Harmony:  Church History
The East Somerset County Register
1911-12
Compiled and Published by Chatto & Turner
Auburn, Maine
Clarence I. Chatto; Clair E. Turner
page 115-116  

CHURCH HISTORY.

The Methodist Society is the oldest religious organization
in the town being organized in 1826. The first church in town
was the church built at Mainstream in 1842 by Elder Hiram
Chase, a preacher of that denomination. The church at Har-
mony is a union church and was built at a much later date.
An idea of the original membership of the church may be ob-
tained from the following petition presented to the town clerk
for the withdrawal of the ministerial fund and dated Harmony,
Apr. 29, 1826:

"To James Leighton, Esq., Town Clerk. This is to inform
you that the undersigned have put names down for the purpose
of the society called Methodists, drawing their part of the min-
isterial money according to law as follows: David Snell,
Ezekiel Farrar, Nathaniel Dore, Thomas Farrar, Silas Emery,
Samuel Brooks, Rufus Dyer, Lemuel Baker, Shedrach Shell,
Daniel Dealing, David Avery, William Brown, Samuel Spurr,
Stephen Grant, Lemuel M. Gray, Amos Brown, Peltiah Brown,
Joseph Gray, Benjamin Merrill, Joseph Magoon, John Merrill,
Isaiah Doore, Simeon Otis."

The list of pastors for 1839 is as follows:  Jesse Harri-
man, 1839-40; Jeremiah Marsh, 1843-44; Peter Burgess, 1846-
47; Wm. J. Wilson, 1847-48; Hiram Chase, 1848-49; Alfred S.
Adams, 1852-53; James Hartford, 1855-56; Wm. B. Fenalson,
1856-58; Jas. Hutchinson, 1858-69; John C. Prescott, 1859-
61; Seldon Wentworth, 1866-68; Nelson Whitney, 1868-69;
Elisha Skinner, 1872-74; Josiah Bean, 1874-76; James S. Allen,
1878-79; Nelson Pearson, 1888-90; Ulysses G. Lyons, 1890-93;
Melvin Preble, 1897-1900; James E. Lombard, 1900-04; Leonard 
G. March, 1905-08; Ina L. Morgan, 1908-09; Howard A. Corey,
1909-10; J. F. Thurston, 1911.  The oldest living member of 
the church is Mrs. Sarah Farrar.

The Free Baptist Church is of much later origin, but has
been of vital force in the community.  It was organized over 
about fifty years and has held meetings in the union church as 
the village on alternate Sundays with the Methodist society.
Much of the best history of the church lies in the twenty-one
years of successful work of Virgil D. Sweetland as pastor.  
Other pastors have been Messrs. Vaughan, Mitchell, Ham and 
Johnson.


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