Smithfield

Reverend Dennis Battee and a Mr. Stevenson organized the Society in 1819 at the home of Dr. Sackett. James Smith, a member, had applied to the preacher on the Redstone Circuit to organize a Church and having secured a sufficient number the Society was organized. The original members were James, Candacy, Rachel, Mary, Martha, Freeman, Stephen and Hannah Smith, Benoni and Mary Freeman, Lydia Dunham, Dr. Samuel and Eva Sackett, Rebecca Cooley, Nancy Griffin, and Gen. Alexander McClellen. For several years meetings were held in members’ homes, especially Dr. Sackett and James McCormick's. In 1833 a Camp Meeting was held on Gen. McClellen's farm; the Sabbath meeting had over 3,000 in attendance. Reverend Thomas M. Hudson and Reverend Thornton Fleming were two of the preachers. In 1834, the Trustees purchased a Church site from Thomas Gaddis and shortly thereafter, erected a frame meeting house, which was used until 1891 when a brick building was built, and which was greatly enlarged and remodeled in 1915. Always on a Circuit, the 1968 Charge was made up of Smithfield, Fairchance and Hutchinson Churches. Membership in 1968 was 204. In 2001 the charge was composed of Fairchance and Smithfield. The membership on January 1, 2003, was 195. In 2018, Smithfield UMC became one of 14 churches in a newly formed cooperative ministry called South Fayette Cooperative Parish, serving communities in southern Fayette County.