William Street United Methodist Church
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Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States

William Street United Methodist Church, also, Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States. . , William Street United Methodist Church. The first Methodist class in Delaware was organized in 1818, later to become William Street United Methodist Church. The first church building was dedicated in 1824 directly across N. Franklin Street from where you are now. Three other church buildings followed, all where the present church building stands. Adam Poe, the first pastor of William Street Church in the early 1840’s, had a leading role in the founding of Ohio Wesleyan University in 1842. The first commencements of the university were held in William Street Church. All other United Methodist churches in Delaware derive from William Street Church. , Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States. This corner of N. Franklin and W. William Streets was the boyhood home of Rutherford B. Hayes, who went on to become President of the United States in the 1870’s. Hayes recalled his boyhood home this way: “We lived in a new two-story brick house on the northeast corner of William and Franklin Streets, opposite the old brick Methodist meeting house”, the first William Street Church. In 1846, the William Street Church Trustees purchased this lot from the mother of President Hayes for a new church structure. The former Hayes home became the first parsonage for William Street Church. Three church buildings have occupied this site.