By Bob Wessel
This is the final installment in a series of six articles on Christian churches founded in Lenawee County in the 19th century.
Methodism
The Methodist Episcopal churches, discussed in the first article in this series, gave rise to several later iterations of Methodism in the county the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Protestant Church, the Free Methodist Church, and, in the 20th century, the United Methodist Church.
August 1858 witnessed the organization of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Adrian in the home of Henry Russell. The congregation met in various members’ homes until 1869 when property at Butler and Locust streets was donated by a local lawyer and a building, which had been a meeting hall, was purchased and moved to the site.