Tucker U.M. marks 190th anniversary
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Tucker United Methodist Church, 641 Steubenville Pike, Burgettstown, will celebrate its 190th anniversary at the 11 a.m. Sunday service. A Thanksgiving covered-dish dinner will be served afterward.
Tucker is one of the oldest Methodist churches in Washington and Greene counties. It was built in 1824, although services were held in the home of John Tucker, who was among the earliest settlers in Hanover Township, several years prior to that.
Tucker, a native of Massachusetts, and his wife, who was born in Maryland, had two sons. After his wife died, Tucker remarried, and he and his second wife traveled across the mountains from Maryland with their five sons and four daughters.
Tucker held his own devotions in the family’s cabin, and before long, other families began gathering at the Tuckers’ home. He soon became known as Father Tucker.
Tucker died at age 100, and in his will he bequeathed to his son, Jonathan, and his grandson, Samuel, one acre of land, “it being a part of the tract I now live on, whereon a meetinghouse is erected for the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for no other purposes whatsoever, but to be and remain for the use of said church, and the congregation therein assembling for the worship of God without rent or any other reward whatsoever.”
In 1823, the Minesinger brothers of Island Creek, Ohio, were commissioned to erect a meeting place for the Methodists in Hanover on the land Tucker had willed to his son and grandson. The brothers built a church 33 feet by 44 feet on what is now Route 22 between Paris and Florence. The church, despite the ravages of war, poor crops and economic recessions, has never closed its doors.
On the church’s 100th anniversary, hundreds of Methodists from 20 states attended the celebration.
In August 1949, members of the Tucker clan held a joint reunion and 125th church annivesary celebration. Descendants of the John Tucker family held morning and afternoon services at the old meetinghouse.
The church has had 198 ministers through the years and is now served by Pastor Kenn Jacobs and associate Pastor Karen Jacobs.