Existing comment:
Lost Rockville -- 1801 to 1850
Rockville Methodist Episcopal Church - Jerusalem/Mount Pleasant
Rockville was an early center of Methodism in Montgomery County. Methodists first met in private homes with occasional visits from a "circuit rider" minister. In 1835, the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church purchased lot 82 of the Original Town of Rockville for $40, where "they may erect and build…thereon a house or place of worship." The Rockville Circuit was established in 1845 to serve 715 white and 527 Negro Methodists. The Rockville Methodist Episcopal Church incorporated in 1852 and erected a brick house of worship about 1858.
In 1845, a doctrinal dispute over slavery caused the Methodist Episcopal Church to separate into two factions, North and South. The southern faction in Rockville left the congregation and built a new church in 1868 on West Montgomery Avenue. The old church was left to the North, or non-slavery Methodists, and became a predominantly black congregation. In 1892, the church, now named Jerusalem Methodist Episcopal Church, was dismantled and enlarged.
It housed black students in 1912 when the Rockville Negro Elementary School burned and was the site of graduation ceremonies through the 1950s. It merged with Mount Pleasant Methodist Church in 1989. The belfry was removed, the stairs expanded, and the building was stuccoed in 1954. |