Canfield Congregational Church / Canfield United Methodist Church

Canfield Congregational Church, also, Canfield United Methodist Church. . (side A) , Canfield Congregational Church , On this site, the Canfield Congregational Church, the first church in Canfield village, was built in 1822. The congregation was organized in 1804 by Joseph Badger and Thomas Robbins, both missionaries from the Connecticut Missionary Society. This was the fifth Congregational Church organized west of the Allegheny Mountains and the fourth organized on the Western Reserve. In 1853, there was a division in the church and a faction split off to form the Canfield Presbyterian Society. In 1837, an antislavery speech was given by Reverend Miller from the Poland Methodist Church. A rowdy group of outsiders protested his words and threw eggs onto the pulpit. They waited for him outside with tar and feathers, but the ladies of the church hastily escorted him out the back door to his horse and buggy, and he made a hasty and safe departure. The Bible with egg on it is displayed in the church., (side B) , Canfield United Methodist Church , In 1906, membership at the Canfield Congregational Church declined. The congregation disbanded and gave the property to the Canfield Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist Society had been organized by Reverend Shadrach Bostwick in 1820. In 1826, a wooden church was built on Lisbon Street and was called the Bethel Chapel. It was replaced by a one-room brick structure in 1860. It was in this building that the Honorable Eben Newton, presiding judge, held the first Court of Common Pleas in Canfield. The cornerstone of the present Methodist church was laid in October 1907. The new church was fifty-three by eighty-three feet and able to accommodate five hundred people. The church is comprised of walls of brick and Cleveland stone, stained glass windows, and a pipe organ, purchased, in part, from a donation from Andrew Carnegie. The bell tower from the Congregational Church still rings in the bell tower above.