The year is 1783…

On February 3, Great Britain formally recognized the independence of the American States. The following day, it declares and end to hostilities.

On April 5, preliminary articles of peace are ratified by the Congress of the Confederation.

In September, the signing of the Treaty of Paris officially ends the Revolutionary War.

Also that fall, humans fly for the first time, as the Montgolfier Brothers in France launch the world’s first hot air balloon.

In October, in St. Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg, Mozart’s new composition “Great Mass in C Minor” is performed for the first time.

On November 2, General George Washington delivers his Farewell Address to the Army. On December 23rd, he resigns his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the Maryland State House in Annapolis.

And in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty-Three, the first stones were laid for a new stone chapel in Pipe Creek, Maryland.

The area formerly known as Pipe Creek was an important hub of early Methodism in America for preaching, conferencing and camp meeting, and Bishop Asbury was a frequent visitor. The chapel often referred to as “the Pipe Creek chapel” was properly known as “Strawbridge’s Stone Chapel,” being named in honor of the founder of the congregation who had passed away two years before the stone chapel was built. Given the sometimes difficult relationship between Asbury and Strawbridge, it is perhaps little wonder that Asbury uses the descriptive reference “the Pipe Creek chapel” in his journal rather than its proper name.

Strawbridge’s Stone Chapel was so called because it replaced a wood-frame chapel, which itself replaced the class meeting that was once held around the nearby Strawbridge Oak – both on the property of Andrew Poulson (brother-in-law of John Evans, the first recorded American convert to Methodism). The stone chapel would be taken down and re-built with the same stones two times, resulting in the beautiful and historic building which today is Stone Chapel United Methodist Church.

Home to one of the earliest groups of Methodists to meet in America, Stone Chapel is the archetypal example of the evolution of the Methodist meeting house; beginning as a “house-church” in the Wesleyan model and growing into a modern United Methodist Church.

The congregation that is known today as Stone Chapel UMC began its missional life as early as 1763 as the second Class Meeting established in America by Robert Strawbridge. Strawbridge’s first class met in various locations; first in his own home, then in the homes of neighbors, including that of his landlord, John England. This first society eventually met in the Log Meeting House before settling for many years in the home of John Evans, one of the very first know converts to Methodism in America.

Andrew Poulson was John Evan’s brother-in-law, and a second Methodist Class meeting was soon organized in his home. But as relatively large as this home was for the area, this Class Meeting soon grew so popular that it would not fit inside the house. When this happened, their meeting place evolved into a second form which was common among Methodists: meeting outside under a tree. Not far from Poulson’s house was a large oak tree, thirty feet around at the base. Robert moved the class meeting to this tree, which became famously known as “The Strawbridge Oak.”

Having been a member of both the first and second Methodist Class Meetings, Poulson was committed to seeing that the Methodist movement in America should take firm root. So he donated land on the south-east corner of his farm so that a full-time chapel could be built. In 1780, a wood frame meeting house was constructed and was known as Poulson’s Chapel. The congregation must have thrived, because only a few years later, in 1783, the frame meeting house was taken down and replaced with a chapel made of stone. It was called “Strawbridge’s Stone Chapel” to honor Robert, who had passed away two years before. But it quickly came to be called simply “The Stone Chapel” and occasionally the “Pipe Creek chapel.” On Sunday, August 20, 1786, Francis Asbury “rode twenty miles to Pipe Creek chapel, and preached to a large congregation.”

That congregation would get larger still. In 1800, Asbury preached a revival meeting nearby. This resulted in a sudden increase in the size of the Stone Chapel’s attendance, and so the chapel was rebuilt using the same stone, adding a gallery on three sides to accommodate the additional worshipers. Two of the congregation’s members, Jesse Durbin and Benjamin Bennett, were instrumental in accomplishing this rebuilding, and so their initials were memorialized in a stone tablet on the front of the building.

By the time the Stone Chapel reached its one-hundredth anniversary in 1883, it needed considerable structural repair. The building was taken down and rebuilt, again using the same stone, and the gallery was removed. Meanwhile, the venerable Strawbridge Oak, continued to stand not far away on what had been the Poulson Farm. But in 1905 it succumbed to its age, and in 1907 its wood was harvested. A pulpit chair made from the oak was placed in the Stone Chapel sanctuary at this time. [It remains there today.]

Stone Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church, as it was renamed, continued to flourish into the twentieth century. In 1951, a parish hall, built of concrete block with brick facing, was added to house the Sunday School and other church activities.

Across the street, the Stone Chapel cemetery is the final resting place for many of its members. Because the Poulson Farm has been sold – and resold – the headstones from the family burial ground were relocated here (although the remains themselves are still on the former Poulson property).

Stone Chapel is part of the “Robert Strawbridge Cluster” historic site (GCAH #491). It is an important milestone in the journey of Methodism in America. From house-church to outdoor meeting, from wood-frame to stone, from historic Class Meeting to modern United Methodist Congregation, Stone Chapel embodies the history of Methodist meeting places.

In 2023, we celebrate 240 years that are etched in stone. But this this “House of God” traces its roots back more than 250 years in history. I would argue that Stone Chapel has its origins in the Book of Genesis and the story of Jacob, who stood a stone on its end, and called that place “Beth El” … or “House of God.”