Methodism in Lexington
Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Methodism in Lexington. Revs. James Haw and Benjamin Ogden were sent in 1786 to Ky. to organize Methodists. In 1789, Rev. Francis Poythress established the Lexington Society of Methodists, now the First United Methodist Church. It was the first Methodist station in Kentucky and was one of the first 100 Methodist churches in the U.S. (Reverse) First United Methodist Church- Lexington Methodists purchased this land, and, in 1840-41, built their new church. The sanctuary, built in 1907, is the 4th house of worship here. Five of its ministers were elected as bishops, including the 1st woman elected from Kentucky in 2012. It is the founding church of at least seven Methodist churches & missions & St. Paul AME Church.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Methodist preachers James Haw and Benjamin Ogden were sent to Kentucky in 1786, and in 1789 Francis Poythress organized the Lexington Society of Methodists—the first Methodist station in the state and among the first hundred Methodist congregations in the country. Now First United Methodist Church, the society built here in 1840–41, with the present sanctuary raised in 1907. The congregation gave rise to at least seven other churches and missions, including St. Paul AME Church, and five of its ministers became bishops.
Why it matters
The marker captures the frontier spread of Methodism through traveling circuit riders, a movement that planted churches across the trans-Appalachian West as fast as settlers arrived.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1786, when Methodist preachers were first sent into Kentucky, this was raw frontier. The trans-Appalachian West was only beginning to fill with American settlers, who came over the mountains and down the rivers into a country still being wrested into farms and settlements. Lexington was a young town in the Bluegrass, and organized religion was struggling to keep pace with a population on the move.
This was the era of the Early Republic, when the new nation was pushing westward faster than its institutions could follow. Churches, schools, and courts all had to be built more or less from scratch in country that had been wilderness a generation earlier. For a faith to establish itself here required not settled congregations but mobile, tireless preachers willing to go where the people were.
Methodism was supremely suited to that challenge. Its system of traveling preachers—circuit riders who covered vast territories on horseback—was designed for exactly this kind of scattered, expanding frontier. The planting of Methodism in Lexington is a story of that system arriving at the edge of American settlement and taking hold.
People & events
The story begins with two men sent west with a mission. In 1786, the Reverends James Haw and Benjamin Ogden were dispatched to Kentucky to organize Methodists—to find the scattered believers of the frontier and gather them into a structured church. Their work laid the groundwork for what came next.
That next step came in 1789, when the Reverend Francis Poythress established the Lexington Society of Methodists. This was no ordinary congregation: it was the first Methodist station in Kentucky and among the first hundred Methodist churches in the entire United States. To be one of the first hundred anywhere in a young and rapidly growing denomination is to stand very near the beginning of a national movement.
That original society endures today as First United Methodist Church. The congregation purchased this land and, in 1840–41, built a new church; the present sanctuary, the fourth house of worship on the site, was raised in 1907. The church became a mother congregation, giving rise to at least seven other Methodist churches and missions, as well as St. Paul AME Church. And its influence reached the highest levels of the denomination: five of its ministers were elected bishops, including, in 2012, the first woman bishop elected from Kentucky.
Its place in the American story
This marker captures one of the great engines of religion in early America: the spread of Methodism across the frontier. In the decades around 1800, Methodism grew explosively, and it did so largely through the circuit-rider system—preachers who rode enormous territories to reach settlers wherever they lived. That method allowed the church to keep pace with a population surging westward, and it made Methodism one of the largest and most characteristically American of the nation's faiths.
Lexington's place near the front of that story—home to one of the first hundred Methodist churches in the country—makes this a site where a national movement can be seen taking root at the exact edge of settlement. The congregation's role as a mother church, founding at least seven other churches and missions, shows how a single frontier station could multiply into a whole regional network of faith.
The later chapters carry the American story forward, too. That one of the daughter congregations was St. Paul AME Church touches the history of independent Black churches, and that the congregation's ministers rose to become bishops—including the first woman bishop from Kentucky in 2012—shows an institution that kept evolving with the nation it served.
If you visit
When you stand here, know that you are looking at the fourth house of worship to occupy this ground. The present sanctuary dates to 1907, but the congregation itself reaches back to 1789, and the land was purchased and built upon in the 1840s. Let that depth of continuity sink in: a community of faith on essentially this spot for well over two centuries, rebuilding as it grew.
Think about the beginnings, which had nothing to do with a fine sanctuary. The story starts with preachers sent into frontier country to gather scattered believers—people worshiping in a rough young town on the western edge of the new nation. The grand building is the endpoint of that journey, not its start.
Lexington sits in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass, rich with early frontier and Bluegrass history, so this stop fits well into a broader exploration of the region's founding era. As you visit, consider all that grew from this one congregation—the seven or more churches and missions it seeded, and the bishops it sent out—and you'll see a single site that helped shape a faith across a state and beyond.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Francis Poythress
- · James Haw
- · Benjamin Ogden
Themes & tags
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