St. Peter's Church circa 1910
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St. Peter’s Church traces its earliest history to congregations and class meetings
which met on sites between Mountain Road on the south and Old Ridge Road (near the
Ashland Berry Farm) on the north. Few records remain of these 18th and early 19th
century Methodists. In the 1780s, Bishop Francis Asbury established what many
historians believe to have been the first Sunday School in America, in the home of
Thomas Crenshaw, on Mountain Road not far from the present site of St. Peter’s.
In 1850, remnants of the earlier congregations moved to property on Route 611
(now St. Peter’s Church Road), a scant ½ mile south of the present church. At first
an arbor of trees served as a church, but a white frame building reached completion
by 1852. The builder was Peter Massie, a charter member and trustee. After its completion,
the church was named St. Peter’s, partly for the fisherman-disciple and partly for the man
who helped establish the congregation.
St. Peter's Church 1953
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St. Peter’s was one of four or five churches comprising the West Hanover Circuit, in
which the pastor’s financial support and his services were shared among the circuit churches.
The church built additions and made improvements periodically, including a separate,
concrete block Sunday School building.
The one acre church site on Rt. 611 was too small for the growing congregation. In
the 1960s, the church trustees purchased 15 acres on Rt. 33 and in 1966 the congregation
built a new church.
St. Peter's moved to its current location in 1966.
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As designed, the new church was the 6,000 square foot first unit of an eventual two-unit
structure. This first unit contained eight classrooms, a fellowship hall, kitchen, and bathrooms.
The fellowship hall was to be used for worship until such time as the second unit sanctuary could
be built. During its first 10 years, worshippers at St. Peter’s sat on folding chairs placed on
tile floors. In the late 1970s, when it became apparent that a new sanctuary was not imminent,
the church carpeted the floor and added wooden pews.
The new sanctuary opened October 1999.
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Throughout the last 30 years members continued to give generously to a wisely invested
Building Fund. Finally, in 1999, St. Peter's built the long-anticipated two-story sanctuary
and classroom addition, allowing the former sanctuary to be used as a fellowship hall. More
than doubling the square footage, the new facility positions St. Peter's United Methodist Church
to serve the western Hanover community well into the 21st century.
