Shady Grove Methodist Church And Cemetery

Shady Grove Methodist Church And Cemetery. . Early settlers to Cullman County established Shady Grove Methodist Episcopal Church as a brush arbor in the 1870s on land homesteaded and donated by Richard McCain. Trustees, J. J. McKissack, W. H. Martin, J. C. Vickery, J. W. Kilgo, together with volunteers replaced the brush arbor with a log church that also served as the community school three months of the year. Around 1888, Reverend D. C. Beltz of Cincinnati, Ohio, arrived and drew up the blueprints for a new church. G. W. Kilgo selected a spot for the church and suggested the name Shady Grove. Sammy Leak and other members donated labor toward the construction of the present church building in 1892. Regular services began at Shady Grove in 1893 and continued to about 1920. The cemetery, located across the road from the church, contains hundreds of both marked and unmarked burials. One of the oldest graves with a burial date of 1876 belongs to Susana McCain, mother of the original property owner. An annual memorial service is held the first Sunday in May to honor those early settlers., The Church and Cemetery were listed in the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on Feb. 25, 1999 and The National Register of Historic Places on Oct. 3, 2002.