Past: Old McKendree and 200 years of Methodism in Cape Girardeau County

Speaker: Mary Harriet Talbut, Center for Scholarship in Teaching and Learning

Title: Old McKendree and 200 years of Methodism in Cape Girardeau County

Blurb: Old McKendree Chapel, located on the outskirts of Jackson, Missouri, is celebrating its 200th birthday this fall. Mary Harriet Talbut, President of the McKendree Chapel Memorial Association, will present the history of the Chapel from its construction in 1819 to the present. In the past two hundred years the Chapel, named after William McKendree -- the first native-born bishop of the Methodist Church in America -- witnessed a congregational split over slavery, numerous camp meetings spreading Methodism throughout the region, and is recognized as the oldest standing Protestant church west of the Mississippi River.