< Bowlby

Chapter 40
Freeman

Finch >

Another noted man in the history of this settlement was Daniel Freeman. He had lived during the war in New Jersey, remaining loyal to England, though not taking part in actual hostilities.

Always of a deeply religious nature he was created by the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States, first an exhorter, next a licentiate, and finally a regularly appointed minister. It may be remarked that he is credited with having preached the first evangelical sermon ever delivered in the city of Detroit.

However, in the year 1798 he came to Long Point country, and became the founder of the first Methodist society in this district.

The Government granted him lot 24 of the 4th concession of Charlotteville, and there he established his new home.

As soon as he was settled he set earnestly to work to organize class meetings, which have always been the distinctive mark of the Methodist Church.

His work prospered. The people of the little colony came willingly to hear him, and in the third year of the century the settlers decided that a regular meeting-house or chapel was necessary, and they immediately proceeded to erect the first Methodist church in the county.

It was situated in Woodhouse township and is called the Woodhouse Methodist Church. It was a log church, forty feet long and thirty-four feet wide, and about fifteen high. The church was quickly completed, and never did the Methodist people of any part of the world worship God in truer sincerity under gilded dome, than did the congregation of half a hundred in that little log meeting-house in the centre of the forest.

No doubt the silent grandeur of the lofty beech and maple, the oak and walnut trees, with their branches spreading like the cedars of Lebanon, the green sward stretching like folds of the richest velvet among the trees, the blue sky and the singing birds, and all the beauties of nature surrounding their little chapel would awaken in their minds feelings of veneration and reverence for the great God who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. The minds of the earlier settlers, trained by habit to meditation in the forest, naturally found this a fit place for contemplation and worship.

The second church was a frame building (1818); the third a handsome brick structure, which now stands on the identical site of the first church in the Long Point district.