LEHMAN MEMORIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH FOUNDED 1835

How do romance, tragedy and great generosity figure in the founding of Lehman Church? Why did two Philadelphians, an Episcopalian pharmacist and his Quaker wife, decide to build a Methodist Church in Hatboro? The story of Joseph and Deborah Lehman’s philanthropy that is part of our heritage is one of heart-warming Christian ecumenism more than one hundred fifty years ago.

The story begins on September 5,1824, when Mrs. Hannah Yerkes, a capable and forceful Baptist, formed a Union Sunday School to “counteract the gross and flagrant evils of the place.” She enlisted the support of prominent local citizens, canvassed every family, and began the school with one hundred students in Loller Academy. (This building, established in 1811, is now the borough hail.)

In the spring of 1834, two brothers, Peter and Henry Eisenbray, moved to a farm in Horsbam from Lumberville where they had been converted to Methodism at evangelistic meetings the previous year. They became active in the Union Sunday School, but soon organized the Methodists into a Class Meeting which withdrew from the Union Sunday School and began their own Sunday School and preaching services in a “little red [octagonal] schoolhouse” at the corner of York and Monument Avenues. (This was the original site of Crooked Billet monument)

By the next spring, Hatboro was made part of the Bustleton Circuit, along with Somerton and Holmes, and so April 13, 1835, is considered the founding date of the church. That summer an active Hatborough Methodist, Mrs. Wilson, attended camp meeting in Frankford, taking with her three young unmarried Bean sisters from the congregation. It was Mrs. Wilson’s custom “at meal time to go around the grounds and invite any [unmarried] ministers without entertainment to her tent for dinner.” One of these ministers was Rev. Sisty of Bustleton Circuit, and another was Rev. Goentner, who often came to dinner with his widowed mother, Maria. (Each of them would eventually marry one of the Bean sisters.) Thus Rev. Goentner would have learned the story of the small society of Methodists meeting in the Hatborough Schoolhouse, and the pastor's struggles, hopes and dreams for the little church.

Then Rev. Goentner was appointed pastor of a church in Hamilton Village, Philadelphia (West Philadelphia/University City area), and he and his mother established a close friendship with their neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Lehman. When the Lehmans lost their only son by drowning in the Wissahicken Creek at age 15, Deborah Lehman was comforted in her mourning by her dear afriend, Maria Goentner. And when Deborah confided that she intended to erect a large monument in her son’s memory, Maria suggested that an even more fitting and continuing memorial would be to erect a new church to memorialize her lost son. And, coincidentally, she just happened to know of a place, a minister, and a denomination that desperately needed a church building. So it was that Dr. Joseph Lehman paid $300 to Robert Radcliffe, the Crooked Billet innkeeper, for one and a half acres of land and erected a plain stone chapel on it at an additional cost of $2700. Lehman’s Chapel was underway.

The congregation was struggling, but the Lehmans were building a building, so the bishop, who had to do something with the congregation, appointed their dear friend and neighbor, Rev. Goentner, as the first full-lime pastor. (And if he was reluctant to accept the appointment because of the challenge it presented, at least Sarah Beans was nearby!) At the end of first year of Rev. Goentner’s pastorate, the church’s membership had increased by eleven fold, from 5 to 55.

Lehman Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church was the first church built in Hatboro. A parsonage was built next to the church in 1843, paid for by Lehmans (who also invested $2250 in the church’s name with the resulting income to be used by the pastor for “wearing apparel”); the parsonage demolished in 1981. In 1879, the church was rebuilt with Gothic architecture and a steeple. More additions were added through the years, including the present red brick portion in 1953.

In December, 1971, a fire destroyed the newest portion of church, which had been built in 1967; it was rebuilt with only minor changes. (For example, the sound booth replaced a stained glass window in the rear of the nave.)

The Lehmans are buried under a flat rock in front of the church, and a marker is located there. Apparently at one time there was a cemetery adjacent to the church, where Lehman Ave. is now. When the roadbed was dug, some bodies were removed and reburied; some tombstones were also removed when the church was enlarged. A list of names of persons once buried on church grounds is located in the library.