CENTENARY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sometime in 1856, in an upstairs room of Charles Mears Boarding House, a group of lumberjacks came out of the woods and gathered with settler families to hear a Methodist circuit-riding preacher named Joseph Elliot who was an American Indian educated at Harvard deliver Pentwater’s first official sermon. After that, a Methodist society was formed and met in homes and at the schoolhouse which was the religious and social center of the community. Under the direction of Reverand C.D. Lee, a new frame church was dedicated on August 8, 1866 on the same site as the current church, in honor of 100th anniversary of the founding of Methodist Church on American soil in 1766.
According to an article in the Grand Rapids Press, on April 25, 1875 that original frame church caught fire and the building sustained over $4,700 in damage and there was no insurance. Consider that amount in 1875 dollars! By June 3 of that summer, the congregation broke ground on a new church designed by Grand Rapids architects Robinson & Barnaby who were paid the sum of $3,500. It was constructed of Pentwater cream brick manufactured at the local Middlesex Brick and Tile Company founded by Charles Mears. The construction was not without its challenges and not just financial. The Pentwater News reported that two masons on the construction site, “went on a spree and are now on a visit to Hart with free accomodations provided (jail?).” Although the new building was far from complete, the congregation held the first service on December 26, 1875 in the basement protected by a temporary roof built on the structure. It took nearly four more years to raise the funds needed to finish the building. The church at the north side of the Pentwater business district was dedicated on July 13, 1879. On dedication day, the congregation raised over $1,300 toward the building debt. In 1887, the church bells were installed in a new steeple built by T. Mero and P. Labonta. In 1954, the steeple was struck by lightning. The bells were not damaged but the steeple was covered. By 1974, a new addition on the south side was finished and by 1980, a new tower was added, and in 2002, stained glass windows were installed in the bell tower. In 2005, another addition was completed on the north side of the building and the church entrance was redesigned. Today the beautiful old church is still at use in its original location on Hancock Street at the north end of the business district.
The stained glass windows were created in Europe and the in United States. The glass is both beautiful and interesting. At the Centennial anniversary of the church, the church pianist and parishioner Winnie Jenson recalled that her grandparents Charles and Annie Jenson, who lived in a log cabin about three miles from Pentwater when the church was built, donated one of those windows. The Bell Tower was lost to a lightening strike in 1954 and was later rebuilt complete with this historic detail - a cast iron bell. Music from the bell tower can still be heard throughout Pentwater.