Commerce United Methodist Congregation
Date Visited: August 24, 2019
Stop: #46
It had been 21 days since our
last Wines and Signs Adventure. It was
hard to believe that 3 weeks had passed so quickly, but we had two very busy
weekends up in Caseville enjoying the Cheeseburger in Caseville Festival, so
this was our first weekend home in over a month. And the reason we were home was to go to a
birthday party for the first grandchild of one of our closest friends. So many memories flooded back as the day
approached given that we have known the mother (our friends’ daughter) since
the day she was born. The party was being
hosted by her in-laws, who lived in Commerce Township, so seeing as we very
rarely have the opportunity to visit that part of town, I thought it would be a
great opportunity to visit some historical markers and wineries in the
area. So, the night before the party, I
mapped out the possibilities, and was disappointed to learn that, although
historical markers were abundant in the area, there were no wineries
around. Fortunately, Kathy was still
willing to visit a few markers, so I mapped out the ones that were closest to
where the party was located.
The party was in the early afternoon,
and we had a very nice time there. The
food was great (lots of finger foods, Jet’s pizza, and antipasto), and we not
only got to hang with our good friends, but we also met so many nice
people. The party began to break up
after the gifts were opened, and looking at my watch, noted that it was about
4:30. There would be plenty of sunshine
left to visit several historical markers, so saying our “good-byes,” we headed
out to our first destination, the Commerce United Methodist Congregation
historical marker located at the Commerce United Methodist Church.
We drove north and west to the
site that our gold source coordinates indicated, and as has been the case
several times already, we could not find the church, let alone the historical
marker. We drove up and down the road a
couple of times, thinking that the sign may be located in an area where there
is no actual church anymore. But all we
saw were private residences. We drove
down a residential street thinking maybe we would see something beyond
somebody’s backyard, but we saw nothing.
We drove into the Detroit Medical Center Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital campus,
hoping that the hospital may have replaced the church but still commemorated it
with an historical marker, but again, we could not locate it. So, we turned to modern technology to give us
some help – our cell phones. Of course,
we could not get a good connection, so accessing our map apps and Google became
a challenge. Finally, we got a signal
strong enough to find out that the actual location of the marker was over 0.6
miles away on a totally different road than the one we were on. We finally arrived at the marker a few
minutes before 5:00 pm, located on the west side of North Commerce Road, about
0.3 miles north of Commerce Road.
The church is hard to miss –
it is massive. Its most prominent
feature is its towering steeple, which is a replica of the original one. In fact, this is not even the original
location of the church – the original location was at the northwest corner of
Commercial and Ponderosa Streets, about 0.4 miles southeast of its current location. This modest, Greek Revival frame church was
constructed in 1842. The historical
marker states that logs for the church, which included oak for the frame, were
hauled over 40 miles to Lapeer to be sawed.
The land for the church had been purchased in 1841 for $75, and the
total cost for the church was $1,200.
The original structure was
moved to its current location in 1957.
At that time, it was enlarged.
The old church became the main chapel for the new location, and is
recognized as the oldest Methodist church building in Oakland County and one of
the oldest in the state of Michigan. The
church has gone through extensive renovations to get to its current
appearance.
The second side of the
historical marker provides the history around Methodism in the Commerce
area. A Methodist Episcopal class, which
later became a church society, was organized in Commerce in 1838. For many years, it was part of the Farmington
Circuit and the Reverend Daniel C. Jacokes was the church's first circuit
minister. Religious meetings were held
in a schoolhouse until the society erected its first church in 1842. Commerce, with its seventy-one members, became
the head of the circuit in 1854. The
congregation organized a Sunday School in 1855 and an Epworth League (a
Methodist young adult association for people aged 18 to 35) in 1891. The Ladies Aid Society, organized in 1885,
hosted maple sugar and lawn socials to supplement its dues of five cents a
month. By 1915, the local Presbyterian
and Baptist congregations had disbanded, leaving the Methodist society as the
sole church in Commerce. Today, the
church holds two services each Sunday (9 am for a Traditional style worship
with songs from the UMC Hymnal and traditional organ music, and at 11 am for a
Contemporary worship featuring a Praise Band).
The church is available to rent for weddings or as a service venue with
a maximum seating capacity of 85 people.
We spent less than 10 minutes
here, finding it hard to get good quality pictures looking into a blinding late
afternoon sun. Both Kathy and I had to
position ourselves with the sun hidden by the steeple or by the tall pine trees
growing in front in order to get any pictures at all. So, unfortunately, our pics do not do justice
to the beauty of this building.
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