Towson United Methodist Church is a large United Methodist Church in the historic Hampton subdivision of Towson, a suburb in Baltimore County, Maryland. Its past, rooted in 19th-century America and subsequent growth in the two centuries since then, has closely paralleled the nation's political and sociological trends. It was a congregation split in 1861 on the eve of the American Civil War in a border state of divided loyalties, which eventually reunited and built a church in the post–World War II era of the 1950s, a time of reconciliation and rapid growth by mainline Protestant denominations, especially in the more affluent suburbs.
Pastored since July 2021 by Stephanie Roberts White, the church now brands itself as Towson Church with a blended traditionalcontemporary Sunday worship service, along with a number of community outreach programs, including an accredited child care center and a Boy Scout troop. The church actively supports a home for unwed mothers, overseas missions, and Habitat for Humanity projects. The congregation worships in a 1,000-seat sanctuary built in 1958. The large building's prominent spire and cupola, a landmark visible for miles from the nearby Baltimore Beltway (Interstate 695), has been called "the beacon of Towson".
Towson United Methodist Church is located on Hampton Lane at interchange #27B of the Baltimore Beltway and Dulaney Valley Road (Md. Route 146), one-half mile (one km) west of Hampton National Historic Site. The church's land was originally part of the vast 18th-century Hampton estate.
History The beginning; 1750s–1850s First settled by brothers William and Thomas Towson in 1752, the hamlet now bearing their name remained mostly farmland until the 1830s, with no churches and little more than a roadside inn/tavern for travelers on York Road (now Md. Route 45). In the 1790s, Rebecca Dorsey Ridgely, the wife of Charles Ridgely III and described as an ardent Methodist, began holding prayer meetings at the Ridgelys' grandiose Hampton Mansion, located one-half mi (one km) east of the present church site. By 1825, the first Sunday School was started in a private home near a blacksmith's shop on York Road. In 1839, the citizenry of sparsely populated Towsontown, as the village was called by then, built the tiny community's first church in a wooded location north of Joppa Road and east of Dulaney Valley Road. The site was previously used for a powder magazine built by Gen. Nathan Towson prior to the British attack on Baltimore in September 1814, during the War of 1812. Called Epsom Chapel, the structure was built of stones salvaged from the arsenal. Led by Methodist Episcopal minister Daniel Helpler, Epsom Chapel was dedicated and opened for Towsontown's first public church service on Sunday, November 10, 1839. In line with Methodist practice of the time in rural areas, circuit rider ministers would travel on horseback to preach to the villagers at Epsom Chapel. With the designation of Towson as the county seat in 1854, the town began to grow more rapidly. The small chapel was shared with other denominations until the 1870s, when Towson's increasing population spurred the construction of larger churches.
Division and separate churches; 1860s–1950s
The Methodist movement was growing rapidly in pre-Civil War America, but was beset by disputes about slave-holding and the rule over the church by bishops, resulting in a formal split into two groups in 1844. The faction in favor of giving church authority to a hierarchy of bishops called themselves the Methodist Episcopal Church and took an anti-slavery stance in the north. Those in opposition formed the Methodist Protestant Church in the United States. As the impending Civil War loomed over the nation in the 1850s, local Towson Methodists continued to worship together at Epsom Chapel.
This ended in 1861, when a reed organ was purchased for Epsom Chapel, sparking a disagreement over the use of musical instruments in worship. A minority opposed to the idea joined the southern-leaning Methodist Protestant Church, withdrawing from Epsom Chapel to worship at Towson's Odd Fellows Hall during the Civil War. In 1867, the Methodist Protestants returned to Epsom Chapel, but met separately on Sunday afternoons.
Towson Methodist Episcopal Church (First Methodist Church) The northern-leaning Methodist Episcopal congregation, which continued worshiping at Epsom Chapel during the Civil War, began building their own church nearby, with the laying of a cornerstone on August 14, 1869. The Towson Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church, a neo-Gothic brick structure, was located on York Road next to the present Prospect Hill Cemetery, one block north of the intersection with Joppa and Dulaney Valley Roads. Designed by Edmund George Lind and built at a cost of $29,000, the 350-seat church was completed and dedicated on October 26, 1871.
The ME Church's eighty-seven members soon found themselves in financial difficulties, however, having gone heavily in debt to build their new sanctuary. The chairman of the church's building committee had advanced his personal funds to complete the construction, thereafter becoming embroiled in years of litigation with the church. By 1874, the church was drawing larger crowds under then-pastor Joseph Stitt, who was described as an "excellent leader of singing". An afternoon Sunday school session was particularly popular, "principally devoted to learning new hymns, which attracted many of the young people of the town, especially the young men", noted one account. When the ME church held its twenty-fifth anniversary celebration in 1896, it opened with prayer and a piano concert, "favored with a beautiful selection sung by Mrs. Randolph Murphy", said a contemporary report.
Although the two Methodist congregations had remained estranged since the split in 1861, both groups did come together in 1895 for a "Great Revival" in Towson. The joint services were attended by throngs and the "preaching was with power", newspapers commented. At the beginning of the 20th century, the increasingly large and prosperous congregation added eleven stained glass windows to the ME church, including Christ the Good Shepherd by Heinrich Hofmann. In 1921, a new pipe organ was installed by M. P. Möller.
Towson Methodist Protestant Church (Second Methodist Church)
The Methodist Protestant group continued to use Epsom Chapel until 1908, when they built a $6,000 church seating 150 persons at the corner of Allegheny and Bosley Avenues. Located in the heart of Towson near the County Circuit Courthouse, the Towson Methodist Protestant Church was constructed of stone with a slate roof and a bell tower.
With the merger in 1939 of the Methodist Episcopal (ME) and Methodist Protestant (MP) denominations in the US, Towson's Methodist Episcopal and Methodist Protestant churches were known thereafter as First Methodist Church and Second Methodist Church, respectively.
The reunited church; 1950s–present Following the reunification of the two branches of Methodism in 1939, First Methodist Church and Second Methodist Church of Towson continued as separate entities for another thirteen years. After the end of World War II in 1945, mainline Protestant church attendance increased significantly in the US. By early 1952, faced with facilities fast becoming inadequate for the burgeoning population of suburbia in the postwar period and with a boom in modern commercial development of Towson's core area starting to displace older buildings, the two churches formed a joint committee to evaluate a merger. The committee recommended that the two churches become one, concluding:
In April 1952, more than ninety years after the two churches split, the congregations of both finally voted to reunite, merging on and adopting the name Towson Methodist Church. The members of both Methodist churches then began worshiping together at the First Methodist Church.High Spire, Towson United Methodist Church, January, 2008. Plans to construct a much larger building with ample parking were announced when the two churches merged and of undeveloped land, originally part of the Ridgelys' Hampton estate and north of the planned alignment of the Baltimore Beltway (I-695), were purchased soon thereafter from Goucher College. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on October 7, 1956, and construction of the new church was completed by the John K. Ruff Company in May 1958, with a service of dedication held on May 11, 1958. A crowd of 1,250 attended the ceremonies in the new sanctuary, with an overflow of 550 persons watching by closed-circuit television in the lower level Fellowship Hall.
The old First ME Church structure adjacent to Prospect Hill Park Cemetery on McCurdy Avenue (now Investment Place) and York Road was abandoned and eventually demolished in 1965. An illuminated display of the stained glass windows of the former church is located in the foyer of the current building. The Second ME Church structure was sold in 1954 to the Women's Club of Towson and still stands today—in 2005, the building was resold to an office development firm and is now used by an insurance agency. The erstwhile Epsom Chapel eventually became a meeting hall for boy scout troops in the 1920s–1930s. It was subsequently abandoned and finally demolished in 1952 to make way for construction of a parking lot for the old Hutzler's department store, near the present Macy's department store and Towson Town Center mall. No trace of Epsom Chapel exists today, except for an historical marker placed near the site by the Baltimore County Historical Society, designating it as the "cradle of Methodism in Towson".
The current name, Towson United Methodist Church, was adopted in 1968 to reflect the merger in that year of the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren denominations in the US. On Pentecost Sunday, May 11, 2008, the fiftieth anniversary of the present sanctuary's completion was celebrated by a reenactment of the original May 11, 1958, dedication service.
Current building and facilities
Towson United Methodist Church is an L-shaped structure, with the main sanctuary on a north–south axis. Designed by architect J. Alfred Hamme and completed in 1958, the church is built of red brick in the Georgian architectural style, with a prominent, floodlighted spire surmounted by a porcelain enamel gold cross visible at 3–5 mi (5–8 km) distance on the Beltway. The imposing front facade is of cut stone from Pennsylvania, with the high main entranceway capped by a curved stone pediment. Inside, the sanctuary has three aisles with a rear balcony and can accommodate up to one thousand persons. Rows of Corinthian columns standing on bases flank the pews along both side aisles. The pulpit and doors are made of mahogany.
The 3-story east–west wing has classrooms, offices, a chapel, and the John D. Hoffman library featuring an exhibit of memorabilia and historical artifacts along with archival records. Construction of the church cost $950,000 in 1958 (equivalent to almost $9 million in 2021), not including the expense of land acquisition.
Organ and carillon