First Methodist Church, Frankfort
Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
First Methodist Church Organised by Rev William Holman in 1821. First Methodist Conference in Kentucky, 1790, made Frankfort, then a frontier station, part of the Lexington Circuit. The first small church built on Ann Street. Present site of church purchased 1856; building completed 1858. Bishops H.H. Kavanaugh and E. I. Tullis served as pastors of church
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Methodism reached Frankfort early: the 1790 conference folded the then-frontier station into the Lexington Circuit, and by 1821 Rev. William Holman had organized the town's First Methodist congregation, whose first small church stood on Ann Street. The present site was purchased in 1856 and its building completed in 1858. Bishops H.H. Kavanaugh and E.I. Tullis both served here as pastors.
Why it matters
The church chronicles the spread of frontier Methodism through early Kentucky, when circuit riders carried organized religion into the young republic's western settlements.
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Related people
- · Rev. William Holman
- · Bishop H.H. Kavanaugh
- · Bishop E.I. Tullis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Methodist Church
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Methodism reached Kentucky when it was still raw frontier: the first conference in 1790 folded Frankfort, then a frontier station, into the sprawling Lexington Circuit ridden by itinerant preachers. A settled Frankfort congregation was organized in 1821 by the Rev. William Holman, worshipping first in a small church on Ann Street before buying the present site in 1856 and completing its building in 1858. Two of its pastors, H. H. Kavanaugh and E. L. Tullis, rose to become bishops.
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