Andrews Chapel United Methodist Church sits in the rural community of Roscoe in Coweta County. Organized in 1840, the first church was a one-room building just south of the present site. The current structure, built in 1912, is the second to serve the congregation. The church was named for Bishop James O. Andrew, whose parents lived nearby.

Bishop Andrew, a significant figure in Methodist history, was elected to the role in 1832 and later moved from Augusta to Newton County to be near Emory College at Oxford, where he became the first chairman of its Board of Trustees. Though Andrew never bought or sold a slave, he inherited a twelve-year-old girl named Kitty through the will of Mrs. Powers of Augusta. The will stipulated that Kitty would be freed at nineteen and offered the choice of relocating to a freed-slave colony in Liberia. When the time came, Kitty chose to remain with the Andrews. However, Georgia law required freed slaves to leave the state, so Andrew built her a cabin near his home, allowing her to come and go freely.

In 1844, Andrew traveled to New York for the Methodist Episcopal Church’s general conference, unaware that his guardianship of Kitty would ignite a controversy that split the church for nearly a century. Slavery was becoming a deeply divisive issue, and some northern delegates argued that a bishop “connected with slavery” was unacceptable. Andrew’s defenders described him as an “unwilling” slave owner, but tensions ran high. Ultimately, 136 delegates voted for a plan of separation, and only fifteen opposed it. This led to the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, North—two branches that would not reunite until 1939. Kitty’s cottage now stands on the grounds of Emory College at Oxford.

Today, Andrews Chapel remains an active congregation, with a beautifully handcrafted interior and a historic cemetery. Among its interments are Confederate and World War I veterans, as well as early settlers of Coweta County. A 2000 survey found an additional 130 unmarked graves, half belonging to children. Notable among the marked burials is Arthur Hutcheson (1818–1895), who rests beneath one of the most unique headstones in Georgia.