1875 CENTENARY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sometime in 1856, in an upstairs room of the Charles Mears Boarding House, a group of lumberjacks, who literally came out of the woods, gathered with settler families to hear a Methodist circuit-riding preacher, Joseph Elliot. Elliot, American Indian minister educated at Harvard, delivered Pentwater’s first official sermon. The new congregants formed a Methodist society and met in homes and at the schoolhouse, 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. The Pentwater cream brick from the Middlesex Brick and Tile Company founded by Charles Mears was designed in a distinctive stepped style. The windows were of the Gothic-style, framed in brick with stained-glass and wooden tracery. The stained glass windows were created in Europe and in the United States. 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 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.
One year later, in 1880, the church hosted the ceremonies of the first graduating class of Pentwater High School. The room was overflowing with flowers, families, and friends. The young graduates were all women and they who came to Pentwater from other places like New York and Canada. At the ceremony, the graduates performed musical numbers and read their senior essays. One of these was by Minnie Stebbins who spoke about suffrage, an issue of the day. From this graduating class, several left Pentwater when they married or to teach. At least three of them lived on farms. They all came back together for the Homecoming Week in 1930.
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. Later they rebuilt it complete with this historic detail - a cast iron bell. Music from the bell tower can still be heard throughout Pentwater.
By 1974, contractors built a new addition on the south side on the building. 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 the Centenary Methodist Church and holds summer services on the Village Green. Copyright Pam VanderPloeg 2023.