Heath — Heath Methodist Episcopal Church
Extracted from "History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, Volume II," by Louis H. Everts, 1879.
The Heath Methodist Episcopal Church was formally organized by the Rev. Moses Spencer, at that time serving Rowe and Heath Circuit, April 14, 1859. Samuel Brown was the leader of the class. The stewards were George R. Brown, Horace Temple, William Darling, E. E. Warfield, George Temple, William Kendrick, Joel Rugg, Joseph Robbins, and Noble Fisk. The members numbered 40.
The first and present meeting-house was erected in 1873-74 by a building committee composed of John Burrington, Henry D. Gould, and L. D. Wetmore, and was consecrated July 23, 1874, by the Revs. R. R. Meredith, L. R. Thayer, L. P. Frost, and others. It is a very neat frame of shapely proportions, and cost $4500. The lot on which it stands, at the hamlet, was given for this purpose by the Rev. Ephraim Scott. A parsonage in the hamlet was purchased about 1860. These temporalities are in charge of a board of trustees, at present composed of John Barrington, Jonathan Peterson, Henry D. Gould, Amos Temple, Abraham Tanner, L. D. Wetmore, Horace Burrington, William Burrington, and Frederick Tanner.
The church had, in 1878, nearly 60 members, under the pastoral care of the Rev. L. P. Frost, and maintained a Sunday-school of 100 members, of which Amos Temple was superintendent.
The preachers on the Heath and Rowe Circuit, from its formation to the present, were as follows: 1839-60, Moses Spencer; 1860-61, G. R. Bent; 1861-64, Lorenzo White; 1864-66, Randall Mitchell; 1866-67, E. J. Stevens; 1867-68, N. J. Merrill; 1868-69, John H, Lord; 1869-71, William H. Adams; 1871-73, Alfred Noon; 1873-74, A. M. Osgood; 1874-75, W. E. Dwight; 1875-76, W. E. Knox 1876-77, Burtis Judd; 1877, L. P. Frost.
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