It is also possible to establish the early date for the settlement of Perryville in the tradition and history of the Methodist church. W.O. McIntyre writes that Rev. Francis Clark and John Durham, two devout adherents of Methodism, emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky in 1783 and located at Perryville.

Rev. Francis Clark was known as a local Methodist preacher, as the church at that time had not been officially established in America. The first Methodist revival in America was at Devereux Parish in Virginia in 1772¹. Before 1784 there were no Methodist church in America. Groups meeting together to worship were called Societies until the Christmas Conference in Dec. 24, 1784, when it was decided to organize into bodies called Churches.

The first Society west of the Allegheny Mountains was supposed to have been in the home of Mr. John Durham, which was located six miles west of Danville, Kentucky in Lincoln (now Boyle) County. Francis Clark was the first preacher there. After meeting in Durham's humble cabin for several years, the people erected a log meeting house, which later gave way to a more pretentious building known as Durham's chapel (c.1803). Later it was painted white and was known as “White Chapel.”²

It is agreed by many historians that the above Society was formed around 1783. Both Durham and Clark came here from the state of Virginia between 1781 and 1783. It is a self-evident fact that there was a settlement at Perryville before these two religious pioneers came seeking the “Lost Sheep of Israel” as recorded by the Rev. William Burke in his history of Methodist progress in the Pioneer Kentucky.

The Rev. Francis Clark was the first Methodist preacher to brave the wilderness of Kentucky, and the Perryville Methodist Church represents the first Methodist congregation founded in Kentucky.

John Durham, ancestor of the prominent Boyle County Durham family, provided Durham's Chapel, which stood on the farm of the Stigall Brothers near the Perryville Pike. It was located on the high point immediately west of the Pearce-Rankin farm and almost opposite the Stigall home. A great revival was held at Perryville and a Church was established there. Later Durham's Chapel took over the Perryville Church and the congregation moved to that place from the Stigall farm. Thus it is readily seen that the Methodist Church at Perryville represents the first Methodist Church founded west of the Allegheny Mountains as well as the first church of any kind founded in Perryville.

From this information McIntyre concluded that Perryville was a settlement by 1783; and was, in fact, founded c1759 by Thomas Walker Jr. on the basis of information received from his father's earlier exploration between 1750-1758. We believe there is enough truth in this evidence to warrant a much more prominent place in the history of Kentucky for our town, Perryville. There is little doubt in our minds that Harrodsburg, Danville, and Boonesborough have been designated pioneer towns at the expense of our local pioneers.

Legally we were still a settlement until an act passed at the first session of the 25^th General Assembly for the Commonwealth of Kentucky on January 17, 1817 establishing Perryville as a town. The act reads as follows:

Whereas it is represented to the present general assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky that on the 19^th day of September, 1815, Edward Bullock and William Hall did by mutual consent and joint agreement, lay off a town on their lands in Mercy County, on Chaplin's fork, immediately at the cross roads, leading from Harrodsburg to Nashville, and from Danville to Louisville, called and known by the name of Perryville, and that the same bids fair to be of public utility, Sec. I.

Be it therefore enacted by the general assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, that the said town containing thirty two acres of sixty four half acre lots with the necessary streets and alleys by established; and that a plan thereof be recorded in the clerk's office in the county court of Mercer;

Along with the establishment of the town went the provision for a meeting house for worship of God. In deed book 11, page 18, of Mercer County, Kentucky, are records that in 1818 Edward Bullock gave one lot in the town of Perryville to be used by any religious group who may have an itinerant preacher passing through. The lot was situated on the “West side of West Street, on the South side of South Alley between West Street and the graveyard, extending from South Alley south 56 feet and from West Street West 30 feet with it.”

A red brick building was erected on this location, and stood until 1903 when it was torn down and the land was used for burial lots. Even now the dimensions of the old building can be discerned by noting the difference in the ages of the tombstones—the newer ones being located on what was the foundation of the church. The largest stone of them all marks the spot where the pulpit stood as well as where its last preacher is buried. The church itself was an unimposing structure, being only 30 feet wide and sixty feet long with four windows on either side and door at the front and rear. The front of the church faced East and the steeple was a cupola in the center of a gabled roof.

It is not hard to suppose what happened to this early church and why the Christian Church was formed. It was caught up in the great frontier revival of 19^th century America. Barton W. Stone, one of the prominent pioneer founders of the Disciples of Christ, may well have come through here and preached in this meeting house. Stone started preaching as a Presbyterian minister in the Cumberland District of the Presbyterian Church in Tennessee. When he came into Kentucky he paused at Danville and then went on to Lexington from whence he was called to Cane Ridge and ordained on October 4, 1798. It is not too far to stretch credulity in hypothesizing that Stone's influence reached into the settlement of Perryville.