Milford Methodist: Oldest Church in the Northwest Territory

The congregation that became Milford Methodist Church held its first meeting in seventeen ninety-seven, inside a log cabin belonging to the Reverend Francis McCormick. That makes it the oldest Methodist congregation in the old Northwest Territory, the vast region that became Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In those early years there were no church buildings and no settled ministers.

Circuit riders on horseback moved from settlement to settlement, and pioneer worshipers walked miles through dense forest to gather for services. Methodism spread rapidly across the early American frontier precisely because of that circuit model, sending preachers into territory before towns even had names. The congregation in Milford has endured through two centuries of growth and change along the Little Miami River, outlasting most of the world it was born into.