Photography by Cate Short
Monticello Methodist
Jasper | Organized 1895
The land that became Baldwin County was long held by the Creek Indians until a treaty in 1803. In 1807, the land was further divided and Jasper County, first called Randolph, was formed. The earliest settlers were subsistence farmers growing corn and raising livestock, but everything changed with the Land Lotteries. Cotton flourished in the sandy loam soil, and planters from the Carolinas established large plantations worked by enslaved laborers. As the county grew, a small town began to form on a flat hilltop near a deep spring. Named Monticello, after President Jefferson’s Virginia estate, it was platted in 1807 and made the county seat in 1808.
+ Continue readingCotton warehouses, stores, and mills followed, and in 1809 a lot was sold for $5 to the Methodist congregation. Burials in the graveyard date to 1815, but the congregation met in homes until 1828, when a frame structure seating 150 was built. That building was destroyed by a tornado in the 1890s.
In 1895, a Carpenter Gothic sanctuary rose on the site for $3,500, complete with arched windows, a belltower, turret, and stained glass. Its ornate details reflected the prosperity brought by the railroads in the 1880s, which opened new markets and spurred a cotton boom. Prosperity lasted until the 1920s when boll weevils devastated crops.
A Sunday School wing was added in 1927, and in 1935 the church received memorial windows, a chandelier, chimes, and a pipe organ. The building remained in use until 1955, when the congregation built a new sanctuary. Portions of its stained glass were moved there, and in 1960 the old church was sold for use as a funeral home. Later it housed a non-denominational church and the county library, before sitting vacant in the early 2000s. In 2020, it was named a Place in Peril by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation. Thankfully, a private buyer purchased it in 2021, offering hope for its future.
The adjoining cemetery, still maintained by the Methodist Church, holds more than 170 burials, including Revolutionary War soldier Thomas Grant, and General William Lee, a hero of the War of 1812.