Photo of the Month

September, 2003

The Old Stone Methodist Church is located four miles west of Berwick on State Route 93, in Briar Creek Township, Columbia County. It was the leadership of Thomas and Christian Bowman that led to the building of this historic structure in 1808. It became the first Methodist Episcopal Church in the North Branch of the Susquehanna River Valley. Initially, called the Bowman Church, but by the late 1800s it became known as the Old Stone Church. It is considered the birthplace of Methodism in this section of Pennsylvania. The congregation held services here until 1856 when they built a new church two miles to the west at Fowlersville. In an article written several years ago by Ernest G. Hill, he quoted from an old record that claimed it was the "most commodious and pretentious church of the domination outside New York City." Besides being a church it also served as a school and later became a meeting hall for the Grange. By the late 1800's the property, no longer used, deteriorated into a dilapidated condition; the roof was off and part of a wall was torn down.

Fortunately, Rev. Alfred S. Bowman, a Methodist minister and a descendant of the Bowman family that established the church, undertook the leadership in 1915-16 to raise funds to save and restore the church. Most of the repairs were to the building exterior, the grounds, and enclosing the cemetery. The funds for the restoration came from contributions of the descendants of the individuals buried in the church graveyard. Rev. Bowman declared that saving the Old Stone Church from decay was "to make this church a monument to the work of the early settlers who have sepulture in this burial ground . . . but the highest, the supreme motive in seeking to give permanence to this old shrine was that for which it stands."

For many years beginning in 1929 the First United Methodist Church of Berwick assumed the caretaker responsibility for the church. In recent years the Fowlersville United Methodist Church has taken over this role. An annual service is held at the church each fall.