Canaan Methodist Church

Canaan Methodist Church

Church; Religion

Established during the 1830s, the Canaan United Methodist Church is the oldest Methodist congregation in Lauderdale County. Land for the church’s building and cemetery were given by an early settler in the county named Edmond Noel. Established for the rural planters on the bend of the Tennessee River, a tall framed building was constructed. Prior to the Civil War, slaves attended serves with their masters and sat in a designated gallery. The church itself played a role during the Civil War. During the war, soldiers under Union general James Wilson camped nearby and in 1865 Union troops bunked in the church. There was a skirmish between Union and Confederate troops at nearby Gravelly Springs Cemetery, and also a small skirmish took place on the grounds of the church. As a result, bullet holes once peppered the congregation’s pews. However, renovations in the 1970s remodeled the slave gallery and replaced the pews.

Jesse Brock, University of North Alabama

Text:
William Lindsey McDonald, “Methodist Building in the Area,” in folder “McDonald Collection: The Church Register (Canaan)(Methodist Episcopal), Churches 10.1,” Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama.
“Canaan Methodist Church,”Tennessee Valley Historical Society, Journal of Muscle Shoals Vol. X, 1983: 91-92.

Image:
“Canaan Methodist Church,”Tennessee Valley Historical Society, Journal of Muscle Shoals Vol. X, 1983: 91-92.

Alabama Cultural Resource Survey

1830s-1970s

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