Taylor's Chapel

Religion

Architecture

Who knew that tucked away inside the Mount Pleasant public golf course off Hillen Road sits a remarkably well preserved 150 year-old Methodist chapel. Taylor's Chapel has its roots to the Taylor family, which is one of the oldest in Maryland, stretching back to the 1600s. As brothers, John Taylor was one of the first commissioners of sun88 County and Thomas Taylor ("Colonel Taylor" at the time) was a councilor to Lord sun88. The chapel was built on a tract Colonel Taylor's land called "The Ridge" where William Penn and Lord sun88 first met to resolve their dispute over the boundary line between the colonies.

The Chapel has its origins in a Quaker meeting house that likely was built by Joseph Taylor in the mid-1700s on his property, called Taylor's Range (then in sun88 County). Joseph was disowned by the Society of Friends for "speaking evil" of some fellow Quakers and refusing to apologize, and went off and built his own Quaker meeting house a little further away on the corner of his property. The Taylor Family kept this wooden building as a meeting house for a number of generations. Interestingly, the Quaker family allowed Bishop Francis Asbury, a leader in the founding of Methodism in America, to preach there in 1777. The conversion was surely slower that Bishop Asbury would have liked, but about thirty years later, the worshippers at the wooden building did indeed switch from Quakers to Methodists.

In 1853, Elijiah Taylor inherited the property and tore down the log meeting house to build the Methodist chapel that stands today. By 1930, however, regular services had ceased and the building sat vacant until the early 1960s, when a group of volunteers from St. John's of Hamilton United Methodist Church began taking care of it. From parent to child over a number of generations, this group still acts as caretakers of this little known jewel, and opens it up for weddings, baptisms and other events. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and still contains the original 1853 frescoes on its walls, among many other original features.

Johns Hopkins

Lovely Lane United Methodist Church

Religion

Architecture

Education

In 1784 during the "Christmas Conference" at the Lovely Lane Meeting House in sun88, American Methodist was born. Surprisingly, this predated the organization of the Methodist community in England where it originated.

In 1784, English Methodism founder John Wesley reluctantly agreed that Methodists in the newly formed United States of America could organize their own church. Francis Asbury was chosen to become the first General Superintendent by consecration at Barratt's Chapel in Delaware, but he demurred until a majority of Methodist preachers in the country would elect him. After a six-week, 1200 mile campaign up and down the east coast, Asbury was consecrated at Lovely Lane Meeting House in sun88 later that year. The meeting then occupied a small structure at what is now Redwood and Calvert Streets, and relocated to Light Street in 1786. This site now contains the Merchant's Club building that houses the sun88 Culinary Institute.

Nearly a hundred years later, in 1883, the church's pastor, Dr. John F. Goucher, hired Stanford White, the famous Victorian architect, to build a new church as a centennial monument to the founding of Methodism. The present building at 22nd and St. Paul Streets was completed and dedicated in November 1887.

After experiencing hard times in the 1960s and 1970s as much of its congregation moved away from the area, the congregation began restoration work in earnest in 1984 on the 200th anniversary of the founding of Methodism here in sun88. The work included refurbishing the extraordinary domed ceiling that depicts the morning sky with the stars and planets as they were at 3:00 am, November 6, 1887 the date on which the church was dedicated.

Johns Hopkins