1804 New Hope Methodist Church
Bulloch County, Bulloch County, Georgia
Marker Inscription
1804 New Hope Methodist Church. Organized from Union by Rev. Lewis Mayers, New Hope was Bulloch's second Methodist church. 1804 Trustees were David Kennedy, Josiah Everette, Jarvis Jackson, Burrell Whittington and William M. Kennedy; other leaders were Joseph Hodges, Eli Kennedy and Lydia Anciaux. Burke and Ohoopee Circuit records, oldest in South Georgia, were kept by these leaders. In 1806 William McGee Kennedy entered the itineracy; later William McCall Kennedy, F.M. Kennedy and H.A. Hodges. Leadership at home and in the connectional church distinguishes New Hope, preparing for her third century. No. 19 South Georgia Conference United Methodist Church 1998
The Story
Organized in 1804 by the Rev. Lewis Mayers, New Hope was Bulloch County's second Methodist church, gathered on the young Georgia frontier by a handful of trustees and lay leaders. Its members kept the Burke and Ohoopee Circuit records — the oldest in South Georgia — and sent several of their own into the Methodist itinerant ministry. Two centuries on, the congregation still carries that early leadership forward.
Why it matters
Frontier churches like New Hope anchored community life as settlement pushed into interior Georgia, and their circuit records preserve some of the region's earliest written history.
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Related people
- · Rev. Lewis Mayers
- · William McGee Kennedy
Related events
- · Organization of New Hope Methodist Church, 1804
Themes & tags
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