Liberty City Methodist History

Around 1860...

A small group of people organized a small Sunday School where the first meetings were held under a brush arbor located across the road from the present day church site. Services were later held each Sunday in an old dwelling house that was also across the road from the present site (2nd meeting place). Once a month Reverend Story, a preacher from Tuskegee, came over to Liberty and preached for the small group of people.

Sunday, July 23, 1865...

Liberty Methodist Church was organized. When the church was first established, Sunday services occurred only once every month. Circuit riders were the primary preachers during this time. A small building near the current building served as the first church building. The 3rd meeting place was a "log house style church" construction with hand-hewn benches, which was the first church building that was built. This church was located on the same side of the road as the present artifice... only much nearer to the road, and on the corner of the cemetery.

In 1899...

A second church was built (4th meeting place). It was a wooden church building (also called an "old frame church"). Many church members contributed to both the labor and money for the construction. A. T. Ware, a 13-year-old church member at the time, recalled carrying all the lumber used for the building from a saw mill at Lovelady Bridge, near Saugahattchee Creek in Tallapoosa County.

Reverend I. W. Chalker (1900 - 1903) was remembered riding his horse to the church during it's "all day singings". After dismounting and ascending the steps, he would be singing as loud as those who were inside the building.

In 1949...

The third church building was build with red brick, and it still remains today (5th meeting place). In the late 1900's, the glass front double doors were added and walk ramp with rails added.

(1st picture) The third building erected, in 1949; (2nd picture) This new brick building adjacent to the previous wooden building...

In 2003...

A new addition was added in back of the church. This structure included Sunday School classrooms, a fellowship hall, new pastor's study, a stage, storage rooms, and a sitting room in memory of Mary Willie Thompson King.

In 2006...

Multiple improvements were made to the building. A new addition in the front of the church was added, which changed the looks of the church. This included a new pastor's study, men's and women's bathrooms, an audio sound room, and a center foyer.

Outside, a new porch, steps, and walk ramp were added. Additionally, the parking lot was resurfaced, a new circle drive was added in front, a new steeple was added, and a new church sign was added.

Time Capsule

On December 18, 1949, a time capsule was placed and sealed behind a marble marker on the right side in front of the church.

On June 26, 2006, the capsule was found while in process of knocking down the front entrance to enlarge the church. Tommy Earl King found the flat metal box in the hole behind the cornerstone. It contained the following items from 1949: list of church ministers inside an envelope (from Mrs. Mattie Ware), a letter about the history of Liberty Methodist Church (by Mrs. H.W. "Bessie" Laney), Alabama Advocate newspaper, Methodist "Book of Disciplining", a Bible, worship hymnal, and "Journal of the Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church".

The event was televised on site at the church on the WSFA Montgomery evening news at 6:00 and 10:00. They interviewed Tim Brannon (the new pastor at the time), Mrs. Mary Ella Slay Grigsby (church historian), and Mrs. Wilmer Hood (church member). Tommy Earl King, his son Richard King, Donovan Freeman (Tommy's grandson), and Jerry Matthew Hughes (grandson of James Albert Hughes) were filmed while working to break the bricks and clear the front entrance.