Happy 200th: 6 things you might not know about Old McKendree Chapel

Erected in 1819, Old McKendree Chapel has undergone several restorations, but for its 200th birthday, a new chapter of growth begins.

With an emphasis on the future of the 15-acre lot at 4080 Bainbridge Road in Jackson, the two-day celebration kicks off 8:30 a.m. Saturday with a symposium at Dempster Hall's Glenn Auditorium on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University.

McKendree Chapel, oldest Methodist church west of the Mississippi (circa 1900).File

McKendree Chapel Memorial Foundation board member and chair of strategic planning Adelaide Parsons said the conference will feature "top-notch" speakers including director of the Kellerman Foundation Frank Nickell, U.S. District Judge, Eastern District of Missouri Stephen Limbaugh, Jr. and Cape Girardeau Research Center associate director William Eddleman.

Sunday, the bicentennial celebration begins at 12:30 p.m. at Old McKendree Chapel and will include crafts, a guided tour of the grounds and cemetery and food trucks. A service of praise and worship will begin at 2 p.m. to be followed by guest speaker Bishop Robert Farr of the Missouri Conference United Methodist Church.

"We've done all sorts of things to get it ready," Parsons said of the chapel. "We've cleaned and painted the canopy, we scraped the walls, taken it back to the whitewash, we've repainted the frames of the windows blue. We've spruced things up."

People listen as Rev. Michael Schriener of Morning Star Church gives his message to around 100 people Sunday, Sept. 30, 2012, during the annual pilgrimage worship gathering at Old McKendree Chapel in Jackson, Mo. The chapel was built in 1819 and is known as the oldest Protestant church standing west of the Mississippi River.Southeast Missourian file photo

Here are some things you might not know about the site, accumulated from local historian Beverly Hahs, Parsons and blogs from now-retired Southeast Missourian photojournalist Fred Lynch:

Final time

The last regular service was for the funeral of Mrs. Jacob Williams in 1988, but an annual service is still held the third Sunday in September at the chapel, "and that's what this is," Parsons said of the bicentennial event. Parsons said she anticipates roughly 200 people Sunday.

Funding

The site received a Missouri United Methodist Foundation grant — coupled with funding from the Cape Girardeau County History Center and other private donors — in 2017. The roughly $13,000 will help fund a long-term plan for the development of the land. "We're being surrounded by commercial development and we have a subdivision right on our property line," Parsons said. "We needed to sit down and talk everything from how to best use the land, how to make it more accessible to tourists."

Logs and trains

Louis Napoleon Houck — lawyer and architect behind 500 miles of railroad track in Southeast Missouri — said the house was built of "great hewed poplar logs" trimmed so precisely they needed no mud to caulk the seams. Houck is recorded as stating: "The first Methodist Church west of the Mississippi river was organized in about 1806, at McKendree, about three miles from the present town of Jackson, in Cape Girardeau County ... "

All God's people

Old McKendree Chapel's congregation was organized in 1806 — the first Methodist Church west of the Mississippi River — at McKendree. The chapel was finished in September 1819, just in time for the first Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church on Missouri soil. The chapel was named after a traveling missionary, Bishop William McKendree. He was the first American-born Methodist bishop and visitor of a camp meeting in 1818.

Part of history

The chapel is the oldest standing Protestant church west of the Mississippi River and serves as a national shrine. The first camp meeting recorded was on Good Friday in 1810. The Chapel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 13, 1987.

Still there

It probably required a year or more to ready the structure for services — even the rough benches had to be made by hand — and a few of those benches remain.

Parsons said Houck ran an extra industrial railroad spur to the site "so that the people coming in from around the state could be brought right onto the grounds." Part of that spur remains, she said.

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