The Pittsburgh Annual Conference, held at Wellsburg, West Virginia in 1832, appointed Rev. J.K. Miller as the preacher in charge of Braddock’s Field Mission, and during the year which followed “Classes” or groups of members under “Class Leaders” were organized in Lawrenceville, East Liberty, Wilkinsburg, Swissvale, Braddock, Turtle Creek, McKeesport and other points. While there is evidence of earlier preaching activities, this is the first record of any organized work among the Methodist Episcopalians in Wilkinsburg. The following incident, related by Daniel Double, who joined the church in 1838, is of interest even if it has no historical value. One Sunday afternoon, while Rev. Simon Elliott was on his way to fill an appointment, he found a number of men in Perchment’s Woods, near Wilkinsburg, gathering hickory nuts. He engaged them in conversation and at their request, preached to them. This may have been the beginning of Methodism in Wilkinsburg.
The first church building in this vicinity was a small frame structure on what is now Braddock Avenue in the Borough of Swissvale but this was abandoned for church purposes in 1843, when the congregation, with 24 members, constructed a small brick building on the north side of Wallace Avenue about 100 feet west of Center Street, where the present Wilkinsburg Baptist Church is located. This was the first building erected for religious worship within the limits of Wilkinsburg—previously the services having been held in the school house.
For the preceding eleven years and the next twenty-two years, the Wilkinsburg church was included with other preaching points as part of a circuit, with one or sometimes two ordained preachers as circuit riders, men who had a large part in spreading the gospel in those early days in thinly populated parts of the country. When two were appointed, the second was called the Junior Preacher. In 1865 the Wilkinsburg Church reached the distinction of being designated as a “Station” or independent preaching point. By 1877 the membership had increased to 170 and the next year the building was remodeled, slightly enlarged and a bell tower constructed.
In 1859 a bell was cast in England and later placed on the Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse at 28th Street, Pittsburgh. During the riots of 1877 the building was burned and the bell dropped to the ground. One can see a dent in the back of the bell as it stands today, no doubt due to the heat and the fall. Through Samuel F. McIntyre, a locomotive engineer and a trustee of the church, the bell was given to the church by the railroad and hung in the newly constructed bell tower. It tolled at the time of the funeral of President Garfield in 1881, when union services were held in the church. One day a crack appeared and its work as a bell was over, but it hung in the belfry until it was torn down in 1905 by the Baptist congregation to whom the building had been sold. A few years later it was given back to the Methodists and for a quarter of a century has been in use as a flower vase in front of the South Avenue Church.
In 1887 the growth of the community had been such that the Borough of Wilkinsburg was incorporated and the demand for additional room for the growing congregation became imperative. Ground was purchased on South Avenue at the site of the present church building and a new and larger building was erected on this site in 1892. At this time the building and property on Wallace Avenue was sold to the Wilkinsburg Baptist Church. Alterations and additions were made to the Sunday School section of the South Avenue building in 1901 to meet the needs of growing enrollment.
In the late afternoon and evening of Saturday, February 23, 1907, the entire building was burned. Nearly every Protestant church of Wilkinsburg offered the free use of its building, but other arrangements were made and for the next fourteen months all Sunday services were held in the Pennwood Club Building on Ross Avenue, and the mid-week services in the Second Presbyterian Church on Thursday evenings. The present building was undertaken at once, the rear portion being occupied by Easter, 1908 and the completed structure dedicated February 21, 1909. The continued growth of the Sunday School led to the enlargement and alteration of the structure in 1923, giving a very complete plant for the modern, organized Church School, as we have come to call it in recent years.
Originally known as the Wilkinsburg Methodist Episcopal Church, it has been the mother church of at least six other Methodist Episcopal churches during a sixty year period. In each case the new church drew its full quota from the membership of the sponsoring church. The list is as follows:—Homewood Avenue, 1872; Brushton, 1892; Mifflin Avenue, 1896; following which in 1901 the name of the original organization was changed to South Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church; Ross Avenue and Swissvale Avenue (the latter now James Street), 1905; and Laketon Heights, 1920.
The membership of the South Avenue Church is now [in 1940] 1600, and the enrollment of the Church School 1108. The combined active membership of the seven churches, which have been listed, is over 5200, with 4400 enrolled in the Church Schools. During the 102 years since the first class was organized, there have been 48 different preachers and 22 junior preachers or assistants.
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Vernon R. Covell, “A Brief History of Methodism in Wilkinsburg” in Elizabeth M. Davison and Ellen B. McKee eds., Annals of Old Wilkinsburg and Vicinity: The Village 1788–1888. Wilkinsburg, Pa.: Group for Historical Research, 1940, pp. 196–198.