First United Methodist Church - Arab, AL - Alabama Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Arab First United Methodist Church, founded in 1892, is the oldest church congregation inside Arab’s original town limits of one square mile. Rev. M. E. “Bushwhacker” Johnston pastored the church during the 1890s and was said to have removed his two guns and placed them on the pulpit while he preached. The marker is located in front of the church of North Main Street. The marker was placed by the Alabama Historical Association.

Marker Name: First United Methodist Church Marker Type: Urban Addtional Information:: Founded in 1892 under the leadership of the Rev. B.O.H. Cochran, this is the oldest church congregation inside Arab’s original town limits of one square mile. Twenty-eight names were listed on the church’s original membership roll. Affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the members built a wooden structure located on First Avenue Northwest in 1893. This building housed the Masonic Hall upstairs and church services downstairs. A second frame building was erected some years later. A larger, brick church was built in 1937. The church consecrated a new sanctuary in May of 2000. Town founder Stephen Tuttle Thompson and Arab’s first schoolteacher, Union Army Captain James Walter Elliot, serve in many offices of the church form its founding until their deaths. One of their contemporaries and a former Confederate leader, the Rev. M. E. “Bushwhacker” Johnston, pastored the church during the 1890s and was said to have removed his two guns and placed them on the pulpit while he preached. Date Dedicated / Placed: 2008 Marker Number: None

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