The authoritative source on
  early churches of New Jersey

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We've created a database and photographic inventory on more than half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it each month. We welcome and solicit all contributions and suggestions from our visitors.

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Newport Methodist Episcopal Church
Newport, Cumberland County

  

The earliest Methodist preachers in south Jersey may have arrived by 1769, but it was not until 1788 that a regular circuit (Salem) was established. The following year provides the first evidence of a Methodist class in the area of Newport-Dividing Creek. Other classes in the Cumberland part of the circuit included Roadston, Deerfield, Woodruff, and Port Elizabeth. Eventually there was a Cumberland circuit that included Mauricetown, Leesburg, and Millville, as well as Newport. So Newport was an early preaching station, but there is no evidence of any meetinghouse prior to 1804, and even that is somewhat ambiguous. In 1852 the evidence is solid that the congregation erected a new meetinghouse although they shared a minister with the church in Dividing Creek until 1885.
     In 1901 that building was “rebuilt” which involved removal of the galleries, installation of a sloping floor, addition of a chapel, library, vestibule, and bell tower. It had a seating capacity of 260.

The above information was taken from Reverend Howard Cassaday’s booklet, The History of Methodism in Newport, N.J. (1989).

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Copyright (c) 2005 Frank L. Greenagel