Our History
First United Methodist Church, Middletown grew out of the New England revival in the 1740’s. Of the Rev. George Whitfield’s preaching in New Haven, old Mr. Talcott Governor of Connecticut said, “Thanks be to God for such refreshings on our way to heaven.” Nineteen year old Thomas Hopkins, then a freshman at Yale, wrote in his diary “The attitude of the people in general was greatly awakened…that there was a remarkable preacher from England traveling through the country.” (Ibid. 186) More remarkable were those touched by Whitfield, among them a ‘colored’ man, a criminal and his daughter, a black army trumpeter who had brought his trumpet to break up the revival service, and a descendant of Uncas, Chief of the Mohegans, who later became the Reverend Samson Occum! So grateful for Whitfield was John Wesley, priest of the Church of England who founded Methodism, that he wrote in the funeral sermon he delivered for Whitfield, that “In his public labors (he) has for many years astonished the world with his eloquence and devotion. With what divine pathos did he persuade the impenitent sinner to embrace the practice of early piety and virtue.” (Ibid. 448)
But it was Jesse Lee’s preaching in 1791 that finally inaugurated a Methodist Circuit including the town of Middletown, on the Connecticut River half way between Hartford and New Haven. By 1804, our town had become the center of the Circuit and had received its first settled pastor, the Rev. Ebenezer Washburn. In 1816, the Methodists established a separate Charge here, further strengthened in 1831 through its association with Wesleyan University.
This greater Middletown congregation has lived and served in four different buildings on its present site above South Green: the red brick church of 1805 (42’/32’), the larger brick edifice of 1828 (75’/55’), the Akron-style brick edifice erected after a fire, and the present Gothic chapel of cream and tan-colored limestone, built during the pastorate of the Rev. Marion Creeger, early in whose ministry here the brick building also burned. At the time of its construction (1931), this edifice was considered “one of the finest Methodist Church buildings in the country.”
From the beginning, our congregation has been mission and worship oriented. It formed the Wesleyan College Church and Sunday School Union (1836-87), strengthening ties with college students, faculty and administration. In 1909, Dr. F.H. Wright spoke on encouraging the development of an Italian Mission by asking “Is the Italian a Desirable Element in our Immigration: Our Duty to the Italian Immigrant.” We still have the old bible in Italian used in that chapel. And this was part of a lasting movement among 'unchurched' Italian immigrants. By 1916, a Rev. C.M. Penunzio of Boston had witnessed to his own vocation to the ministry in his “A Stranger in a Strange Land: or from Ship to Pulpit.” Also during the same decades, the church generously supported The Freeman’s Aid Society for the training of Negro youth; and in 1934, after only four years in the new building, the First Methodist Episcopal Church and Wesleyan celebrated the Centennial of Jason Lee’s first mission to the Flathead Indians of the Oregon Territory. In 1828, this very missionary was commissioned in our brick, Akron-style church.
On the 7th Sunday of Pentecost 2004, not long after the appointment of Pastor Kwang-il Kim, the Rev. Thomas Beveridge, who grew up in FMEC, Middletown, preached of how his future vocation had appeared to him in the congregation of his childhood. He spoke of Mrs. Ralph Porter, his first Sunday School teacher, whose “In the beginning, God,” stuck in his memory; of Adolph Pauli, blind professor of classics at Wesleyan and Sunday School Superintendent, who helped open him to people with disabilities; and of the then organist, Wesleyan Professor Karl Pomeroy Harrington, who “designed the organ we use today,” and whose Christmas Carol, There’s a Song in the Air, appeared first in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal of 1935. Beveridge had also sung the parts of one or another of the Kings in our annual, and now 75 year old, Christmas Pageant, which Mrs. Pauli helped to start.
If you would like to learn more about FUMC, and hear our new Pastor, The Rev. Stefanie Bennett, come worship with us and continue to visit our website.
But it was Jesse Lee’s preaching in 1791 that finally inaugurated a Methodist Circuit including the town of Middletown, on the Connecticut River half way between Hartford and New Haven. By 1804, our town had become the center of the Circuit and had received its first settled pastor, the Rev. Ebenezer Washburn. In 1816, the Methodists established a separate Charge here, further strengthened in 1831 through its association with Wesleyan University.
This greater Middletown congregation has lived and served in four different buildings on its present site above South Green: the red brick church of 1805 (42’/32’), the larger brick edifice of 1828 (75’/55’), the Akron-style brick edifice erected after a fire, and the present Gothic chapel of cream and tan-colored limestone, built during the pastorate of the Rev. Marion Creeger, early in whose ministry here the brick building also burned. At the time of its construction (1931), this edifice was considered “one of the finest Methodist Church buildings in the country.”
From the beginning, our congregation has been mission and worship oriented. It formed the Wesleyan College Church and Sunday School Union (1836-87), strengthening ties with college students, faculty and administration. In 1909, Dr. F.H. Wright spoke on encouraging the development of an Italian Mission by asking “Is the Italian a Desirable Element in our Immigration: Our Duty to the Italian Immigrant.” We still have the old bible in Italian used in that chapel. And this was part of a lasting movement among 'unchurched' Italian immigrants. By 1916, a Rev. C.M. Penunzio of Boston had witnessed to his own vocation to the ministry in his “A Stranger in a Strange Land: or from Ship to Pulpit.” Also during the same decades, the church generously supported The Freeman’s Aid Society for the training of Negro youth; and in 1934, after only four years in the new building, the First Methodist Episcopal Church and Wesleyan celebrated the Centennial of Jason Lee’s first mission to the Flathead Indians of the Oregon Territory. In 1828, this very missionary was commissioned in our brick, Akron-style church.
On the 7th Sunday of Pentecost 2004, not long after the appointment of Pastor Kwang-il Kim, the Rev. Thomas Beveridge, who grew up in FMEC, Middletown, preached of how his future vocation had appeared to him in the congregation of his childhood. He spoke of Mrs. Ralph Porter, his first Sunday School teacher, whose “In the beginning, God,” stuck in his memory; of Adolph Pauli, blind professor of classics at Wesleyan and Sunday School Superintendent, who helped open him to people with disabilities; and of the then organist, Wesleyan Professor Karl Pomeroy Harrington, who “designed the organ we use today,” and whose Christmas Carol, There’s a Song in the Air, appeared first in the Methodist Episcopal Hymnal of 1935. Beveridge had also sung the parts of one or another of the Kings in our annual, and now 75 year old, Christmas Pageant, which Mrs. Pauli helped to start.
If you would like to learn more about FUMC, and hear our new Pastor, The Rev. Stefanie Bennett, come worship with us and continue to visit our website.
