Street running back to the campus, between the Seaton M. Barbee and Jones Watson lots. The second church was built there in the late 1880s, and the 1920s church on the same grounds after they were enlarged.

8. September 19, 1885
   Construction or physical change · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Methodists vote to build a second church

   At the quarterly conference, pastor R. B. John moved that a five-member committee build a new church, and former pastor Adolphus W. Mangum spoke to the need. By June 1887 the walls were ready for the roof, and the building was finished early in 1889.

9. March 8, 1889
   Property or economic transaction · Old Methodist Church, Rosemary and Henderson streets, Chapel Hill Methodist trustees sell the old Rosemary Street church to the American Missionary Association

   With the Franklin Street church ready, the trustees sold the 1853 church and its lot at Rosemary and Henderson streets for $800 to W. H. Hubbard, treasurer of the American Missionary Association of New York, keeping back only the organ, clock and Bible. The building became a Congregational church that Northern friends had bought for Black worshippers.

10. April 1889 to February 1891
    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill Seven Black members are moved from the Methodist roll to the new Congregational church, then restored

    At their request, pastor W. B. North transferred seven Black members by certificate to the Congregational church meeting in the old Methodist building. In February 1891 pastor E. H. Davis put their names back on the Methodist register; an unsigned protest from white members questioned his authority, but no action was taken and the seven stayed members until they died.

11. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

12. September 9, 1907
    Property or economic transaction · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Methodists vote to sell their College Avenue parsonage and buy the Carr property

    A called quarterly conference let the trustees sell the old parsonage on College Avenue for $1,250 and buy the Carr property on Franklin Street for $3,000 as a new parsonage. The change was made in 1908, with a gift and loan sought from the conference women's society, and the church women formed a second Ladies' Aid Society to furnish the house.

13. March 16, 1920
    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill Committees of the two Methodist conferences agree to build a new church at Chapel Hill

    Meeting at Chapel Hill with the church board and President Harry W. Chase, committees of the North Carolina and Western North Carolina conferences agreed unanimously that the state's Methodists should build a plant costing about $150,000 for the university town. Chase told them a third of the students were Methodists.

14. from September 1921
    Property or economic transaction · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Methodists enlarge their Franklin Street grounds through purchases and a swap with the university

    Talks begun in September 1921 led to the purchase of the Seaton Barbee property from the university and of the A. S. Barbee store, and to an exchange of the Barbee land for vacant fraternity lots the university owned behind the church. The transactions cost $18,000 and more than doubled the church grounds.

15. 1922
    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Methodists build a new parsonage

    As its share of the building program, the local church hired J. L. Orr of Atlanta as architect in March 1922 and local contractor Brodie Thompson in May, and had the house ready in late October at a cost of $17,358.11. Until the new church was built it also served as a meeting place for boards and student groups.

16. December 6, 1924
    Construction or physical change · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Methodists award the building contract for the new Chapel Hill church

    With much of the money from conference boards, alumni and friends in hand, the joint commission gave the contract for the James Gamble Rogers design to Jewel and Riddle of Sanford for $156,550, and the heating contract to the Durham Heating Company for $14,500.

17. autumn 1925
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill The Methodists install J. G. Phillips as student pastor at Chapel Hill

    The General Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the North Carolina Conference's Board of Missions agreed to pay for a pastor to Methodist students, and Phillips began while the new church was still being built. He started a freshman class and visited students in their rooms, and a student board of stewards followed in 1926.

18. January 6, 1925
    Construction or physical change · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Ground is broken for the new Chapel Hill Methodist church

    Louis Round Wilson, chairman of the stewards, joined pastor Walter Patten, Mrs. A. S. Barbee and other members to break ground on Franklin Street for the church designed by James Gamble Rogers.

19. April 28, 1925
    Construction or physical change · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The cornerstone of the new Chapel Hill Methodist church is laid

    Presiding elder M. Bradshaw set the stone at a Tuesday service with speakers for the joint commission, the architect's firm, the university and its students. The church was finished and accepted from the builders a year later.

20. December 1934
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill An anonymous $50,000 gift clears the Chapel Hill Methodist church's mortgage

    Just before Christmas, M. T. Plyler of the joint commission reported a $50,000 check to pay off the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company mortgage on the church, and the conference boards paid the rest of the debt. The donor was later revealed as James A. Gray of Winston-Salem, a 1908 graduate who had attended the church as a student.

21. April 7, 1935
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Methodist church is dedicated once its debt is paid

    Nine years after the building opened, Bishop Paul B. Kern preached the dedication sermon during W. A. Jenkins's pastorate, and Dean Robert B. House presented the building for the official board. Former pastors Walter Patten and C. Excell Rozzelle took part.

22. 1936
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill Bowman and Gordon Gray give the Chapel Hill Methodist church a pipe organ

    During A. P. Brantley's pastorate the church received a three-manual Moller pipe organ from donors who asked not to be named. They were later revealed as Bowman and Gordon Gray, university graduates of 1929 and 1930.

23. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

24. 1945
    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill The Wesley Foundation takes up Methodist student work at Chapel Hill

    Student work had lapsed for lack of money in 1931. After a committee of the Wesley Foundation Commission and the church drew up a plan, the commission raised its grant in December 1944, and Roy Everett came as the foundation's first director in the summer of 1945.

25. 1953
    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Methodist church installs a Standaart organ

    Under pastor W. M. Howard, with Roy Armstrong of the music committee directing the work, the church put in a three-manual Standaart organ costing $15,500, mortgaging the parsonage again to help pay for it.

26. October 11, 1953
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill Methodist Church, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Methodists celebrate their centennial

    At the centennial service Fletcher M. Green read a summary of the church's history to the congregation and handed the manuscript to the church. The committee history, first proposed by Louis Round Wilson in 1949, was printed in 1954.

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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.