CHERRY VALLEY CHURCH

This morning we look back briefly to the beginnings of church activity leading up to the building of the Cherry Valley Church prior to the beginning of the 19th century.

The origin of the Bible Christian Church came to fruition through the efforts of Rev. Francis Metherall and records start as far back as 1848. Mr. Metherall first settled in the Vernon River Valley with his wife and family. His first wife passed away and he later married Mary Nelson, a resident of Cherry Valley.

The first church built in Cherry Valley was a Bible Christian Church and was situated on Irving property on the Loyalist Line Road or as the locals called it, the Back Road. This building was erected around 1864—65 and according to the 1880 Atlas, it was still there although no deed was found for this piece of land on which it stood.

In 1884, the Bible Christians and the Wesleyans united to form the Methodist Church of Canada and it was then that the Cherry Valley charge was added to the Pownal Circuit. In a Vmsleyan Methodis: report of 1864—65, there is no mention of the Church in Cherry Valley, so it is assumed that it continued to be Bible Christian until the union of 1884.

A free gift of a church site was donated just above the intersection of the three roads leading in to China Point and Earnscliffe and the former church was sold and moved into Cherry

Valley where is served as a community centre for some years. Some