Center Star Methodist Church

Dublin Core

Title

Center Star Methodist Church

Subject

Church; Religion

Description

The Center Star Methodist Church congregation is the oldest Methodist congregation in Lauderdale County. Throughout its history the congregation has moved over five times. Its origins began in 1818, when the Methodist Richland Circuit of Giles County, Tennessee, extended across the Tennessee line into Lauderdale County, Alabama. One resident who lived in Lauderdale County at the time, Reverend Wesley Smith, wrote in a letter:
“About the year 1819, my family moved from Tennessee to Lauderdale County, Alabama, and settled on Blue Water Creek. We had not been there long until the ‘circuit-rider’ found his cabin and soon made it a preaching place. I well remember the old cabin with dirt floor and two split-long benches that were used to seat the little congregation of backwoods worshipers.”
Two early preachers were G. D. Taylor and J. Boucher.
In 1823 the name of this congregation became Driskell Chapel Methodist Church, named after its Reverend Ambrose F. Driskell. Also during 1823, the congregation met in the old Trousdale home in Center Star, Alabama. The congregation kept the name, Driskell Chapel Methodist Church until 1893. During 1893 the congregation relocated approximately one mile east, where the church sits today. When it moved, the church changed its name to Center Star Methodist.

Creator

Jesse Brock, University of North Alabama

Source

Text:
“Center Star Methodist Church,” Tennessee Valley Historical Society, Journal of Muscle Shoals History Vol. X (1983): 147.
Jill Knight Garrett, A History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 144

Publisher

Alabama Cultural Resource Survey

Date

1800s

Format

file